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Part 1/7 - POTO Australia 31-01-23

god she’s incredible. my absolute favourite christine <3

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Megstine ftw! (X)

Lorraine Chappell & Sarah Ryan

Emilie kouatchou & Sara Etsy

Holly Anne Hull & Ellie Young

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phantom of the opera 1/27 notes that got a bit out of hand.

i tried to keep these short and failed utterly and completely. i just kept having more thoughts about it! trio was paul a schaefer phantom, emilie kouatchou christine and bronson norris murphy raoul, and my thoughts on this performance are mainly centered on them

act i

i'd heard both meh things about paul's phantom and great things about bronson's raoul so i went in with my r/c cap on and was prepared to just... not care as much about the phantom this time? i was braced for disappointment with him.

and then... i was NOT disappointed? i really enjoyed his phantom! he really was giving wet cat energy. and i love wet cats.

i found it a super e/c - r/c balanced show imo? one of the most balanced shows i've seen lately. both were compelling dynamics. emilie had great chemistry with both of them and her christine felt like she had real reasons to care for them both.

bronson's raoul is adorable. he's effortlessly confident, in the sort of natural self-assuredness of a rich guy, but he's so well meaning. little lotte was lovely. a little awkward at first as he began that segued into a sense of familiarity. it really felt like a reunion between two childhood sweethearts who aren't certain at first because it's been so long but quickly find themselves back to their old levels of comfort

paul's phantom had some nice gestures. there was a little bit of the thing where he seemed to lose track of his hands (it happens a lot with his raoul) but it happened infrequently, and it didn't feel as unintentional as it does with his raoul? it felt more like his phantom getting caught up in the moment, like he'd imagined this before and thought he was prepare but now that he's actually here with christine he finds himself at risk of getting overwhelmed by the reality of it? it didn't take me out of the moment when it happened and he overall had nice gestures and felt consistently intentional in his movements, both in how he walked around and his gestures.

he tried to catch her when he fainted! he ran to her with such a look of genuine concern and then was very sweet about putting the cape over her. and he brushed a stray curl away from her face after he did that it was sooooo tender. crying.

he was like, crying by the end of stdyi. such a sad, pitiful little "oh, christine." wet cat! wet cat! he also had a really great crawl towards her, it was so sudden and genuinely disconcerting and the desperation and pitifulness were so palpable.

bronson's raoul was having a great time during il muto. you really feel his adoration for christine, and even though she's got a silent role she seemed like she was really having fun as the page boy! god they were so adorable

oh my god nehal joshi is always funny when he brings forward the ballet but he was extra good tonight. as he ran onstage he was saying "dont make me do this" which i've never heard before? someone please help andre he's going through it.

ALL I ASK OF YOU WAS SO SWEET I THINK I HAVE CAVITIES. like i said i went into this show prepared for some good r/c and i was not disappointed whatsoever! he doesn't come across as dismissive of her at all, and why have you brought me here felt more like "i know you're scared but i don't understand and i don't know how to help me, so help me make this make sense so i can help you." it was really good.

THEIR KISS. AAAAAH. he was soo gentle and sweet and then she grabbed his face and pulled him down for a bigger kiss and oh it was adorable. it was such a wonderful aiaoy

AND A VERY SAD AIAOY REPRISE he was crying up there on his angel! he was so pitiable. wet cat in a cardboard box energy.

act 2

i noticed one of the ensemble characters trying to swipe a champagne glass but the tray was empty by that point and the server pulled the tray away almost disdainfully which was a funny little moment, but i was in rear mezz and wasnt using my binoculars at the time so i couldn't recognize who in the ensemble it was

emilie's twisted every way is so good. i feel like it's just so believable that she could be so truly terrified and lost and also not want to betray him or want him dead despite everything. emilie's christine has so much inner turmoil and it makes me feel so much every time.

raoul, your plan is bad but bronson's raoul is so likable and well meaning it's fine.

emilie's wishing was fantastic again (as always!). i love how she'll almost smile a little bit when she's thinking about her father. it's so bittersweet and fond and it makes the song even more painful to me?

she gave this little resolute smile as she was about to leave and seemed like she was at peace and then when she heard the phantom during wandering child her expression was so... longing but sort of crumpled at the same time like, despite everything she still wants to believe but on a logical level she knows she can't. it hurts :(

i was surprised at how still he was in ponr. there wasn't really any self-caressing when she's singing, like. at all?? that surprised me.

phantom.exe has stopped working. he seemed to get more and more tense during her verse, like he didn't know how to react.

idk. new ponr blocking., gestures vaguely. ponr blocking. yknow. shrugs. i never know what to say about ponr.

she smiled a little bit when she pulled his hood off, which was a sharp contrast to the day before where she almost gasped and looked shocked or horrified at seeing ben's phantom? i was trying not to compare phantoms too much but i saw ben twice in a row so it's sometimes easiest to just compare them especially when things are very different.

he was really sad and pleading when he proposed and she looked so shocked? iirc she shook her head a little at him. she looked very sad and a bit deer-in-headlights.

even in the final lair, he wasn't a particularly violent phantom. like i said, i'd just seen ben twice in a row and was used to his very rough way of putting the veil on her and giving her the bouquet, so maybe it was just the contrast between them haha but he was rather careful about adjusting her veil and smoothed out the ribbon of the bouquet before handing it to her and seemed genuinely surprised when she ripped it out of his hands angrily. (what... did u expect??)

paul's phantom was desperate in the sense of a dying man that is desperate for a salvation he knows deep down he won't get. like he needed to believe he could have christine's love, but at his core he also believed he never could have that, that all he could ever have was the darkness and his monstrosity, and he tries to tell himself that he chooses the darkness.

i think there came to be a certain sense of resignation to his phantom during final lair, where as christine gets increasingly more and more angry and upset with him he begins to realize that no matter what he wasn't going to win either, even if she did choose to save raoul by marrying him.

it felt to me like partway through the final lair it slowly began to dawn on paul's phantom that the reason he ever couldn't be happy now was because his actions had gone too far and the things he'd done had made her hate him more than his face ever could, and he doesn't want to do this anymore but he also can't do anything else. he can't just give up though, because he's come too far and what else can he do at this point but play this to the end?

the way she looked at him in "angel of music, you deceived me" she was so hurt but she also was... daring? there was such an intensity to her gaze.

his "you try my patience" was really good. it was so low, and measured and there was this extended pause between that and his "make your choice." it was both scary and simultaneously gave a feeling that he was on the verge of breaking before she even kissed him.

i also feel like... emilie's christine doesn't have this sudden revelation about him during that part. she doesn't realize all of a sudden that his life sucks because she's already known and she's already felt pity for him.

it's more like she's seen all of these different sides to him all along and never could fully understand him or have a full view of him until now? like she was conflicted because she saw both the angel and phantom sides of him, the monster and the man and wasn't ever certain which one was "real" and feared the monster but felt sympathy for the man and was at war within herself bc of these feelings.

and now she's able to see him all completely, and she doesn't just understand him in that moment but also understands her own feelings towards him and make a certain peace with those feelings. it's a moment i really love in emilie's christine.

bronson be making noises in that noose

THREE I LOVE YOUS AT THE RING RETURN

she tried to say something in return but said "i-i" and then got choked with sobs and the rest wasnt coherent but hmmmmm.

there was such a heartbreaking feeling of finality to his repeated i love yous though? he said "i love you" so mournfully after she left, and it wasn't an i love you she was meant to hear, i feel? his third i love you was when he went to pick up the veil, which he held to his face, and he stumbled on it, a choked, almost-sob "i-i love you" into the veil. i was not emotionally prepared for that let me tell you.

he gave one last long lingering look to the direction christine left before he went to the chair and it just felt so final when he did.

this is a phantom that dies at the end and he knows he's gonna die when he gets in that chair. when he says it's over now he really really means it.

this show was so good. it was my last time seeing it on broadway before it closes and it was so. so good. such a good way to say goodbye to this show it felt so final and bittersweet

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Gorgeous shot of Holly-Anne Hull as Christine! Photo by Melanie Gowie (x).

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belated phantom of the opera 1/23 notes

jeremy stolle, julia udine, paul a schaefer were my trio. lots of understudies overall! when i was waiting at the box office for standing room tickets i made a comment to my friend like "hoping for an understudy for tonight!" and then i got there and there were sooo many names on the board. meg was kelly loughran and she was SO cute. i heard greg mills was originally supposed to be on that night though and i feel so bad he was out, especially since he missed the 35th :(

during think of me when christine tries to leave, meg moved towards her and looked apologetic, like she felt bad she put christine in a situation she was uncomfortable in, but she jumped back when madame giry banged her stick on the ground. it was a cute moment.

i love jeremy's phantom! so detailed and i love how he's able to be malicious and mocking and menacing and yet so heartrending and sympathetic and these two sides of him never feel incongruous or inconsistent. his delivery is great too, especially in how he talks to the managers, carlotta and especially raoul later on.

i didn't really like julia's christine much when i saw her a few months ago and i realized now that part of it was that i just didn't like her christine with ben's phantom. her portrayal still isn't my favorite but i still appreciate her take and there were some things she did that i really loved

the mask return, for example, was a really nice moment where you could see her feelings of fear and pity for him at war and the pity ultimately winning and there's a sense of compassion to her returning it. she's not asking him to hide his face because she's scared of him, she's giving him back the mask because he's broken and crying without it? and there was a long lingering moment after that where he reached for her face and it looked like he almost understood that that was her intent and was hoping or maybe even believing that fear actually could possibly turn to love, but then caught himself and snarled out the "come we must return" and pulled her up very suddenly.

jeremy's phantom overall felt like he needed to be in control. he felt so trapped in his own monstrosity and his own conviction of his monstrosity that he sabotaged genuine moments of connection he had with christine because he couldn't let himself be truly vulnerable. it still shown through though, that vulnerability and love for her.

his stdyi was fantastic. he sounded so biting and hateful when he talked abotu himself, and then becoming more and more broken and pathetic as he drew nearer to her. i feel like i could spend forever thinking about and analyzing his performance and not get tired of it.

paul was... kind of off for a fair bit of the performance? just kinda low energy. he flubbed a line in aiaoy and tried to sing "lead me save me from my solitude" at first instead of "let me lead you from your solitude." aiaoy had kind of been low chemistry (which was weird, bc i remember paul and julia having pretty fine chemistry and the two shows i saw with ben/julia/paul trio feeling much more r/c?) but it felt a little more natural after the mess up, actually?? they were kinda stiff feeling but seemed more familiar after the flub idk.anyways i'd heard he wasn't a super consistent actor, but i thought he was solid every time i saw him a few months ago so idk?

a lot was obscured in standing room. i was very glad i'd seen the show before AND had plans to see it again from proper seats (i ended up seeing it three other times haha) but for $29? not bad (remember when you could get rear mezz for $29 tho hahahaha sobs) but it was cool focusing on the stuff i don't normally look at. i was glad i had binoculars too tho since the back of that orchestra is pretty far from the stage

the saddest "dont gOo :(" during the graveyard scene.

carrington vilmont as passarino mixed up the lyrics for don juan. he and carlton moe didn't miss a beat though and carried it off effortlessly! i was like i KNOW thats not right but i cant even tell what isn't right about it.

throwing the mannequin so it hits the ground on the beat is so unreasonably funny to me i love it.

i said before i loved jeremy's phantom's line delivery towards raoul and it's just perfect in the final lair he's so gleefully malicious and a bit sarcastic at times? it's great.

but in contrast, i thought the way he said/did things in final lair towards christine were at times almost.. soft? he wasn't rough at all with putting the veil on her or giving her the bouquet. he also made the saddest face when julia, very bitterly, said "please raoul, it's useless" and i loved how he sat on the throne. he was like. perched on the edge of it, turned away. his body language was very tense and tight, and it seemed like it got increasingly difficult for him to look at her as the final lair went on.

he was still threatening and scary at moments though. there was a great duality to his performance.

"so do you end your days with me or do you send him to his grave" is a line i'm used to being delivered with more intensity, threateningly, but jeremy was so... pleading? im obsessed with it actually.

he really was so trapped in himself, in his own decisions and view of himself, and it felt like he felt like none of them had a choice here and he wanted christine to understand that so badly, that he doesn't want to hurt her but what else can he do? this is what he is.

when she kisses him, he did the flail but then looked like he was going to embrace her on the second kiss and then right before he did his hands sort of curled up and he pulled away.

it was like he felt that he'd never had any choice but to be this monster, and then realized now that he does have a choice, and he chooses to let her go. all this time he's been wanting christine to see him as a man, not a monster, but he can't even see himself as anything but a monster until that moment?

he was the only phantom i saw in that week (out of three total) who only said one i love you at the ring return, and i'm glad he didn't repeat the i love you, because as broken as he was, i felt like he needed to make that choice too to let her go? idk. catharsis of tragedy or whatever. something like that. i don't know.

kelly loughran's meg seemed almost dazed when she's in the lair, like she doesn't know what to make of it. she almost staggers towards the throne. considering how affectionate and concerned she was for christine the entire time, i felt like she was expecting to see christine there and was really surprised to find it empty and was a bit scared by that fact?

i might have had a less than ideal seat (... well, i didnt even have a seat), and there were a couple odd or low energy moments but overall i still had a really great time and i thought for the most part everyone gave really great performances! especially jeremy stolle whose phantom has been living rent free in my head for over a week now (he was also incredibly nice and easy to talk to at stagedoor!!!)

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AUDIO GIFT

35th Broadway Anniversary Thursday, January 26, 2023 - Ben Crawford, Emilie Kouatchou, Paul A. Schaefer

Tracked and edited

Come for the best wishing you’ve ever heard, stay for my threatening ALW during the Entre Act

Please note that Paul Schaefer is Raoul at this performance, not John Riddle as listed in the program! 

Download here

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phantom of the opera - october 31, 2022 (and halloween show!) i struggled to pick between this and point of no return to post, but i think elizabeth truly became how i envision christine in this scene.

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carrington vilmont was on for passarino on 1/23 and mixed up the lyrics in don juan triumphant. they handled it super smoothly though!

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(phantom of the opera - broadway - 1/27/2023)

so i think my heart may still be in pieces on the majestic theater mezzanine floor

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here's wishing from the anniversary performance!

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Ladies and gentlemen… meet the fates!

(Couldn’t decide whether I wanted the background or not)

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And Eurydice was a young girl

But she’d seen how the world was

When she fell, she fell in spite of herself

In love with Orpheus

Get the print here!

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Phantom of the Opera illustration by Kuri Huang

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❤️‍🩹

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phantom of the opera should close out their run by dropping the chandelier in the audience closing night