Ali Ewoldt, currently Christine Daaé, notes original cast member and Christine replacement Rebecca Luker’s name is etched into a drawer in her dressing room.Įven the original chandelier remains. Lights, sets, and the backstage area have all remained the same, with minor necessary rehabilitations through the years. Read 29 RARELY KNOWN PHANTOM FACTS AND BACKSTAGE STORIES I celebrate the fact that you look at our lighting instruments around here, there are no computerized lights.” “I celebrate the fact that it’s hand-spun, if you will. “It’s slight, but it’s just enough so that it doesn’t feel exact and crisp. “So now automation cues for things coming out of the floor staggered,” Sklar-Heyn reveals. The computerized system made it too perfect.

In London, humans cranked the candelabras upward, and they landed at slightly different levels and times. In fact, when the production transferred from the West End to Broadway-going from a Victorian automation winch system to computerized deck automation for the candelabras’ rise from below the stage-Prince realized something was wrong. Precision applies to the hands-on operation of the show in addition to the performances.

“His ideas for why things are the way they are, are very clear to him.” As Prince’s eyes and ears on the production, Sklar-Heyn sees the show once a week to assess and give notes. “Every couple months, we sit and watch a matinee together or he’ll come in for an evening without me and stand on the side of the theatre and watch, and he’s very present,” says Sklar-Heyn. To this day, Prince notices when the most minute detail is out of line. But I do four real rehearsals, and whenever there is a replacement in the company, I pass on that, so we’ve kept the quality of the acting at a very high level.” “Now, that doesn’t mean living in New York I don’t visit the theatre more often. Before he was a director, Prince produced and stage managed shows, including 1954’s The Pajama Game, directed by George Abbott, in which he learned that walking away from the show and occasionally giving a director’s note from the wings (as Abbott did) was not the same as viewing it from the audience’s perspective. It all stems from Prince’s ongoing involvement with the production he first directed in 1986, when it began life at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End. How does Phantom look and feel as impressive and polished today as it did nearly three decades ago?

Phantom of the opera costume rentals