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!'"

      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.

Brad Little always has known he could sing better than most, even when the other children in his neighborhood in Redlands, Calif., called him "stupid" and the school board labeled him "special."
"I thought the only thing I could do was sing," says Little, who's dyslexic. Sing he can.  He proves it every night he takes the stage as The Phantom in Cameron Mackintosh's national touring company production of "The Phantom of the Opera."
He mesmerizes audiences with his portrayal of the tortured, disfigured composer obsessed with the beautiful soprano Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber's spectacular now playing at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall.
For two years and three months, Little has played the leading character in what is considered the biggest show on Earth.  Before that, he played Raoul, also in love with Christine, in "Phantom" on Broadway. And before that, Little appeared in numerous shows in New York and national tour productions. Some of
his leading parts include Che in "Evita," and the title role in Jesus Christ Superstar" and Billy Crocker in "Anything Goes."
Not bad for someone who used to think of himself as retarded.
"I never learned how to read," he says. "In my mind I was retarded. It was like I was in a dark tunnel for years."
However, Little is far from "retarded." He is dyslexic.  "My brain works and my eyes work, but they don't connect," he explains.
His parents realized their son was dyslexic after watching a Phil Donahue show.  By then, Little was a teen-ager. Suddenly he emerged from the dark tunnel.  Knowing it is perfectly normal for someone who is severely dyslexic not to read, he began taking oral test.
"My folks spent hours reading to me."  And Little went on to make the honor roll.  Still, not being able to read music stopped him from pursuing college.  Instead, at age 20 (he won't reveal his age now), he went to New york and began looking for singing jobs.  He memorizes pieces of music after hearing them usually just twice.  This is how he learned the music for "Phantom."
He also studied the part by digging deep into his own past. "I can't compare it (his disability) to the physical deformity of the phantom, " Little says. But I do know what it is like to be shunned by your peers."

      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.

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