Everything's Waiting

So, tomorrow my parents are leaving. I haven't really thought about it much -- I don't think there's much I can do to really prepare for it. Hopefully, being in a more stable emotional condition, things will be a little easier this time. The day they come back, however, is going to be insane. Have to move my grandma in here and everything and on top of that, it's prom. I'm glad my cousin is going to come over and help me get ready/drive me to school to take the shuttle. I'd like to separate myself from the chaos a little.

And it has been chaos. Oh, adults. I love how majority of the people involved in this venture are not often willing to put my grandma's needs over their own selfish ones.

Lighter news? I don't know. I've talked about SA a lot and I've already dissected American Idol (though, Carly being kicked off? Did NOT see that coming).

Did you see Paul Stanley of KISS/Canadian Phantom fame in the audience right between the judges opinions and the flashing of the phone number at the end of David A's performance? :)

I still have an epic post to post, but it's not very completed yet. Inevitably when it is done it'll be so long no one will want to read it.

In other news, tomorrow is the day of silence. Today I warned all my teachers I'd be participating, and they were all very good about it. Mr. Byrne was like... amazingly nice about it. I wish I could make it to a breaking the silence event but, you know, I won't have any ride to take me to one. Or anywhere except school in the morning until prom :x

In other other news, I'm sick :( I've been sickish for a few days now -- at least it's not like last time I was sick :P I slept for a while tonight and I still don't feel entirely there. I would probably stay home tomorrow if it weren't for the APUSH test and DoS. So, I'm gonna go shower and sleep and hopefully I'll be feeling a little better tomorrow.

Excuse me, I'm about to go Phantom geeky.

I was looking at this old archive of PotO cast lists by month for, um, every month ever up until Jan 2007, to figure out when it was that Jeff Keller and George Lee Andrews switched roles as mentioned in the latest [tos] show (it was April 2001, by the way).

In the chat we'd been discussing the Spring Awakening cast changes and why understudies don't usually seem to be promoted to leads ever in shows. Well, looking at these Phantom lists, I'm kind of amazed at how much ensemble members/understudies DO get promoted to leads in Phantom.

LET US EXAMINE THIS

First, the OBC of Phantom. January 1988. These are just the names I recognize offhand:

Monsieur André ... Cris Groenendaal <-- Would become Phantom March 1989
Porter/Marksman ... Jeff Keller <-- Would become André April 1989 (Replacing Cris) -- Apparently also Phantom in May 94
Princess (Usually also Christine u/s) ... Rebecca Luker <-- Becomes Christine March 1989
Don Attilio/ Passarino ... George Lee Andrews <-- Becomes Firmin May 1990 (and then André in the switch)

That's just the OBC. Some other notable names I came across in skimming the lists:

(I blabbed a lot, so I've picked out the swings/princesses/similar that went on to the leads and left everything else under a cut)

*Laurie Gayle Stephenson became a swing in 5/93. I'm pretty sure she's played Christine. -- YES I'M RIGHT SHE DID
*Brad Little was a swing in 3/94 and he's been Phantom... That surprises me. He's also been Raoul.
*Kimilee Bryant was Princess around 94, she's been Christine
*Gary Mauer became a swing in 7/95. He's been Raoul and Phantom.
*Melissa Dye became Princess in 8/95. She'd be a Toronto Christine around the time Paul Stanley was in the show.
*Rebecca Pitcher became Princess in 2/98, she'd later be Christine
*Jim Weitzer became a swing in 7/98 -- he'd later play Raoul.
*Elizabeth Southard started as Princess in 7/99. She'd later play Christine on tour among other places.
*Marie Danvers started as Princess in 12/99. She'd later play Christine (she replaced Southard, here, and it's a little ironic because she and Southard were Christine/alt on tour at the same time while Southard's husband Gary Mauer played Phantom, and at the time this princess switching was going on Gary was playing Raoul)


( More... )

*Special mention to James Romick because I hadn't realized he's been a swing for so. many. years. He got to represent Phantom at the Broadway's Back concert.



Also, I didn't get cast in the school musical for those wondering. Ah, well. C'est la vie.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/paige/essentialvote.shtml

LOOK AT #7.

...THEN LOOK AT #8

:0000

Shock aside -- Elaine Paige has a TV show? It's probably worth looking into which of these musicals Elaine Paige has been in :P

But that list wins just for mentioning Leroux.

Update: Elaine Paige has been in 5 of the 10 musicals on that list.

I have just finished Susan Kay's infamous Phantom of the Opera adaption, Phantom. What a read. I have heard so much praise for this book and it's held in nearly as much esteem (But of course, not quite as much!) as Leroux's beloved original by the Phantom Phan community, despite complaints I hear of some irksome elements of her story. It deserves it.

In the special features of the 2004 movie DVD set, Joel Schumacher says something on the order of, "Once an audience understands why a character is the way they are, they understand who they are." I never really entirely got his purpose for that comment, but I think it really explains the allure of the Kay novel.

Erik is a man who has committed some horrific crimes. When we meet him in the Leroux novel, he's, well, not entirely in his right mind from most people's perspectives. He kills and harasses without remorse. We feel sympathy for him because of the cruel society that has driven him to his state of mind, mostly because Leroux encourages us to look at Erik beyond a cardboard villian, but that sympathy only goes so far. Once we know his modivation, the story of his life which Susan Kay so elegantly and passionately tells him, somehow we can understand him better. Somehow we can forgive him more. Once we understand why he has become how he has, we can better understand him as he is.

Up until Christine comes into the picture, which I will get to in a moment, Kay continually blew me away again and again, and her foreshadowing and fierce loyalty to the little details of Erik's past we are given in the Leroux are admirable. What I thought was the real test for her was the section of the book from Nadir's Point of View. Nadir (The name Kay gave to our beloved Persian form the Leroux and which has now become a detail used in fanfiction as unquestionably as if it were canon) passes, wonderfully sticking in personality, just in his character's voice, to the sections of the Leroux which are also from his first person. Everything just seems to fall into place, an amazing prequel to the famous tale as told by Leroux, all the details seem to fit leading up to Erik's time as the Palais Garnier's Phantom.

But then Erik arrives at the Opera House and the famous story begins to be retold, and I'm found quite disappointed. I don't know what I expected Kay to do here, she can't feasibly just re-write the Leroux novel, dialogue and all, from a different Point of View. But it seems her wonderful sections leading up to the end seem to almost fit better with the Leroux novel than they do Kay's own rendition of the tale. And Kay's Christine is frusteratingly lacking a backbone, or any personality really. she's just... yuck. I can't say I'm not surprised that Kay seemed to do such a bad job with her after having done so well up 'til then. But Kay wrote this book before the Leonard Wolf translation was avaliable, and it sounds like she was going off a translation where the subject of Christine was not well elaborated on.

( Warning: Spoiler )

And the cat kinda annoyed me too.

And I can't believe Kay said Christine had dark hair. Any real Phan knows in the Leroux Christine was blonde. That annoyed me.

But overall I applaud it, it's definately worth the read.

I listened to someone's bootleg of a London production of The Phantom of the Opera (Sounded like the guy in the clips in Behind the Mask on the Special Features DVD, and at the end he gave a speech (Which I could hardly understand with all those phans cheering :P) and said it was his last performance, and I think he'd said he'd been doing it for 14 years. Anyone know which cast this might've been? I'll get the link later...) and it was AMAZING. I'm probably PMSing anyway, but I've never cried like some people at the end of the movie, but when this came to an end, even though I was only listening not watching, I had a lump in my throat. The movie just can't compare, even listening to some bad quality bootleg. God, I want to see the stage show so bad now...I hadn't even meant to listen to the whole thing, I just meant to check out Music of the Night, but I ended up sitting there for at least a half an hour just staring at the visualization thing swirling around and listening.

In other news, PATTA COMES TOMORROW! Teh wowzers.

I wasn't very pleased with my first batch of Phantom icons at mosaic100, but I spent a lot of time on these and I think they're my best yet.

10 Phantom icons for mosaic100
10 General The Phantom of the Opera (2004) icons

For mosaic100:
Subject: 'The Phantom' (character) of The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Batch #2: (#31-41)
Themes: 1. rush 2. cosmic shift (Hey, cosmic = stars, and its kinda starry-looking) 3. the dark side 5. naughty 6. whole new world 9. blue
Additional notes: Credits under the cut. Comment if you take, no editing (textless aren't bases).

Teasers:



( Have you missed me, good messiers? )