Andrew Lloyd Webber is still unhappy that “The Phantom of the Opera” is no longer on Broadway. “Ludicrous,” he calls it.
But the composer, one of the most successful in the history of musical theater, is moving on.
That is why, on a recent Friday, he strode up a busy street in Midtown Manhattan and donned a lacy black mask before slipping through the doors of a former art shop that now houses a new version of “Phantom” called “Masquerade.” In this $25 million, immersive theatrical experience, patrons move through the story and the building, taking in scenes, songs and setpieces from the reimagined show.
Lloyd Webber, 77, has embraced a fresh round of innovation in recent years, endorsing efforts by a new generation of collaborators to reinterpret his hit shows. “Cats” with drag queens? It’s coming to Broadway early next year. A revival of “Evita,” with its most famous scene played to spectators on the sidewalk, was a sensation in London this summer. And now, with the director Diane Paulus at the helm, “Phantom” is the latest to get a makeover.
“We’ve got to think outside the box with some of the older things,” Lloyd Webber told me. “I really do think it’s time to let people have a go with a completely different way.”
For those who know “The Phantom of the Opera,” which ran for a record 35 years on Broadway, “Masquerade” will be comfortingly familiar. It’s still about a disfigured musical genius who haunts an opera house and is obsessed with a young soprano. But it has also been reconfigured, in that the story is mostly told from the phantom’s perspective — he gets much more back story here — and there are new scenes and about an hour of newish music (including a song that was cut from the film adaptation). It’s also pricey — the least expensive tickets currently available are $221.50.
A cast of 38 play the show six times each night, and six groups of about 60 people, each entering with staggered start times, move through the building — a grand but shabby landmark across the street from Nordstrom. The six-story journey includes, weather permitting, climactic scenes on a rooftop.
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The post Now Andrew Lloyd Webber Is the One Wearing the Mask appeared first on New York Times.
