The Daily - Broadway’s Longest-Running Musical Turns Out the Lights

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

“The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest running show in the history of Broadway, will close its doors on Sunday after more than three decades.We went backstage during one of the final performances before the show’s famous chandelier crashes down one last time.Guest: Michael Paulson, a theater correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: The show was originally set to close in February, but the announcement set off a surge in ticket sales. “Phans,” as they call themselves, rushed to see it one last time.In an interview, Cameron Mackintosh said weakening box office and rising production costs led to the decision to end “Phantom’s” run.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

So we've just arrived at the Majestic Theatre where the crew is getting the set ready for this afternoon's matinee. Of course, as soon as you walk into this unbelievably beautiful and completely empty theater, the first thing you see is the chandelier, which is hanging over the center orchestra. The chandelier, of course, is the icon of this show. It famously sort of crashes over the audience at the end of the first act. RC is good!

Toot-toot. Mic checks as the sound crew is making sure that everything works. They've checked the lights, they've checked the speakers. It's all starting to happen. All coming together. Good afternoon and welcome to Phantom of the Opera. The house is now open. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Step on down to the next guest.

We need help finding your seats. Hello. Welcome to Franklin. Thank you. You're welcome. That's going to be row E on the right side. So the lights are going down. The crowd is super confident. Thank you.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. In Midtown Manhattan on Sunday, Phantom of the Opera, the longest-running show in the history of Broadway, will close its doors after more than three decades. Today, the story of the show's meteoric rise, stunning longevity, and bittersweet closing. My colleagues, theater reporter Michael Paulson and Daily producers Sydney Harper and Eric Krupke take us backstage during one of Phantom's final performances. It's Friday, April 14th. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. Can I just get you saying your name and your title just for the tape? Sure.

My name is Greg Lovoti, and I'm the production stage manager. How long have you been here? About ten and a half years. Wow. You guys must have all of this just, like, memorized. Like, do you hear it in your sleep? Yeah. I joke a lot that I could do every line in the show,

but I could only do it if I was saying every single line. Just straight down. So where are we right now exactly? So we're in the trap room under the stage. So all these trap doors are about to open up as we go into the Phantom's lair. Let's just have a look. I'm just gonna bring this in. How big is the crew here as compared to other shows? It takes over 125 human beings backstage to do this show every day. Now that includes cast and orchestra, but it's an unheard of amount of people this day and age. How many shows have you managed?

I'd say it's in the high 2000s, almost 3,000 performances. Before this job, my longest job was like 51 weeks. And even the 51-week job is cushy. I think we have this habit in this industry of always looking ahead to what's next, what's next, what's next. Because we're conditioned that our employment is temporary, no matter what.

Every show closes. This is the perfect example, right? Something you think it would run forever, and it's going to close. Michael, it feels like there are certain truisms about living in this city, immutable facts of being a resident of New York City. And the first one that comes to mind is there's going to be traffic in Times Square. The second is that the pizza here is not as good as everyone says it is.

New Haven's better. And the third is that if you want to go see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, it's always going to be available to you. It's a permanent piece of the architecture of the city. And now you're telling me that one of these things is no longer true. Right. And I guess I'm not supposed to choose the pizza. You're not supposed to choose the pizza. You're not supposed to choose the pizza. It's a moment that those of us who spend our

lives immersed in theater never thought was going to happen. The Phantom of the Opera is closing. It felt like it was a show that was going to last forever. And for all intents and purposes, it has.

How many years exactly has Phantom been on Broadway? It hit 35 years in January. Wow. I mean, by the time Phantom closes on Sunday, that's going to be the 13,981st performance. It has been seen by 20 million people, and it's made $1.4 billion. I have to admit that while awed by its longevity,

I don't know all that much about Phantom the show. And I love musical theater. You know that, Michael. You and I have actually been to shows together. And the thing about Phantom is there was no rush to go see it because it was always going to be there. So I need you to walk me through and help me understand exactly what it is that I've missed

and why the show is so integral to musical theater. Let's just start with the show's birth, when it arrives in New York and opens. What does the world of musical theater look like when Phantom comes here? Phantom arrives at sort of an inflection point both for Broadway and for New York City. The 70s were a really rough decade. A lot of people were moving out of the city. There was quite a bit of crime, particularly in Times Square, which of course is where Broadway is located.

Where we're located. And where we are located. And the art form of musical theater was facing a kind of existential crisis. The number of theaters is going down, the number of shows being produced is low, the neighborhood in which Broadway is located is troubled, New York itself is troubled, and the future is unclear. But at the same time, these musicals from England start to arrive. There's something that is sometimes called the British Invasion. And what are those shows?

Well, in 1979... What's new? Buenos Aires. ...comes Evita. I knew you'd be on me too. And... Wait, we're going to fly right by Evita without, like, even a ballad? Don't try, be Argentina.

The truth is I never left you. I mean, look, I skipped Joseph, in which I know you played a part in your childhood. My coat flew out of sight. The colors... Do you want to perform a little bit? No, no, no.

Okay, good. And in 1982. There's cats. And the central figure in this British invasion is this composer named Andrew Lloyd Webber. He's the guy who famously wrote the music for Joseph, for Evita, for Cats. And at some point in the mid-80s, he stumbles into a used bookstore and picks up a copy of this 1910 novel, The Phantom of the Opera. a copy of this 1910 novel, The Phantom of the Opera.

And it's in reading that novel that he starts to think seriously about turning this classic story into a musical. And he does. And he does. And just remind us, Michael, of the basic plot of this show that Andrew Lloyd Webber conjures from this novel. It might be embarrassing to ask for this plot, but I need it. Sure. So, The Phantom of the Opera is kind of a gothic romance set in 19th century Paris. It tells the story of this disfigured artistic genius, that's, of course, the Phantom, who lives holed up underneath the Paris Opera House,

and he becomes obsessed with this young soprano named Christine. The Phantom has been tutoring and nurturing and championing Christine so that she can lead this opera company, but also homicidal in his obsession with her. He's kind of a hidden controller of this opera house. He's extorting money from the guys who own it. And ultimately, Christine falls in love with a childhood friend and decides to marry him.

And the Phantom, furious, kidnaps her. A mob chases the Phantom and Christine into his lair. And then he vanishes, magically, just ahead of this group of people coming to get him. The music of the night. He vanishes with this magical stage effect, leaving behind just the iconic mask. So that's the basic plot. The musical opens in London in 1986, and then two years later, it arrives here in New York on Broadway, 1988. And it's been here ever since. And what is the critical response to this show when it opens in New York? Well, you're laughing. I'm laughing. I mean, I've gone back a few times

to read the review in the New York Times by Frank Rich, who was then the theater critic for the paper and sometimes known as the butcher of Broadway. Right, right. He writes, it may be possible to have a terrible time at the Phantom of the Opera, but you'll have to work at it. Backhanded compliment. Indeed. The review is, I would say, kind of contemptuous of its elements.

But it acknowledges that it's effective. And what did audiences make of it? Audiences loved it before the first performance. There were lines overnight outside the theater to buy tickets. overnight outside the theater to buy tickets. There is something about the show that has enraptured audiences and did so from the beginning. Help me understand that. I mean, I wonder if there's a moment or a song that captures what it is that has people camped out waiting for tickets and falling in love with the show in a way that our colleague Frank Rich did not.

I mean, there are a few moments in the show that I think no one who has seen it ever forgets. There's the crashing chandelier, there's the masquerade ball. But I think for many of us, it's when they sing the title song, The Phantom of the Opera. While the Phantom is rowing Christine across his subterranean lake to his lair. The Phantom of the Opera is here. And it's like misty and magical. Sing for me! And magical.

Shine for me! Christine, she hits this high E that feels like it could shatter a mirror. As all of this is becoming a cultural phenomenon in that opening year, just how big a hit does Phantom become? Look, it's huge. Everyone who has seen this musical comes away enchanted. Andrew Lloyd Webber is on the cover of Time magazine. Wow.

The show is selling out. There's no question. Phantom of the Opera is the entertainment event of the year. And a few months after opening... Welcome to the 1988 Tony Awards. It completely dominates at the Tony Awards, which are the biggest annual awards for Broadway. And the winner is... The Phantom of the Opera.

It wins seven, including the biggest one, which is for Best New Musical. So more or less a clean sweep. Definitely. It's not only selling out in New York, but it's now touring the United States. And the show itself is so big and so spectacular that theaters have to expand their buildings to accommodate it. It is breathing new life into the touring industry. And of course, in New York, it's kind of a bridge between a Broadway that was an existential crisis for the art form and the industry to an era when musical theater is once again popular. Look, Broadway is an incredibly failure-prone industry.

Almost 75% of shows flame out. Like, musicals are lucky to run three to five years, and 35 years is completely unheard of. So I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about Phantom's longevity. And one way of thinking about that was to talk to the people involved with the show. And so when the Daily's producers and I went to spend a day backstage, we visited with so many members of the company, cast and crew, and just asked them what it has meant to spend so much of their lives working on this single piece of art and how

they're feeling now that it's coming to an end. All right, you ready? I'm ready. Tell me your name. Marie Johnson. Marie Johnson. And what do you do at Phantom of the Opera? I'm ready. Tell me your name. Marie Johnson. Marie Johnson. And what do you do at Phantom of the Opera? I do Madame Giry. I play Madame Giry. So one thing that really interested me about you is early in your career you were Christine, the ingenue student. Now you are Madame Giry who is Christine's teacher, instructor, patron.

Yeah. What is it like? The whole age of the show has carried through your life. Yeah. I mean, it's art replicating life in a way because I was green when I was cast as Christine. I was a young performer. It was my second show.

So it wasn't hard to do in that sense, tapping into who she was. And now, same life has moved on and I know a lot more and I sort of try to bring that history now to Madame Giry, a little darker side, a little wiser. We call ourselves the Phantom Family, and families are protective and safe spaces. They're also sometimes a little dysfunctional. So it's truly that. And what just feels like, what feels distinct and special about this show? Especially like, you know, there's nothing else like it, I guess.

Nothing else like it, no, just a sense of family between everybody here. And it's a family with a PH, it's... I used to like hate that term, now I kinda love it, so. It's very, very significant to my life. I have two children that were born into the show. They don't know any difference. Currently, it's kind of a lot of my identity.

It's like when you get married and you join a family that has a ton of history together, I'm sort of like the new wife in the family. But you've been embraced, do you think? Totally. It's theater folk, so it's like there's a lot of heart here. The other day I came off stage and I just stood in the wings and I I totally just had tears streaming down my face that sounds so corny but it's true because I was it was the same feeling that I had when I was four now

watching that and what that means on stage, these audiences are so nuts because they all have that same thing. And I have it too, because I'm a theater nerd at the end of the day and a Phantom nerd. Follow there. A little tight. The first act has just ended, and the crew now has 13 minutes to remake the set

for the opening of Act 2, which is the famous masquerade scene. Sort of with our toes up here, that way there's room for people to pass behind us. Oh, yeah. Yeah. As the production stage manager, luckily the 13 minutes of intermission are my closest thing to a break that I ever get in the show. Yeah. I mean, being a part of something this big and this long, when you're standing back here, like, when you do get a moment, what are you thinking? What's going through your mind?

Just trying to take a mental snapshot. Remember what one moment looks like or sounds like or even smells like. We have a lot of pyrotechnics in the show and they each have their own unique afterburn type smell. By smelling each of those effects, I know which point in the show we're in. Hopefully, when I'm later on in my career, and hopefully people will still wanna know about this and ask about it, and maybe, hopefully this is something that can continue to be celebrated and thought of for a while.

Oh, thank you. Just don't start to get up. You should go back to your seat belt. Thank you. Oh, God. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Michael, why is Phantom closing?

Why is this spectacular, seemingly unbreakable juggernaut of a musical theater production finally leaving? Look, I mean, the bottom line is that everything runs its course. And Phantom was not exempt from the laws of gravity. It just took longer. The truth is that Phantom has had some brushes with death over the years. It's had periods when it's been doing really well and periods when it's struggling.

When you went pre-pandemic, there was an amazing number of people who were non-English speakers in the audience. number of people who were non-English speakers in the audience. And it was kind of a landmark for global travelers. It was in all the guidebooks. And then the pandemic arrived. Broadway was closed for a year and a half. And Phantom comes back in the fall of 2021. But pretty quickly, attendance starts to flag. And by 2022, Phantom is having more losing weeks than winning weeks. Right. And there's not a lot of tolerance for that when it comes to Broadway. So you're saying the death bell is starting to gently toll. It's bad. And Phantom has some unique vulnerabilities. I mean, first of all,

Phantom is a big show. It has a lot of performers, it has a lot of musicians, and it has a very big and elaborate set, but it's also really expensive. And we're living in an inflationary environment, costs are rising, and producers decide they need to move on. And I have to imagine, those economic issues aside, that after all these decades, the show has possibly also run its artistic course, right? I mean, tastes change. Yeah, I mean, you're setting a trap for me here, of course. Am I? Yeah, I mean, you're setting a trap for me here, of course.

Am I? I mean, absolutely. Tastes change, artistic forms change. But sure, it was old-fashioned when it opened. I mean, it's set in the 19th century. Its fundamental musical form is opera. And the kind of grandiosity of everything about it is not the aesthetic of 2023. And what do you mean? What is, in your mind, the aesthetic of 2023 on Broadway?

Sure, I've been thinking a lot about this question. I mean, I think in many ways, Broadway now is sort of bifurcated between two kind of competing forms of performance. Where do you want to begin? From the top. Places! One is this giant branded show. This begins with adaptations of movies. Right.

And now we think more about jukebox musicals, which are musicals that are adapted from the song catalogs of pop stars. And five, six, seven, come on! song catalogs of pop stars. And five, six, seven, come on! So I'm thinking about MJ, which is about Michael Jackson. So please put your hands together for a rich debut. And Tina, which is about Tina Turner.

Whoa, what's new got to do, got to do with it? Of course, most famously, Jersey Boys. You're from my neighborhood, you got three ways out. You could join the army, you could get mobbed up, or you could become a star. There are a ton of musicals arriving on Broadway kind of pre-branded with very familiar stories or stars or songs. Right. This is a newer variety of show designed to be commercially successful, not considered the great craftsmanship of Broadway. Yeah. Some of them are super fun. Some of them are good. A lot of the performances are excellent. But they're probably not the shows that are moving the art form forward. And that's the other vein of show that is happening now.

And those are musicals that are really different from Phantom. The musicals that I'm thinking about now are often intimate and psychological and much more focused on storytelling, lyrics, character. Thinking about shows like Dear Evan Hansen. Next to normal Your short hair and your dungarees And your lace-up boots

And your keys Fun Home, these are shows that are much smaller in scale than Phantom. They are naturalistic. They are grappling with contemporary issues. They are prioritizing storytelling over stagecraft. Right. And the content is harder. I mean, Fun Home, I saw it. That's a show about a young lesbian artist

revisiting her childhood and the death of her closeted father. I mean, that is not Phantom of the Opera. No, Phantom has its own darkness, but its darkness is mythic, and the darkness of these shows is much more familiar. It's the darkness of our neighbors. You know, look to the show that won the Tony most recently. It's called A Strange Loop.

I am the story's writer. And it couldn't be more different than The Phantom of the Opera. When I am nothing more than an angsty gay black man. It's about a young

aspiring musical theater artist who is grappling with a sense that me, well, I stand apart. He just doesn't fit into the worlds he wants to be part of.

Broadway, gay culture in New York, his own family. Yeah, look, it's raw, it's painful, it's painful, it's moving, it's provocative, challenging in all kinds of contemporary ways that tell us a little bit about how the art form and how Broadway have changed in the decades since Phantom arrived. Well, stay with that.

I mean, what does a journey that takes you from a Tony Award for Phantom in 1988 to a Tony Award for A Strange Loop last year, what does that tell us about the evolution of musical theater and about we, the consumer of musical theater, and what we now demand from the art form? I think part of what is being celebrated on Broadway we the consumer of musical theater, and what we now demand from the art form. I think part of what is being celebrated on Broadway and in theater today is people's ability to see themselves

represented on stage. These stories are not the kind of mythic fables of Phantom. They are the stories of our contemporaries wrestling with the challenges of modern life. And that's undeniably a very healthy evolution because this is a Broadway, this is a musical theater that better reflects modern reality and its complexities and yet this evolution means that the show that the critics love and that

the industry crowns is the best is probably not going to have the same appeal as a show like Phantom. And Phantom, arguably, can bring the grandmother who's ultra-religious and the kid who's exploring their identity and everyone in between. And A Strange Loop shows like Fun Home, their appeal is narrower. home, their appeal is narrower. So does Phantom Closing bring us to a moment in musical theater where the idea of a universally accessible hit with the craftsmanship of prestige theater is perhaps a little bit in danger? I mean, of course, all of us have been talking for some years about the atomization of taste, right? And when you think about film or television or pop music or theater, there is no longer a kind of consensus about what we all like. We don't all like anything anymore.

anymore. You know, every show aspires to be universal, and both Fun Home and A Strange Loop and everything else talks about the universality of its themes, even if its characters are really specific. But the marketplace is telling you that there's something about your premise that is correct, because Phantom has made $6 billion globally, and A Strange Loop, you know, closed at a loss on Broadway. Right, despite winning the Tony. Despite winning the Tony and the Pulitzer and kind of universal critical acclaim. So this is leaving a hole on Broadway, literally, figuratively, aesthetically. And what do we think is going to fill it? Yeah, like the Majestic Theater, this grand, fantastic building, one of only 41 theaters on Broadway, has been locked up by Phantom.

And something new is going to go in there. And in a way, that's like a symbol for where we are on Broadway. Like we don't get to know what's ahead. where we are on Broadway, like we don't get to know what's ahead. How do you think musical theatre has changed? There's a broader palette to choose from. You know, it was so striking when we were backstage talking to cast and crew, I expected to encounter a lot of tears and... We're getting newer audience, different audiences, a more diverse audience.

It's sad it's closing, but it will make way. It'll pave the way for new creative input to this story. I think that's a great thing. People were really not bereft. They were kind of sanguine. They were reflective. Iuine. They were reflective. I hope these spectacle shows stay. And that's what Broadway is.

Broadway is big. It's size. It's, you know, it's important to be able to experience something like that on a big scale. I think, of course, they're sad that this show that they love and that has sustained them for so long is coming to an end. But they also love the theater and they recognize that as Phantom closes, it creates both literal and metaphorical space for another work of art to come in. And that's what everyone looks forward to. Right. As one phantom closes, another Broadway door opens. As one phantom closes, another door opens. Yeah.

I think Broadway is ever-evolving. And what we opened in 1988 has had its time. It's time for there to be new things. So yes, there's loss, but what's to be gained? Well, Michael, this was truly a wonderful conversation, so thank you very much. It's so fun talking to you. We'll be right back. in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information. On Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the arrest of a suspect in the embarrassing leak of hundreds of pages of classified military intelligence over the past few months.

FBI agents took Teixeira into custody earlier this afternoon without incident. The suspect, Jack Tashara, works in the intelligence unit of the Massachusetts National Guard and led an online group where many of the secret documents were first shared. Their disclosure has upset America's allies and exposed the weakness of the Ukrainian army as it defends itself against Russia. Tashara is expected to face charges under the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to distribute documents related to national defense

that could be used to harm the United States or help its enemies. to harm the United States or help its enemies. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper and Eric Krupke, with help from Nina Feldman and Claire Tennesketter. It was edited by Lexi Diao, with help from Michael Benoit. Contains original music by Alisha Ba'itu, Dan Powell, Corey Schreppel, Marion Lozano, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsvark of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday.