Survey time!

Hi, all!

It’s been awhile since my last post (yet again), but I assure you that I’ve been keeping quite busy. Around the end of last month, I had another epic trip to Las Vegas to see the show there before it closes. I’m working on reviews of those performances, but in the meantime (and just so I can say I posted something in June), I decided to do a random POTO survey I found on Tumblr. And it goes without saying that everyone reading this is welcome to take the survey as well and post their answers here!

Respect for Performers' Personal Lives

Hey, all!

This is going to be a somewhat more serious post, inspired by something a friend of mine posted on Tumblr a few days ago. It seems that among certain Phantom Phans, there are a few who are more focused than they should be on how "sexy" or "attractive" the actors are, or who project the allure of the characters onto the actors who play them. My friend's post was mainly directed at a few fans of Ramin Karimloo who don't seem to understand or care about the fact that he's married and has children; they continue to post on publicly accessible forums or YouTube videos about how sexy he is and how much they want him. Apparently, some have even made nasty comments to his wife.

Certainly, POTO isn't the only fandom where this sort of thing happens -- not by a longshot. And don't get me wrong; I understand how it is to have a crush on a celebrity, and I've been there numerous times myself. But to go on and on about how you want to spend your life with a celebrity who's already in a relationship, especially when you go so far as to insult or threaten that celebrity's significant other, crosses a line. Like I said, I've had crushes on celebrities before, including some who were involved with POTO, but I'd never take it to that extreme. It's fun to imagine dating or marrying someone famous, but when all's said and done, I think it's much more satisfying to pursue a real relationship, preferably with someone you can meet and talk to without having to call their agent or get backstage at a show first.

A trend I've also encountered is "shipping" of actors with each other. "Shipping" generally takes the form of fans speculating that two fictional characters should date/marry each other, but apparently, that can also cross into real life. Some POTO Phans continue to insist, for example, that Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess should date, even though Ramin is (as I mentioned before) happily married, and Sierra is engaged to fellow stage actor Tam Mutu. And I remember that in the wake of the 2004 movie version of POTO, lots of Phans were saying Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum should date, even though there's a pretty huge age difference between them. Responding to those fans' notions, Emmy said that she considers Gerard to be more of an "older brother" figure, and not someone she'd consider dating.

A related (and rather troubling) thing I've noticed is when people start baseless rumors about celebrities. I once saw a thread on a POTO site that will go unnamed, where a few people were speculating that Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman were having an illicit relationship while rehearsing and performing in POTO. When someone else stepped in and asked them to either offer some actual proof or stop that kind of chatter, those members said they were only kidding around.

No. Not okay. It's bad enough when there's gossip among high school students about who's sleeping with whom, but when that crosses over into people making up rumors -- on a public forum, mind you -- about celebrities having affairs, it can cause some very real trouble. It can cause some headaches for the actors who those "fans" claim to adore, what with the potential for awkward questions from the press or higher-ups taking those rumors seriously and not hiring them. It can also severely damage the online reputations of people who go around creating those rumors; remember, once you post something online, it may never truly vanish even if you delete it, and might affect your career or personal life in the future.

Well, that's my rant for today, although sometime later on, I may get more into the apparent preoccupation with "sexy" that some people (and not just Phans) seem to have when it comes to POTO.


I remain your obedient servant,
I.A.E.

A Frighteningly Fun Project

Greetings, Phans!

Well, I finished my latest semester of college, and this was an especially fun one for me. One of the main reasons why is because I took a class on horror literature. In that class, we studied some well-known and influential works of horror, from Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (widely considered to be the first Gothic novel), through the famous ones like Stoker's Dracula and Shelley's Frankenstein, up to modern works like Stephen King's The Shining, and even some urban legends dealing with ghosts or spirits encountering people in Hawaii.

POTO, sadly, wasn't a part of the curriculum. However, for an end-of-semester project, all the students got to give PowerPoint presentations on the horror-related subject of our choice. No prizes for guessing what I picked. I presented a very brief history of POTO, from the novel to the many film and stage versions. It had to be brief, since every student had a 10-minute time limit for presenting.

I think the presentation went pretty well; my professor congratulated me on researching my subject so extensively. (I neglected to mention that most of that research had been done for fun, long before the project was assigned.) Also, I found out that one of my classmates had been in the technical crew for Palikū Theatre's production last fall. She shared some secrets, including the fact that the makeup designers were originally going to try an even more horrific disfigurement for the Phantom but couldn't get it to look right, so they settled for the "leprosy" look I described in my reviews (which, in my opinion, was still very effective).

A lot of the other students' presentations were also great fun. There were slideshows on just about every random horror-related topic you could imagine, from The Exorcist to doppelgängers. And now, the semester's over, and I'm preparing for a summer vacation that just might be even more epic than my last one.

Feel free to comment if you found ways to bring POTO into some of your school projects in the past! (I will say that this presentation certainly wasn't the first time that the Phantom's tale has found its way into my schoolwork. I even referenced the story in my SAT exam once, and from what I can recall, I got a pretty respectable score for it. Yay, I suppose!)


I remain your obedient servant,
I.A.E.

A Death in the Phamily

Greetings, Phans!

Just a short update today. Another round of sad news for Phans has come out -- actor William Finley, who played Winslow Leach (a.k.a. the Phantom) in Brian De Palma's 1974 cult classic film Phantom of the Paradise, passed away this past Saturday at age 69. Here's a news article about him.

Your obedient servant,
I.A.E.

Phantom 25th Anniversary Observations

Greetings, all!

Last night, my local PBS station showed the 25th anniversary concert for POTO. Even though I have the Blu-Ray, I decided to watch it, mainly to see if there were any weird issues with the broadcast (since when they showed the “Les Misérables” 25th anniversary concert last year, the music for the whole thing somehow ended up in a lower key), and also to see if there were any interesting conversations or guests during the breaks where they’d ask for donations to the station. Thankfully, there were no strange problems with the broadcast that I noticed. They had a great lineup of special guests to talk about their history with the show and with PBS, though -- they brought on Ramin Karimloo and Colm Wilkinson, and also the current Phantom and Christine from the Broadway cast, Hugh Panaro and Trista Moldovan.

Anyway, the reason why I’m posting about this is that I noticed a few interesting things while watching the concert for what was really the second time. The only other time was when I saw it in the movie theater last October; I had watched certain scenes from my Blu-Ray copy, but not the whole thing. Anyway, here are some of my observations from last night’s showing of the concert:

- I’m not sure if it’s an issue with the broadcast or with my speakers, but my TV didn’t seem to like Ramin Karimloo or Gareth Snook too much. There ended up being a really weird echo on many (but not all) of their lines and no one else’s. Or maybe my TV is haunted.

- When Ramin first appears (on the projection screen) in the mirror scene, the mask is on the left side of his face. Yes, I know it’s a mirror, but the idea is that the Phantom’s behind the mirror, not that he’s showing up as a mirror image. You’d think after the whole thing with the ’04 movie poster putting the mask on the wrong side of the Phantom’s face, RUG would be more wary about that sort of thing happening in a venue where die-hard Phans would notice. XD

- Ramin Karimloo’s mask design in the concert seemed a bit odd to me, but watching the TV broadcast, I think I finally understand why they did it that way. The brow of the mask seems to have been made so that no matter what Ramin’s facial expression was in any scene, the mask would appear to reflect that. Then again, maybe that was the point with every production’s mask design, and it just took me this long to notice it. But in any case, it’s pretty ingenious if they did that on purpose.

- They unfortunately seemed to have used a different take for “Stranger Than You Dreamt It” where Ramin was more restrained -- in the theatrical showing, he was much more violent. What is it with Phantoms having to get their performances of this scene unnecessarily toned down? (See also: Brad Little, John Owen-Jones, and several others.)

- There was one thing that hit me as a possibly brilliant idea to use in the “Notes” sequences -- they didn’t do it in the concert, but I’d love it if a future production tried it. Basically, they could have the managers, Raoul, and everyone else who gets a note from the Phantom visibly struggling to read his handwriting. It would be a great, subtle nod to Leroux’s novel, I think.

- I forgot to check in the “Stranger Than You Dreamt It” scene, but when Ramin’s Phantom appears on the projection screen during “Notes,” it’s clear that he’s writing with his left hand. Yay!

- Colm Wilkinson’s normal speaking voice (when PBS interviewed him to ask about his experiences with the show and what PBS meant to him) was completely different from what I had expected after being so used to hearing him sing for so many years.

- The fire jets added to the Phantom’s escapes in the “Masquerade” and “Point of No Return” scenes, as well as their use in the graveyard scene, give the impression that Ramin’s Phantom is much more of a pyromaniac than other versions. Since I had some pyro tendencies when I was younger (and still kinda do), this intrigued me.

- Even though I still really dislike Hadley Fraser’s Raoul in the dressing room and rooftop scenes, I have to admit he redeems himself pretty well in Act 2 (especially from the graveyard scene onward). Maybe that’s intentional character development?

- The Phantom’s line “Let the audience in” was removed from the scene where Raoul was instructing the police on what to do if the Phantom should appear. This incredibly minor omission keeps the 25th anniversary Blu-Ray, DVD, and CD from being truly complete recordings of the show.

- I remember having to hold in a particularly loud ‘squee’ when I noticed while watching the concert in the theater that castanets were added to the orchestrations of “Point of No Return” -- I’d wanted them to do that ever since first hearing the song. Sadly, the castanets weren’t nearly as prominent in audio recordings of the concert, but they were back in full force for the TV broadcast. *fist pump*

- The editing team managed to cut the bit that occurred during the live theatrical showing, where a projection screen showed white noise for a long while during Andrew Lloyd Webber’s speech at the end. This means that either the editors were extremely thorough, or Lord Andrew was wearing the same blue shirt for two or more performances from which that part was able to be spliced together.

- I still get chills in the fourth verse of the title song encore, when Anthony Warlow and John Owen-Jones are singing together.

Those were some of the things I noticed while watching the concert. Feel free to comment with your own observations!

I remain your obedient servant,

I.A.E.