TWP: Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies

Luke's comments about the sequel to Phantom of the Opera:

I saw Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre on July 15, 2011. I wanted to see this musical not only because of my musical theatre interests/background, but also because it is the sequel to one of my favorite musicals, Phantom of the Opera.I arrived at the theatre 5 minutes late due to forgetting which Tube stop to go to, but I only missed the first scene. 

One of the first thing I noticed is that the Adelphi Theatre is much larger than the Garrick Theatre. That's to be expected because the scale as well as the cast of Love Never Dies is much larger than Pygmalion. Also the presence of choreography and large, complex set pieces requires a bigger stage. 

I was impressed with how the cast and crew incorporated aspects of theatre in ways that I haven't seen before. They used the lighting to make a glass door look and behave like a mirror so the Phantom could have a really cool entrance. They also used transparent screens to project images and videos onstage for scene transitions. The cast also incorporated pyrotechnics into their performance. The use of pyrotechnics was very clever for some of the scenes; but for other more dramatic scenes, pyrotechnics are essential in order to achieve the desired effect.

This musical takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride. It tells a dark story of revenge and desperation while taking you inside the disturbing mind of a physically deformed composer.

I highly recommend this musical to anyone who wants to know what happens next in the Phantom of the Opera. This musical has made my top five list of musicals. Love Never Dies will make you laugh and cry, but it will leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

TWP: Phantom of the Opera

As a group, we went to see Phantom of the Opera. The next few blog posts will be about the students' opinion of the experience. First off, we have Laura's posting:

We went to see the Phantom of the Opera, and, like a 6th grader would say, OMG!

The flow of this play was like nothing I had ever seen before in my life. It was one smooth and quick transition after the other. Costumes, makeup, the scenario, everything fit together and was obviously planned and rehearsed down to the last detail. The performers were amazing, with their acting as well as with their singing. The sound was so good that at times I felt I had the phantom whispering behind me and It gave me the chills.

What I loved the most was the wide range of scenarios displayed. Since it was a play about a theater, the actors were themselves actors in plays inside the play, and those plays went from an Egyptian-styled opera to a masquerade, so I felt I got like 5 plays for the price of one. Great!

It was mind-blowing to sit there and try to figure out how they managed to put all that together. I mean this play had theater balconies, beds, whole rooms, stairs, chandeliers, smoke, clouds, thunder... you name it, and I couldn't even tell when they got stuff in and out. A project of this scale requires some serious management skills, to have to put all components together, plan for the unexpected, and have it come out so perfectly is an amazing feat. Hat's off to the project manager.

Although I can't imagine how in the world I would pull something like this off, I hope I learn enough in college so that one day I can.

Till then, the show must go on

To hear some of the music from the show, go to the Monkey Music Box.