#that time Ben Crawford did an AMA

[ifyouhappentoremember]

I never wanted footage of anything more than I do of Ben Crawford’s Phantom dancing with Barbara the mannequin during the final lair. [x]

[opera-ghost]

christine when the phantom brings her down to his lair for the first time

[filthybonnet]

hellooo your post about hating ben crawford had replies turned off so i could ask there, what was wrong with his AMA/why don’t you like him? :0 there’s no pressure to answer if you don’t want to, i just didn’t know if he’d done something wrong!

I didn't mean for it to have replies turned off! Thanks for letting me know I'll have to check my settings.

He didn't really do anything wrong per se, it's just how he worded things and is coming across. This was the one that really got me:

The Majestic has had a shitty sound system for years. No other Phantom actor has taken to a public form to bitch about it and blame it and the company for everything that has gone wrong. Ben clearly has some personal responsibility but he's not owning up to it. If the show was damaging his voice he needed to find better techniques, give himself more rest, stand up for himself and ask for a weekly alternate, or if he wasn't enjoying himself find a way to end his contract. Plenty of actors strain their voices with shows. Laird said My Fair Lady's talking singing hurt his voice and Ramin said Funny Girl is straining his. You don't see them saying the shows weren't/aren't supporting them.

I was never really impressed with what I saw of Ben Crawford online and when I went to see Phantom for the first time on Broadway in October 2021 I was hoping to be proved wrong. Instead I got the impression that he didn't want to be there. He seemed real resentful through the whole show. This was only Emilie's second show and I felt bad for her. I love a good pro Phantom Christine and she was giving it, he was just not giving her anything to work with.

I saw Phantom one last time on Broadway in March and Ben wasn't much better. I'm bummed that he's my Broadway Phantom. I'd be more bummed if I didn't have two wonderful West End experiences with Killian (who I didn't expect to enjoy but was then blown away by). I also have tickets for Ramin's Italy run and tickets for West End again in July.

Phantom seems to be the kind of place where if you treat them good they treat you good. Laird has been back and forth between the Canadian production and Broadway for over two decades. There was a Ballerina who kept coming back inbetween professional ballet gigs. A Carlotta actress left Opera because she found Phantom more rewarding. Hugh Panero had several runs as different characters. Sierra was in how many productions? And we haven't even touched on the crossover between Phantom and Cammack's other shows and London.

I realize not every actor has good experiences with a show because after all, work is work. Rebecca Caine had her arm broken by Colm Wilkinson in the Canadian production and was told to keep quite about it and the other rough handling she went through. Dale Kristien went through some crap as her time as Christine. Actors should speak up about shitty work conditions we have learned and maybe Ben should speak up, but the way he's going about it comes off as selfish, entitled and immature.

Like do an interview with a professional source, talk about your experiences, your own short comings and how things can be improved in the future. Don't do an AMA a week after the show has closed and be like they didn't do anything to help me and treated me like shit even though lots of people did this role before me in the same conditions.

[ifyouhappentoremember]

1/4: in a deleted comment on the AMA Ben said that while he was being scoped by doctors and trying to recover his voice he developed a vocal cord infection to top everything off. But the comment also included him complaining about people at the closing and someone assumed he was sh*t talking Sarah Brightman so he deleted it.

2/4: As someone who works in PR (and has judged Phantom for their terrible PR for years) the possible options look messy and make the production look worse than Ben. Either it was obvious from the start Ben would not be recovered from his vocal injury in time and so they told him he wouldn’t go on but they delayed announcing any cast changes to try and make it seem like it was last minute and illness-related and brushed everything under the rug.

3/4: Or Ben was trying to heal from his vocal strain in time and spent two weeks hoping he would be able to go on and mid-week closing week they had to scrap together a plan. Either way, the drama could have been avoided if on April 2 they said that because of doctor’s orders Ben was on vocal rest indefinitely and if he could not do it a secret Phan Favorite would take over. It’s just baffling because it would have been really easy to advertise Laird as a veteran from Phantom Broadway with advance notice while still doing a little segment at the curtain call to thank Ben and do a photo op with Laird.

4/4: As for Ben’s PR right now, it’s not a great look but he’s not going to be blacklisted for being messy on a small Reddit thread when known abusers still get cast in the industry. It seems like he’s hurt from missing out on getting closure the way he imagined plus not getting the limelight after being the lead for 3+ years, which is why Greg and Laird made sure to post about him closing night since the production didn’t. 

Oh, I SAW that comment. I was at work scrolling while on the phone with a client (who had been complaining uninterrupted for the past 15 minutes) when I saw Ben's answer and I nearly CHOKED. That whole reply thread quickly spiraled out of control (just WHY was that commenter so convinced that Nick Lloyd Webber was the son of ALW and Sarah Brightman??).

I completely agree with your take. I don't think the AMA was a good idea, especially considering how emotionally fraught this whole situation is. Ben is (understandably) hurt and frustrated by the entire situation and the Phantom management team should have handled this better. I'm rewatching the remarks made after the final performance, and I wish the prepared remarks highlighted Ben's contribution to the legacy of Phantom. I know his portrayal can be divisive amongst phans (and lord knows I've had plenty to say about him) but he's played the role for 3 1/2 years. He deserves some respect on his name.

[ifyouhappentoremember]

Not to be nosy on main but what happened with the Ben AMA at the end? It was going fine when I went to bed (outside of him sounding a bit full of himself) but when I checked again this afternoon there was a mod comment on a different post about how both Ben and the people he argued with went too far and should take a break to cool off?

ALRIGHT, as the posts in question have been deleted, I'm going off my memory, which will not be 100% accurate. I apologize if I get anything wrong.

So the previous ask touched upon the post in question, but on the Reddit AMA someone asked him why he was so angry about the whole closing situation. His response was long. He talked about going to two different ENTs every day because his vocal cords were going through so much strain when eventually he would get a bacterial infection in his vocal cords [so it turns out the press release was accurate on that front]. He was asked to attend the final performance because he was told by management that he would receive acknowledgment for his run as the Phantom. From his perspective, this did not happen; he went on stage, got shunted off to the side then got pushed aside by an 85-year-old, geriatric old lady who was part of the OBC. Some people interpreted this as an attack on Sarah Brightman and it quickly descended into internet squabbling. I will say that both parties did not handle this in a mature manner and that is why the thread got shut down.

I do remember one of the accounts arguing with Ben Crawford called him an average phantom. It was such a wildly audacious thing to say to him, I started cackling with laughter.