A blossoming friendship with a special Cincinnati cat has added a new dimension to Brad Little's portrayal of the Phantom in "The Phantom of the Opera."

Little, who is starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's sensation at the Aronoff Center for the Arts by night, has spent several days the Cincinnati Zoo, where he has befriended Maya, the zoo's female cheetah.

Maya's beauty and power have affected Little so much that he has incorporated some of her qualities into the persona of the anguished and lovelorn Phantom.

"We hit it off," Little said. "She tends to take to me. She has brought something to my life that I will never, ever forget."

"What's amazing is how much I have brought Maya into the Phantom, just by watching her. I see her do something, and I say, That is gorgeous," and I find myself bringing that onto the stage. It's a power she has. And what the Phantom is wanting is power."

Little has told Cathryn Hilker, head of the zoo's Cat Ambassador Program, that he will do whatever he can to help Maya, who has been "under the weather," possibly because of the cold temperatures. But Little, a lyric baritone, has stopped short of signing to the big cat.

"I'm too shy to do it when other people are around," he confessed.

While Maya has added an element of power and mystery to Little's Phantom, the singers own experience with dyslexia has helped him express the Phantom's suffering. (The Phantom, in Lloyd Webber's version of the story is a gifted composer who has suffered from a lifetime of ostracism because of facial deformities.)

"I used a lot of that experience with dyslexia when I was working with the Phantom," he said. "As a child I learned something of the pain of being beaten up and being outcast."

"I know the pain of what it can be like to be alone. There were kids who were very rude and mean - you know how kids can be - and for the longest time I thought I was mentally handicapped."

"When I started schooling I realized I was having trouble reading. We went through all the reading courses, and I thought for many years that I was mentally handicapped. I thought I was stupid. Later, I came to realize that I wasn't. But I still have problems with it."

Even today, Little avoids reading books. He says he leaves the family's "book smarts" to his wife, Barbara Mcculloh, an actress and Phi Beta Kappa who is appearing in the Broadway production of "The King and I."

Dyslexia propelled Little towards music. He was never able to read music proficiently, but he flourished as a singer because of his ear, voice and memory.

"My ear is one of my greatest talents," he said. "I will have someone teach me music by playing a song three time, and I'll have it down. I don't really read the music. I can see it a third or a half step; I can see it and I'll know it if I hear it. But my eye-to-brain reaction isn't fast enough for me to actually read at the speed it has to be read. I could never play the piano for that reason. It just won't compute."

No one who has seen Little on stage would ever guess at his struggles. He is a consummate performer who never allows less-than-an-all-out performance. Since the Cincinnati run of "Phantom of the Opera" began on Dec. 4, he has given eight performances a week. The performances are so physically demanding, he said, that when he comes off stage he can barley move.

Little admits that his voice often gets tired.

"There are times when I go on stage when it is very tired, and I am amazed that it can kick in. I'll be impressed that I could actually get through that one, because I could barley talk during the day."

Little, under contract to play the Phantom through next fall, can't say how long he will remain in the role. "Your body tells you that," he said. "It's similar to an athlete....If I chose, I could almost make a full-life career out of doing the Phantom. But I'm sure there will come a day when I'll have to call it quits. Then I would go audition and be unemployed until I found another job."

Perhaps, with a little inspiration from Maya, Little will want to try another of Lloyd Webber's musical blockbusters. "Cats."

Like the title character he plays in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," Brad
Little has faced a few of his own personal demons since he donned the Phantom's mask. This is
not the case of an actor getting so deep into a character's life and the "Music of the Night" that he
can't live his own. But Little, who arrives in the national tour that opens Wednesday night at the
Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, said he understands what it is like to be ridiculed by the rest
of society.

The phantom was born with a hideous face that forced him to wear a white mask and live in the
catacombs of the Paris Opera house. Little has spent his life struggling with dyslexia.

The actor said he "didn't come out" about his reading and learning disability until he got the
phantom's role last year. "Now I talk to schools.  People didn't understand why this person who
seems pretty normal can't read, or the pain of having somebody come up and say, 'Will you read
this?' As opposed to saying that I am dyslexic and can't do it, I'd attempt to do it and would get
ridiculed, " he said.

Little said he's a quick learner. "My whole life has been based on memorizing. Dyslexia is simply a
page-to-eye-to-brain communication problem. The brain works perfectly well. It's just some
communication from the eye to the brain that gets scrambled. Once I get it in there, even if I have
to hear it or have it read to me, I'm pretty quick at memorizing it."

While the Phantom turns to Christine Daae, a young opera singer who becomes his "angel of
music," Little relies on his wife, Barbara McCulloh, "my angel of books," to help him learn his
roles.

His year of touring in "Phantom" has made it difficult to spend much time with McCulloh, an
actress. "it has been an amazing - probably the most amazing - year that I have ever had," he said
in a telephone interview from Columbus, Ohio. "The hardest part was spending so much time
away from Barbara."

"That's going to make thing's more difficult because we'll both be on the road, but that's also
keeping me on the road. If she were at home in New York, I'd probably be calling it quits and
heading home."

{This is not} Little's first association with the Lloyd Webber's musical, which returns Wednesday
for it's second extended engagement in the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (it runs for six
weeks through Nov. 2). On Broadway, he played Raoul, the phantom's rival for the affection of
Christine.

The touring production is designed to match the look of the Broadway version, with candelabras
rising out of the billowing fog of the Phantom's lair and a chandelier crashing on stage.

Little admits the role of the Phantom may be more demanding vocally and physically, but playing
Raoul is a greater acting challenge.

"There's not as much written about Raoul as a character. The challenge there was to make him an
interesting character, because he's just not written that way. in the script ." Little says.

That's not a problem when playing the masked phantom, who haunts the catacombs of the Paris
Opera House and terrorizes the staff to ensure that Christine, his "angel of music," has a chance
to become the star he wants her to be.

"The phantom is just a brilliantly written part, which is easier on the actor. We don't have to do
as much to make his character as brilliant as it is," he said.

In the tour, he shares the stage with Kimilee Bryant as Christine and Jason Pebworth as Raoul.
Bryant starred as Christine in the Swiss premiere of "Phantom" and also played the role on
Broadway. Pebworth has performed in regional productions of "Evita," "South Pacific" and
numerous other musicals.

While the role has become simpler after a year of performance, Little said it is still hard work to
put himself in the Phantom's life. "I couldn't even fathom what he would be feeling, the emotion
of living in a dungeon his whole life, never knowing society as we know it, only as we show it in
operas. He see life from the audience. If I'm really making the character real, what goes through a
person mind with only that as their window to the world."

Before joining Lloyd Webber's musical, Little also played the title character in "Phantom,"
another musical version of the Gaston Leroux novel by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.

"The musicals are so different, but in a way, I think playing the other phantom helped me with
this phantom. It gave me a solid base that I could go with. It was an extension if the story."

Even after all this time in the show, Little said he has trouble explaining the musical's popularity.

  Saddled with learning disabilities, actor Brad Little grew up a loner. Now, 30 years later, he can
                      identify with his character in 'Phantom of the Opera.'
 
 

Social outcast. It's a role Brad Little plays with relish as the star of "Phantom of the Opera." It's
a role Little would have loved to relinquished in real life.

As the masked miscreant lurking in the catacombs of the Paris Opera House in Andrew Lloyd
Webber's acclaimed musical, now playing at the Fox Theatre, Little unleashes a spectacular reign
of  terror on stage. But as a boy growing up in Redlands, Calif., Little was terrorized himself by
his peers.

"I was beaten up every day after school...I was a loner, or at best a follower.  I didn't have many
friends, " says Little.
Unlike the phantom, whose hideous facial deformities make him a freak, Little was ostracized
because of an invisible demon -dyslexia. The learning disability made it impossible for Little to
master the world of the printed word, no matter how hard he tried.

"In the second grade, I couldn't distinguish 'house' from 'horse.' I confused 'th.' with 'wh.' I
stumbled over any word that had five letters or more.  I was a failure when it came to 'Run, Spot,
run,' "Little says.

And in those days -Little is in his 30's- neither the teachers at Mariposa Elementary School in
Redlands  nor Little's parents knew how to help a child struggling to learn to read.
"No one -not even my father, who was a college professor -could diagnose the problem.  By the
time I was in sixth grade, I was only reading at a second-grade level, though my math skills were
at a 12th-grade level,"  says Little.

Unfortunately, it wasn't just Little's literary background that suffered.  Like many kids living with
untreated learning problems, Little's dyslexia led to emotional problems such as low self esteem.
"I was so frustrated, so angry. Tears would fly down my face during tutoring sessions.  I thought I
was just stupid" says Little. "I had a neighbor, a  boy my age named Mark, who was severely
retarded.  He drooled.  My mother used to tell me that 'Mark was special.' So when I wound up in
a special education program myself, I was completely confused.  I didn't have Mark's strange
behaviors or physical characteristics.  I didn't know what was wrong."

And that's why, now that Little is a star - he has appeared in European tours of "Jesus Christ
Superstar" and "West Side Story" as well as Broadway's "Phantom" (he played Raoul), "Cyrano
the Musical," "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Anything Goes" - he makes it a point to take time out
from touring to talk to students with learning disabilities.

In St. Louis, where "Phantom" is playing at The Fox through Sept. 26, Little spent an afternoon
at the Churchill School, a private school in Ladue that serves high-potential kids 8 to 16 years of
age with diagnosed learning disabilities. In between regaling his audience with stories of stage
calamities, like when his phantom cape got caught in an elevator, and his friendship with Maya, a
cheetah he met at the Cincinnati Zoo, Little imparted a life lesson it took him a long time to learn:
You are not alone.

"Do you know what I used to do when we had to read aloud in class?" he confessed to the
students.  "My teacher would ask each pupil to read one paragraph in a story.  I would count the
students ahead of me in my row, figure out which paragraph I was going to have to read, and try
to memorize it do that when it was my turn, no one would laugh at me. Trouble was, the teacher
invariably would tell the girl in front of me , 'Go on, read another paragraph.' Then I was sunk."
His anecdote hit home; waves of laughter rolled across the school's auditorium.

Little says it wasn't until he landed the role of the phantom that he got the nerve to "come out of
the closet" about his dyslexia.

"I suppose I had a natural affinity to the character; I knew what it was like to feel ridiculed," he
says.  "And my wife (actress Barbara McCulloh) encouraged me to speak out.  She told me I had
an opportunity to touch somebody out there with the same problem."

So how did Little go from a pre-teen with terrible self-esteem to a self-assured, highly regarded
stage actor?  When he was in ninth grade, his father accepted a teaching position overseas and
Little's family spent the year in Europe.

"My dad read to me a lot, and I was accepted by the college kids we met.  I learned - and I fit in,"
says Little.  "When I returned to southern California, I was scared to death to go back to my own
school.  So I went to a  high school with a program called 'SWAS' - 'school within a school' - with
a more hands-on approach. They allowed oral instead of written test there. Within a year, I went
from a 1.5 GPA to a 3.6 GPA."

Simple academic success was not Little's only salvation. Finding a label for his problem - his
mother realized he had dyslexia after watching a Phil Donahue television segment about it -
helped.  But discovering and nurturing  his musical talent was key.  As a high school freshman, he
was accepted into the top-echelon choir.  He also began landing the lead roles in school musicals.
"I found my niche.  And suddenly, to my surprise, I was not only accepted by my peers, I was
actually looked up to by them. The word 'special' took on a whole different connotation for me -
now I had a 'special talent,'" He says.

Not that his dyslexia was conquered; far from it. Taking the PSAT's was "an absolutely terrible"
experience, says Little.  "I watched everyone around me frantically  turning through the pages,
and I  just bawled. I couldn't get through it," he says.

So Little eschewed college aspirations and headed first to Los Angeles, where he worked in local
theatre, and then New York, where he quickly landed a job in "They're Playing Our Song."
Nowadays, Little finds ways to compensate for his slow reading.  He has a phenomenal memory
and relies on tape recordings his wife makes to learn his lines in a script.  He also has an uncanny
ability to hear something and sing it right back.

"I don't read music - I can't! I listen to the melody and then study the words instead," he says.
Most of all, Little has found acceptance.  He is finally at peace with who he is - dyslexia and all.
"You know, my wife is a Phi Beta Kappa - book smart. But she's learning disabled when it comes
to anything logical, like electronics. We all have our quirks - mine just happens to be some kind of
page-to-eye-to-brain communication problem," he says.

"when someone ask me how it feels to read backwards now, I'm not ashamed.  I just laugh and
say, 'How should I know? I don't know what it feels like to read forward!'"

Little, who plays the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, which opens in Jacksonville this week, was just breaking into the acting business in 1983 when he was cast in the chorus of Evita at the Darien Dinner Theater in Connecticut.

On opening night, with 32 critics in the house, including one from The New York Times, the actor who played Che had such severe laryngitis he couldn't perform. So Little, who had been given the job as Che's understudy primarily because his beard and long hair looked right for the part, went on stage.

As a result, he got his membership in Actors Equity, the union that represents stage actors. He also got 32 favorable reviews to add to his resume.

It's a resume that includes work on Broadway and in national tours of Cyrano The Musical, Fiddler on the Roof, Anything Goes and, most recently, The Phantom of the Opera.

His first 2 1/2 years in Lloyd Webber's Phantom (there are several other musical versions of Phantom, including one in which Little played the title role at a regional theater in Tennessee), Little worked on Broadway, first as a member of the chorus, then as Raoul.

Two-and-a-half years ago, he moved to the national tour in the role of the Phantom, a horribly disfigured man with a magnificent voice who lives in the catacombs beneath the Paris opera house.

Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera is the most successful stage musical of all time. It has been seen by more than 108 million people in 12 countries and has generated worldwide ticket sales of more than $2.6 billion. When asked for his theory on why the show is so successful, Little said, ''I really, truly don't have an answer.''

Then he proposed one. ''Some people like the romance. Some people like the music. Some people like the technical stuff. . . . The success of this one, the acclaim, I put to [producer] Cameron Mackintosh. This is a brilliantly produced show.''

In fact, he said, while he doesn't consider Phantom to be the best musical ever written - he prefers Fiddler on the Roof and West Side Story - ''it will go down as the most famous Broadway musical ever written and as the best production in Broadway history.''

In fact, the production is so elaborate that Mackintosh's Really Useful Theatre Company paid for $250,000 in improvements to the Times-Union Center for the Performing Arts' Moran Theater so it can accommodate Phantom's first visit to Jacksonville. The show, which has played on Broadway since 1986, is in its fourth year on national tour.

Advance trucks for the show began arriving Wednesday to start the load-in process for the Jacksonville show even as Little and company continued with their appearance in Fort Myers.

He talked by phone last week from his dressing room, where he was in the process of getting made up for the night's performance. Playing the Phantom requires elaborate makeup that takes about 45 minutes to apply before each performance, Little said.

After his Jacksonville appearance, Little will take a three-month leave of absence from the show so he can join his wife, Barbara McCulloh, in New York, where she will play Mrs. Darling in a production of Peter Pan starring Cathy Rigby.

Then he will return to the touring production of Phantom, playing the role Michael Crawford originated in 1986. ''I would love someday to have the kind of opportunity Michael Crawford had, to create a really memorable role in a great musical,'' he said. ''In the meantime, as long as I can make money to pay my bills, I'm happy.''

The Phantom of the Opera, which is being presented by the FCCJ Artist Series, will open at the Times-Union Center Wednesday and continue through March 27. Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday; 8 p.m. each Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday; with additional performances at 1 p.m. Thursday and March 25; and at 7:30 p.m. March 22. Ticket prices range from $17 to $69.50 and are available at the Times-Union Center box office and at all TicketMaster outlets. Tickets can be purchased by phone by calling (904) 632-3373 or 1-888-860-2929.

      There's a changing of the guard this week in the dark, musty lower depths of the Paris Opera House. Ted Keegan, who's been playing the title role in the national touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," now at the Capitol Theatre, is leaving Salt Lake City to return to the Broadway cast. He'll be replaced, starting with the Wednesday night performance, by Brad Little, who's been touring with the company for the past two and one-half years.

      Little, who was playing the role of Raoul in the Broadway production at the time he was promoted to Phantom in the touring company, was nearing the end of a three-month vacation and busy packing for a benefit concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he was interviewed by phone from his apartment in New York City.

      (Two years ago, playing the Phantom in Cincinnati, he befriended an ailing cheetah named Maya at the city's zoo. He has since become involved in efforts to preserve the African cheetah, which was the reason for the benefit concert.)

      Little notes that he can identify and sympathize with the feared Phantom's intense, internal anguish. The singer/performer has dyslexia, a medical glitch that he struggled with while growing up in Redlands, Calif.

      "I like to visit with school children when I'm on the road, doing seminars with teachers and helping dyslexic children cope with self-esteem," he said. "It's amazing the number of friends I've made — from elementary to high school kids. I really try to help them just as much as I possibly can, just getting through life.

      "One of the stories I tell the kids is about how I coped in class; like when the teacher would go up and down the rows and each pupil would take turns reading one paragraph out of a storybook. I would count the paragraphs and then I'd count the number of kids that would get to me, and then I'd memorize that one paragraph. I learned a lot of memorizing skills that way.

      "But, of course, the teacher would always stop and tell the girl sitting in front of me 'Go ahead and read the next paragraph' — and then I'd have to memorize the next paragraph even quicker! By then, I'd have no idea of what the story was even about, but I sure had my paragraph memorized," he said.

      The skills he picked up learning how to memorize have suited him well in his theater career.
      "Now, the most nightmarish time for me is the very first day of rehearsal, because they usually do what is called a 'table reading.' Everybody sits around a big table and we read through the entire show.

      "As far as auditions go, though, I always tell them I'm dyslexic and ask if it's OK if I take some time to study the lines. That's generally just a page or two," he said. "Once my lines are memorized, I'm just fine. It's simply an eye-to-brain miscommunication. My brain is perfectly normal and my eyes are perfectly normal, it's just whatever transfers the picture to the brain seems to be distorted a bit."

      Both Keegan and Little have performed the roles of Phantom in both of the major musical versions of the legendary story — Andrew Lloyd Webber's global hit and Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's "Phantom," which has been performed locally by Rodgers Memorial Theatre and Salt Lake Community College's Grand Theatre. The latter has been popular with regional and dinner theaters across the country.

      "The only similarity (in the two shows) is that you're dealing with one man's struggle with love and passion, knowing that he is being shunned because of his physical disability, but the music is not even close to the same and the whole process of the Phantom earning Christine Daae's love is different.

      "But the Phantom's inner struggle is the same, especially at the end. That's when I feel the inner pain I went through as a child and it tears me apart. I may sound absolutely nuts, but I'm up there on stage feeling sorry for the Phantom, thinking 'I know what this is like. I know the pain you're going through.' It doesn't happen every night, but there are times when it just lands that way. It's devastating, absolutely devastating. I'll come off the stage in tears and nobody will come up to me and I end up being very isolated, just like the character in the show."

      Little is just completing three months of vacation. He requested the time off "so I could get to know my wife again." While he was on the road with "Phantom of the Opera," his wife, Barbara McCulloh, was performing in "The King and I" and she's currently playing Mrs. Darling in the Broadway company of "Peter Pan."

      While the Phantom turns Christine into his "angel of music," Little says his wife is his "angel of books." She helps him learn his roles.

      Little's trip to Salt Lake City is not his first. When he was a student at Redlands High School (he wouldn't divulge how many years ago), his school choir came to Utah as part of a concert swing through Colorado and Arizona.

      At one time, Little considered attending Brigham Young University.
      "My girlfriend at the time was going there," he said. He was aware that BYU had an excellent theater department, but he ended up going elsewhere.

      Little said he probably began his stage career "well beyond my memory."
      His father was professor of theater at the University of Redlands and put him on stage when he was an infant.

      One of his father's former students, Jerry A. Wolf, is now wardrobe supervisor for the "Phantom of the Opera" touring company.
      "He knows me as the son of Paul and Joann Little," he said.

      • DEBUT CD: Little recently released a new CD, "Brad Little Unmasked," showcasing a medley of Broadway and off Broadway hits. For information regarding the recording, call 1-888-320-9123 or check out his Web site at www.bradlittle.com.

He was the archetypal "starving actor." She was struggling to launch a brand new theater company in Bucks County. And when Brad Little, the actor, and Sue Atkinson, the founder of the Bristol Riverside Theatre, met 11 years ago, there was an instant communion.
There still is.
Atkinson was so impressed with the voice of the young actor from New York who came to a casting call that she cast him in the leading role of the theater's inaugural play, "The Robber Bridegroom."  He accepted gratefully, and has worked in several other productions at the theater, including "Irma La Douce."
Today, Atkinson's once-infant company is up and running, and is the recipient of several prestigious regional awards, including the coveted Barrymore.
And Little is starring as the Phantom in the Philadelphia production of Phantom of the Opera" at the Forrest Theatre (through Dec. 12).  The hit show, the most successful stage musical of all time, has won seven Tony Awards, and tells the tale of a masked figure who lurks beneath the catacombs of the Paris Opera House nursing his love for an ingenue soprano.
Instead of staying in a hotel in Philadelphia while he plays the lead in the touring production, Little has gratefully accepted Atkinson's invitation to stay at her sprawling, riverfront home in Bristol Township.
"It's an oasis, a wonderful retreat from the demands and tensions of this role, " said Little on a recent  morning as he enjoyed a pancake breakfast at his favorite Bristol haunt, Katy's Restaurant.  "I love being in Bristol, and Sue is a marvelous hostess who basically just lets me hang out and unwind."
Part of that unwinding, according to Little, is walking the banks of the Delaware and resting his voice. "It's one of the joys of being in this town, " he said.  "Here, I find peace."
Atkinson is just as delighted to have Little as  her house guest.  "He actually putters, and fixes things," beamed Atkinson.  "Recently, I found him fixing something in my laundry room that had been broken forever.  He's the perfect guest."
The two share another uncommon link.  It was during the run of Robber Bridegroom" that Brad Little met a young actress named Barbara McCulloh, who ultimately became his wife.
"I saw it coming," said Atkinson.  "There was just a certain chemistry there that clicked both on-and-off stage."  Atkinson's deep regret is that for complicated reasons, she could not be present at the couple's wedding over Labor Day Weekend in 1992, at sunset in the beach in Cape May, N.J.
These days, Little and his wife are living the the typical long-distance existence of two successful actors: She is in "Peter Pan" on Broadway and he is touring with "Phantom."
"It's part of the package for people like us, " said Little, who accepts the perils and celebrates the pleasure of his calling, also no equivocating. "Sue and I share something very precious," said Brad Little.  "In this business, you become like family to one another, and in Sue's case, that's the way it is. We're there for one another; and we always will be."
"What can you say about a guy who's willing to fix your front door, never get a home cooked meal , and put up with your crazy schedule?" smiled Atkinson.  "I'll take the Phantom as a houseguest any time!"

Thanks to Eileen Luscombe for sharing this interesting article.
 

Amid the ominous, multilayered passion that is the stage production of "Phantom of the Opera," the phantom's startling appearances each trigger a carefully crafted dramatic explosion. It is not terribly unlike what happens when Brad Little turns up at a sporting event.

Little, who plays the Phantom and whose sweet velvet baritone is the emotional foundation of the touring company's production at the Benedum through Sept. 18, is, in his free time, the Phantom of ballparks and arenas and of honored golf courses nationwide. A self-confessed sports nut, he's turned up at moments of great drama on a very different kind of stage.

"I saw Mark McGwire tie Roger Maris' record, and I saw him hit his 69th and 70th," Little was saying at Three Rivers Stadium the other night. "I was at the Connecticut-Duke championship [basketball] game; I saw a game in the NBA Finals; I saw David Duval win the BellSouth Classic at the TPC Sugarloaf course.

"And I was at Cinergy Field in Cincinnati the night Pete Rose Jr. made his major league debut. It was the first time Pete Rose had been back in the stadium [after his 1989 gambling banishment]. I've been so lucky."

A tedious nondescript snoozer between the Pirates and Diamondbacks with less than 12,000 witnesses won't likely burn itself into the Phantom's memory, but Little at least put a Pittsburgh notch on his national anthem registry with a rendition that was both robust and fittingly haunting.

"I like the song, even though it is difficult," said Little, whose singing has generally delighted critics all along this tour and whose stage credits include extensive Broadway experience. "You can more than just sing it. You can think about what Key was seeing as he wrote it. One of the neatest things I've had said to me was when I sang it at (Chicago's) Comiskey Park. Someone said, 'You know, I've heard that song so many times, but I never understood what it meant until tonight.' "

Just about everyone in Three Rivers, including the people who are there every night, understood what kind of anthem the Phantom delivered.

"That was something," said longtime batting practice pitcher Ken Saybel. "That's the best one I've ever heard."

Some of us who go back even further certainly compared it favorably with the 1979 Charlie Daniels version ("Baa the dohn's errly lat"). I mean real, real favorably.

Little enjoyed the pregame atmosphere, high-fiving with Derek Dye, a.k.a. the Parrot, who worked in Cincinnati when the touring company was there. The Phantom even met Tommy the Vendor, a.k.a. TC, and we'd have asked the Phantom how that felt except that TC talked right over our introduction and quite possibly favored the Phantom with some partial WNBA playoff scores.

What we did get Little to consider though, was how his love for baseball and for acting sometimes feed on the same elements of drama.

"The sad thing," he said, "is that I always lose at the end, every night, every game. I never get the girl. At least these guys go out with a chance to win. I've told some players, 'Don't talk to me about a losing streak.'"

If that sounds remotely envious, even tongue-in-cheek envious, his larger point went right to the difficulty of what he does, of what everybody connected to the Phantom production does every night.

"The drama with baseball is all in the act and react," Little said. "I wish on the stage we had the opportunity to react, to be surprised at the direction the ball is coming from. The difference is, we know where it's coming from, but we have to pretend not to know. We have to imagine that we don't know.

"I talk with (Chicago White Sox broadcaster) Ed Farmer, and he tells me sometimes that he's on the road and he misses his family, but I tell him, 'Hey, at least you have an off-season. I have no off-season.' "

Little, who is married to actress Barbara McCulloh, has been touring in Phantom for two-and-a-half years and joined the touring company direct from the play's Broadway run. Though he's absorbed international acclaim for his performance as Jesus in "Jesus Christ Superstar" and his portrayal of Tony in West Side Story, Little has said he could probably make a career out of playing the Phantom. He said his body will tell him when to let it go, much the way an athlete has to decide when it's over for him or her.

Though the happy coincidences of the tour have allowed the native Californian to glory in his sports nut status, it's made him neglect his beloved Dodgers.

"I've got to bury my head when I think about the Dodgers this year," he said. "All that money spent and doing so poorly. I thought it would be between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks in the West. Fortunately, I'm also a fan of (Diamondbacks manager) Buck Showalter. I always thought he'd take a team to the top."

Little guessed that McGwire's record-tying homer is the most dramatic moment he's seen, at least the most dramatic moment that he didn't create.

"It was amazing," he said, watching Brian Giles homer for the Pirates. "I don't even know if it's legal, but I made a videotape of it. I was sitting in the outfield with the camera and started following the ball, and then there are all these heads bumping into the frame, it's a great video, the camera getting knocked all over the place. I remember going to a bar right down the street from the stadium, and have never seen so much fun and bedlam in a place."

Explosive, no doubt. But the Phantom's come to expect nothing less
 

Nearly three years into his "Phantom of the Opera" tour Brad Little has few illusions about his star turn.

"This role is really actor-proof," the congenial Redlands native says from Green Bay, Wis., where he's wrapping up a five-week run of the pop hit.

"The general public is going to love it no matter who is playing it. (Fellow) performers or critics are harder to win over. The role is as famous a name as Michael Jackson. . . . I know the fans are going to come up to me and say I'm the best phantom they've ever seen, and generally I realize that it's because I'm the last phantom they've seen."

Little has been associated with the Andrew Lloyd Webber-penned, Cameron Mackintosh-produced show for six years, since he first played Raoul on Broadway. On the road, he's had plenty of time to ponder the show's phenomenal popularity:

"I don't think we've come up with the answer to why the show is so successful. People keep coming back. They see something different or think they see something different every time. It's actually written as an outline. People fill in all these other things from their own experience."

Musical theater legend Hal Prince even directed it that way. "Keep it black and white," he told Little. "Let the audience fill in the colors."

When first here in 1995, "Phantom" grossed $8.1 million, or 90 percent of the 3,000-seat Civic Theatre's capacity for seven weeks. Not to mention five years in Los Angeles and nearly 5,000 performances (just shy of 12 years) on Broadway, where it's still taking in $700,000 a week at the Majestic Theatre.

The four-week San Diego run, which opens tonight, has proved just as hot at the box office, selling $2.7 million initially and another $92,000 in one day, when added performances went on sale.

Playwright Albert Innaurato spoke for many serious theater people when he wrote recently that when the famous chandelier falls, people go home happy, "minus a hundred shekels and 10,000 brain cells." But "phans" still outnumber skeptics, as Little has learned.

Little remembers times when he's felt ill and wondered why he went to work, because his voice was affected. "I didn't have a voice and shouldn't have been there. But it was as if Michael Jackson, Liberace and all these guys came out at once. It's so bizarre, I don't think there's a role like this. At times it's disappointing. I would actually accept it if the audience booed; a few days I felt I deserved that. Yet they still jump up on their feet and cheer."

Little's speaking voice is deep and resonant -- a radio announcer's baritone, not a warbling romantic's tenor. "I don't know a lot of phantoms that have a baritone voice," he says.

"Most of the time they hire tenors, but God gifted me with a G-sharp (over high C), so the nice thing is I can make a more sinister phantom. 'Music of the Night' starts very low. The G-flat is reaching the top of my range, unlike tenors who can go up to the stratosphere. But that leads to some excitement even for me. Will I make it?"

The vocal challenge helps keep the show fresh, he says. And there's another perk his longevity in the role has earned him: Little gets a three-day break in the middle of each tour stop to visit his wife, actress Barbara McCulloh. She just completed the Broadway run of "Peter Pan" and now is playing Elvira in "Blithe Spirit" outside New York.

"We knew we were both marrying into this business 12 years ago," Little says. "I said I would continue with 'Phantom' as long as I could keep my marriage fresh, so I worked" -- he pauses to bracket the term -- "a conjugal-visit clause into my contract."

 This time around, the Phantom will linger back-stage for a bit longer than usual.
Brad Little, who opens as The Phantom of the Opera Friday at the Buell Theatre, plans to hang around for a few days, just long enough for his wife, Barbara McCulloh, to roll into town with Denver Center Attractions' next production, Peter Pan.

''We close on Saturday, and then she comes in on Monday and I don't have to be down to Tempe until Wednesday," Little says. "So we will have about 24 hours to say hello to each other. That's all right. We're used to it."

Little has been on tour as the Phantom for three years, so he and his wife have been making travel arrangements since long before she was cast as Mrs. Darling.

"In my contract, I have what I call my conjugal-visit clause," he says, laughing. "We get three days about every two to three weeks to see each other."

Little has been playing the Phantom on the road for three years, yet says he isn't bored.

"For one, the role is just a brilliant role, and I can keep it fresh by all the different things that I can do onstage," he says. "I also have a wonderful leading lady that I play opposite, and we tend to change little things here and there, energies. We have to say the same lines, we have to basically be in the same place, but there are little nuances we can change, which is wonderful and keeps the show extremely fresh for both of us."

Before being cast as the Phantom, Little had learned the show from a different angle. On Broadway, he played Raoul, the second male lead.

"People always ask what's the better role and I'm like, 'Oh, come on, let's get real here,"' he says.

Once he assumed the lead in the touring company, Little could have stayed in the shadow of the very popular Phantoms to come before him, particularly originator Michael Crawford. Instead, he's now the subject of his own fan club, with a polished Web site (www.bradlittle.com) created by one of his devoted fans.

"It's amazing how little comparison there's been," he says. "People will come up to the stage door and say, 'Oh, I saw Michael Crawford,' 'Oh, I saw Robert Guillaume do it.' It's not as intimidating as I thought it would be. When I first started, I thought it would be horrible, but it's not that bad, because it's a role that you can play so many different ways."

The trick, Little says, is for an actor to make the character his own.

"I think we all tend to play this role a little differently," he says. "I want him to be sexy, I want him to be scary, I want people to hate him, I want people to like him in a way, but I want there to be this sort of confusion."

Confusion is something Little understands. In fact, it brings him closer to the character at hand.

"Most people I have talked to say it's really difficult to compare the Phantoms," he says. "Because it's not like a normal person, or anybody that we can really relate to, to be shunned that much by society.

"The closest that I have ever been able to get as far as relating to that is that I'm dyslexic, and when I was a child kids beat up on me and called me stupid. I had no friends, really, and it was just a very isolating time in my life."

Little found his place in the theater -- where he found his wife as well. The two were playing the romantic leads in a regional theater production of The Robber Bridegroom when they met. In addition to writing "conjugal visits" into his contracts, Little plans to take a few months off when his contract ends March 1.

"I'm going to become a professional husband for a little while," he says. "I need to give my wife as much time as I've given the Phantom."