Andrew Lloyd Webber premiers Phantom of the Opera 2

[EricMontreal22]

OK since we have no theatre section on here...

First off, I love musical theatre prob as much as I love soap opera--if not more. But I'm pretty picky, I admit. Stephen Sondheim is a god of mine, so are Bob Fosse and Michael Bennett and modern more avant garde composers like Michael John LaChiusa, Ahrens and Flaherty, etc. Andrew Lloyd Webber has become increasingly one of the laziest major composers out there--but I admit a lot of his shows are guilty pelasures of mine, and when I saw Phantom for the first time back when I was 8 I was obssessed--until I discovered Into the Woods, Company and Sweeney Todd and realized how much more complex and moving musical theatre could be.

No matter, I still have a lot of affection for the overblown piece. But a sequel always seemed such an awful idea--even though Webber has been talking about it for a decade. The piece never makes you wondr what's coming next, the character sin Phantoma re so vague there' sno where to go with them--there's NO point except money.

But ALW has a whole team signed on to do Phantom 2, including Sarah Brightman back on board, for a 2009 opening. As he usually does he just premiered a workshop of Act 1 to his guests at his Sydmonton country estate. You have got to hear how increidbly bizarre the plot is--sex robots? Amusement parks? Freak shows? I admit a part of me wants to see this much more now just cuz it sounds like it will be so over the top bizarre

(to be fair musical theatre sequels have always been disastrous and bizarre bombs--we got a Bye Bye Birdie sequel called Bring Back Birdie which involved hippie cults and mass hypnosis, and TWO different attempts at Annie sequels, the main one Miss Hannigan's Revenge involving Hannigan getting plastic surgery to become Annie's adopted mother... Musical theatre on Broadway is SUCH an expensive investment I never get how these get greenlit)

And the title sounds like a bad direct to video Disney title!

The Playbill article reveals the synopsis of Phantom: Once Upon Another Time:

Quote from: The New York Post

The Phantom, having fled Paris, is running a freak show. At night, he crawls into his lair and makes love to an automaton that looks like Christine. Christine, meanwhile, has become a famous opera singer. But she's fallen on hard times because her husband, Raoul, has squandered their fortune. So she's accepted a high-paying gig from a mysterious impresario to open a new amusement park. On her first night in New York, she draws back the curtain in her hotel suite and comes face to face with her new employer — flash of lightning, crash of chords — the Phantom! Christine has a child, Gustave, but is his father Raoul or the Phantom?

I already see the role of a Christine like sex automaton being a stunnign dual role for Miss Brightman

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/119528.html

[Sylph]

So who's doing the orchestrations/arrangements?

[EricMontreal22]

Prob David Cullen who always does them for Andy--with Andy gettign a "Co" credit even though apparantly he does very little