Tickets remain available for the four-week engagement of "Phantom of the Opera" at the Peace Center.
"We have been selling like crazy this week, but we are nowhere near sold out," said Janet Robeson, marketing vice president for the Peace Center. "People have plenty of time, especially for the third and fourth week of the production."

A sellout would represent 64,000 tickets. Robeson expects to sell 80 to 90 percent.

Ticket prices range from $32.50 to $73.

The musical is drawing people to the Peace Center in groups and individually from the Upstate, western North Carolina and northeast Georgia, Robeson said.
 

Before the performances, they comb the malls to find the perfect outfits. They plan dinners downtown. They drive to Greenville from miles away.

There's a name for people who go all out for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical: "Phantom phanatics."

Kati Lippman considers herself one. She and her mother drove 5½ hours from Richmond, Ky., to see the Greenville show. Lippman said she's seen "Phantom" once before and listens to the CD tirelessly.

"To be a phanatic, you have to know every line in every song," she said.

The show is a $10 million touring production filled with so many special effects it took 20 trucks to haul in the set and costumes.

In the story, a disfigured "phantom" haunts the bowels of the Paris Opera House to win the love of a singer, Christine. "Phantom" will be in town until June 15.

David Cryer, who plays an opera house manager, said he finds fan attention "delightful." He ate lunch with fans at Barley's Taproom before Thursday's matinee.

"I've met a lot of fans who have seen the show 60 or 70 times," he said. "It's wonderful to know they're normal people."

Abby Flores said she fell in love with the musical when she saw it on Broadway at 15 years old. Now 29, she could barely contain her enthusiasm to see it again.

Flores said she and her 9-year-old daughter, Amanda, would wear matching outfits to Saturday's matinee.

"I told my daughter, 'You're going to have to sit me down and tell me to relax or else I'm going to embarrass you,'" she said.

"Phantom of the Opera" has proven so phenomenal because audiences can connect with the love story and "visual feast," said Kathleen Gossman, a Furman University assistant professor in theater arts.

"It's so easy to get swept away in the sounds, textures and patterns," she said. "It feeds that fantasy."

Elizabeth Provence, a student at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut, said she expects to cry when she sees "Phantom" for the second time with her father on June 1.

"I hope to be Christine one day," she said.

For Carole Thimgan, the show was a chance to spend a day with her two daughters. They ate lunch with cast members, then planned to attend a wine tasting before the show.

"We're excited," Thimgan said, beaming.
 

Paul Alongi can be reached at 298-4746. 

The Paris Opera flexed watts-power and the Phantom threw tantrums as the mega-musical "The Phantom of the Opera" opened its four-week stay Wednesday night at the Peace Center.
Having seen the show at Broadway's Majestic Theatre last year, I can honestly say there is no difference between the touring production and it's Broadway counterpart — neither in the quality of its performers, nor its famed production values.

Those of you who wondered can relax.

You're in for a real treat with this nearly 20-year old Andrew Lloyd Webber /Cameron Mackintosh $10 million Victorian techno-dazzler.

The Phantom began its performing life in 1986 at London's West End (where it is still in production) and arrived on the Broadway stage in 1988 to sweep it clean with seven Tony awards.

Judging by its thunderous receptions wherever it plays, including at the Peace Center, it is doubtful that it will reach a point of no return — anytime soon.

The opera that is embedded with two other operas — "Hannibal" and "The Triumph of Don Juan" — is solidly directed by Harold Prince and ingeniously designed by Maria Bjornson.

Dressed in brilliant colors and textures the show is spectacular.

You may know the story based on French journalist Gaston Leroux's 1911 novel.

Its lonely, disfigured yet elegant and gifted protagonist has taken up residence in the labyrinth underneath the Paris Opera.

From time to time he'll surface from his lair to terrorize at whim members of the resident opera company.

There comes a day when he falls in love with Christine Daae, an ingenue, whom he secretly coaches to become the company's new prima donna. Although grateful, she cannot return his affections as she is in love with Raoul, a young, wealthy, opera patron.

The two men's bitter struggle for Christine's love makes the story's romantic denouement feel desperately inevitable.

And there's Webber's easy-to-hum, pop-opera music that combines well with the show's signature staging and technical feats.

Be it the menacing chandelier, the dazzling masquerade or the Phantom's subterranean lake journey with Christine by the light of 141 candles — it is grand entertainment.

The show's excellent 36-member cast makes for compelling and convincing theater in every way.

Brad Little as the Phantom is riveting.

The veteran performer brings quiet dignity, profound dramatic force and a powerhouse tenor voice to the title role. His "The Music of the Night" was especially evocative.

Lyric soprano Rebecca Pitcher as Christine turns her portion of the score effortlessly in "Think of Me," "Angel of Music" and "All I Ask of You."

Tim Martin Gleason is tops as the handsome Raoul.

Invaluable in their roles were the talented soprano and comedic actress Kim Stengel who really is a prima donna; Frederic Heringes, a terrific primo in the role of Ubaldo; D.C. Anderson and David Cryer as the fastidious managers of the Paris Opera and the smashing Patti Davidson-Gorban as Madame Giry.

If you've been wishing for a grand spectacle stuffed with talent and pizzazz, this is your entertainment of the night.

The "Phantom" plays through June 15. Call 467-3000
 

It's less than a week before the music of opening night fills the Peace Center for Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," but that doesn't mean there's no sound there.
There is plenty.

Only, it's a melody played with saws, hammers and power tools by a busy crew of 75 men and women who currently rule the stage.

The $10 million production that travels on 20 trucks will start heading south from Raleigh soon — where "Phantom" closes on Sunday. But for now, the foundation of the Greenville production is foremost on the mind of production stage manager David Hansen.

"We did steelwork here to the ceiling before anything else got under way, to support the chandelier, the proscenium and the service trusses," he said.

Off the ground, and currently under construction, is what will become the glittering ebony and gold proscenium arch of the Paris Opera House, resplendent with gold nymphs and fauns intertwined.

For now, though, it's a mass of metal gridwork with an immense upside-down angel at its center, looking for all the world like it's trying to break loose.

When in place, it will become the "angel pod" on which the Phantom will ride down over the stage to terrorize the singers, the management and the audience, as he haunts the opera house.

Hansen said eight chain-motors will be installed.

"These will hold the proscenium in place," he said. "Once it is up and its legs are down, the weight is not on the legs but on the chains."

The proscenium weighs seven tons, he said.

Two rows of lighting instruments nestle in the rear of the arch — all together there are 479 lighting instruments in the show.

The front of the arch holds most of the speakers needed to float such well-known numbers as "Angel of Music" and "The Music of the Night." Hansen points to two little blue metal chairs on either side of the arch. Two of the six spotlight operators will perch there throughout the 2½-hour show.

The other four are positioned toward the back of the stage along with other hand-held spotlights.

Stage left, workers hoist up a service truss that holds all of the dimmer racks and amps for sound and lighting. Stage right, another truss is fitted that controls the automated scenery, including the famed half-ton chandelier that the Phantom crashes down on the audience at the end of Act One.

Hansen, taking time out to snack on an orange, said he doesn't know at this point who will be the lucky two hired to catch the 1,000-pound chandelier with its 35,000 beads as it swings upstage and has to be stopped.

Does he need two burly guys?

"Not necessarily," he says. "We've used both women and men for this job before."

Come Tuesday morning, he'll conduct a "chandelier-catch rehearsal," he said. There are two handles on the back of the fixture. At first, he says, they will swing slowly, then begin to go faster and faster with the chandelier until it is up to "show speed." That can be somewhere around eight feet per second.

"It's not an easy job," Hansen said, adding that as the fixture swings toward the catchers "it flashes right into their faces and a strobe light goes off behind them."

As for Hansen, his favorite part of the show is not the chandelier crash.

Instead, it is the journey the Phantom and Christine make after he abducts her, puts her in his boat and heads on the underground lake for his lair — located under the Paris Opera.

"The whole stage fills up with dry ice — 550 pounds are used — and it is magical," Hansen said. "It is kind of like your favorite bathtub bubble bath scene."

Although the Phantom is seen poling like a gondolier, the boat is driven by an infrared beam.

Another trick for the "Phantom" crew is costume changes. The actor, who doesn't have time to get back to the dressing area, is met in the wings by a dresser holding a laundry basket. The actor does a quick strip and jumps into the costume carefully laid out.

Because there's only a dim blue light backstage, dressers have to hold little flashlights between their teeth, so they can work with both hands to find buttons, snaps or zippers.

The show travels with a veteran "Christine dresser" because the role requires "the quickest and hardest costume and wig changes," Hansen said.

Fourteen local people are hired to clean, mend, rebuild, re-bead and press every costume that needs attention in this $2 million wardrobe, Hansen says.

"It's a whole different show backstage," said Hansen with a big laugh. "It's dark, we have tons of scenery moving, there are 50 crew members and 36 actors and everyone needs to get out of the way and know where exactly they are going."

Three managers do "air traffic controlling" during the performance, talking to each other and sending cue lights to the fly-well and the automation scenery.

Anything that happens visually is tied to what the conductor does in the orchestra pit, as he drives the music with his 17-member ensemble. The rest of the team "keys off of them (the musicians) to make the scenery time out musically as well," he said.

Just before the show starts, there's a check with everyone to make sure everything and everyone is in place.

Then, "we're good to go," Hansen says. 

Actor Lon Chaney, the 1920s' "Phantom of the Opera," had to remain silent about his intentions, never got to swing a 1,000-pound chandelier or row a radio-controlled gondola. And he didn't have to wear a pound of gel on his head every week.
Of course, a lot has changed since the "Phantom" of silent films, and the updated Phantom, played by Brad Little, has come a long way to haunt the catacombs of the Peace Concert Hall.

Little, his sexy voice dark as morning coffee, sounds sleepy at first as he prepares to talk about his life and his role of a lifetime.

"What do you want to know?" he purrs into his cell phone. Once prompted, he explains that he was "raised in musical theater."

His father, a theater professor at the University of Redlands in Southern California, believed in total immersion for his son. "I've been doing theater ever since I can remember," Little chuckles.

In his "rebellious teen years," he decided to trade the stage for the basketball court. That lasted until he discovered that his "high notes were better than his high jumps."

Back to his roots he went.

New York acting followed through the 1980s, and in off times there were acting classes and tons of auditions, he says.

The career Little has built in the past 20 years includes principal roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Jesus Christ Superstar," "Evita" and "1776."

He has been with "Phantom" since 1994, and during those nine years has climbed from chorus member to playing the part of Raoul on Broadway, to the top of the rung in 1996, making him the touring company's longest-running "Angel of Music."

The story, based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 melodramatic novel, tells of a disastrous relationship between the Phantom and a comely chorus girl whom he grooms for operatic stardom.

Little says he loves playing the deformed, lovesick genius inhabiting the bowels of the Paris Opera, and crooning "The Music of the Night" to his Christine de jour. So far, as Phantom, he has wooed more than 25 Christines — maybe even 30, he laughs. (She's Rebecca Pitcher on this tour.)

A veteran of 1,500 shows, Little says he keeps his performances fresh by slipping in small changes.

"Nothing big, you understand, just little things such as delivering a line differently," he says, "or slightly altering a body movement."

Based on his previous Broadway experience with "Phantom," Little says "there is no difference at all between that show and the show on tour."

Well, maybe not, if he's referring only to the parts of the performances audiences expect.

As for the unexpected, that's quite another matter.

How about the memorable night Little's pants ripped as he was concluding "The Music of the Night." His Christine lay on the ground supposedly unconscious.

As his pants gave up the ghost, Little's amorata began laughing hysterically. He simply kept singing, "trying to keep it all together," he says.

When Little's cape got caught on the stairs, eager crew members grabbed a saw to cut him loose. It was the costume guys who lost it that night as they screamed, "No, no, no, that's a $5,000 cape!"

Oh, well. The phantasmagoric show must go on.

In that spirit, Little says he hopes huge numbers will turn out for the show, which so far has been seen by millions of people in 27 countries, and has grossed $3 billion in ticket sales. 

When Peter von Mayrhauser takes his seat at "The Phantom of the Opera," he'll be watching to make sure the show is fresh and first-rate. As the production supervisor for the famed musical, he's just doing his job.

And he'll do it again and again over the next four weeks as the "Phantom" haunts Greenville with 31 performances.

Speaking from his New York City home, von Mayrhauser explains that he's the one who supervises the people who supervise the show day-to-day.

That's the only acceptable way to treat the original Cameron Mackintosh/Andrew Lloyd Webber co-production that has won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, and costs $10 million in its touring version.

With 32 years of theater experience behind him, von Mayrhauser is responsible for all of the Harold Prince-directed American productions. The show travels with 36 performers — 10 principals and a 26-member ensemble — plus 60 crew members, 37 stagehands and a 17-member orchestra.

In each city, local people are hired to augment the stage and wardrobe crews, von Mayrhauser says.

But first things first.

At many venues, as is the case at the Peace Center, the first job is to build additional steel beams into the ceiling to support the show's half-ton chandelier.

Most of his job, though, is not technical, says von Mayrhauser. Instead, he makes sure that the vision of his boss, Harold Prince, is adhered to in all its color and nuance. 

1 hour to make up the Phantom

3 washers and dryers going 24 hours a day

3 managers for "air-traffic controlling"

6 spotlight operators

7-ton proscenium

14 local people to clean, mend, rebuild, re-bead and press costumes

17-member music ensemble

20 trucks to carry the $10 million production

36 actors

50 crew members

125 wigs steadied by 1,440 hairpins per week

230 costumes

479 lighting instruments

550 pounds of dry ice

1,000-pound chandelier decorated with 35,000 beads

P — Paying $10 will get you a choice spot at one of two Greenville News parking lots open to the public during the 31 "Phantom" performances. You can enter either from South Main Street just past The News' garage or from the corner of Broad and Falls streets. Your $10 is tax-deductible and supports the nonprofit educational outreach program at The News. Additional parking is available adjacent to and behind the Peace Center.

H — Haute couture opera style includes 300 Victorian costumes in lush, romantic fabrics of velvet, silk, brocade, taffeta and even itchy wool blends with yards of beaded fringe and piping to make this Maria Bjornson-designed show a high-fashion extravaganza valued at $2 million. That includes the 200 pairs of shoes and 250 wigs.
 

A — The angel sculpture located in the center of the proscenium arch descends with the Phantom in the "roof of the Opera House" scene. As is the case with all other major set pieces, it is operated by a counterweight/fly system that "flies" on cables.
 

N — Navigating to get to his underground lair with Christine, the Phantom steers his gondola through the gloomy underground "lake" with a staff. In actuality, a stagehand uses a hand-held remote control to move the boat.
 

T — The 1,000-pound, 10-foot chandelier that crashes to the stage floor in Act One at a speed of 8 feet per second has 35,000 beads and is completely computer-controlled. A total of 479 lighting instruments are used to create the drama that sets the Paris Opera stage aglow. The Phantom's lair bathes in the warm glow of 141 candles.
 

O — The orchestra includes 17 members who travel with the show to power the Andrew Lloyd Webber score that includes "Angel of Music," "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Music of the Night" and other lesser-known songs that fuel the love story.
 

M — The mask the Phantom wears not only hides his disfigured face, but seeks attention as the show's signature item. In Gaston Leroux's novel, which serves as the basis of the musical's libretto, the mask is the one and only gift the Phantom receives from his mother.