I am a second grade tutor for my nephew. I go to their house every day for school. I sit with him and help him through it. It's been a struggle some days- but then I had a break through. I had HIM teach ME! Guys, Common Core math is no joke. I would have never made it out of kindergarten! I showed him "my" math and he said it was called "extended math" I felt like Mr Incredible when he said, "you can't change Math! Math is Math!"
Oh man. ODB has been having a ball watching me struggle trying to addition and subtraction on a number line. What a mess. But if it gets that kid excited to to schoolwork- I'll make myself the fool.
The 4th grader wrote out an assignment for me today- adding odd fractions and reducing them down. Oh my gosh. I broke out in the math sweats for that one!
Whew! Thank Goodness it's Friday, right?
Which brings us to the whole point of this post. While scrolling through some site or other, I serendipitously came across a notice that The Phantom of the Opera was playing on YouTube this weekend. I've already watched a show from the National Theatre of London- One Man, Two Guvnors starring James Cordon (super funny!)
I plan on taking full advantage of the streaming productions! I missed last week's adaptation of Jane Eyre- for which I'm totally kicking myself because it is one of my all time favorite love stories. Never again! I will not miss another one!
So when I saw that the Phantom was a very limited release- I dropped everything to watch it. (any by "everything" I mean flipping through shows on Disney+ or Hulu)
The version released by The Show Must Go On was the 25th Anniversary edition- so it's like, 10 years old- but it was so good! plus the star playing Christine was Sierra Boggess. I saw her live in Denver when the original cast of The Little Mermaid was doing a pre-Broadway tour. So that was a fun connection.
It's confession time. As much as I love Wicked... and Les Mis... I LOVE Phantom. I will admit that I have seen it five times on the stage. Every time it comes to a theater near me, I have to go. Like, I HAVE to.
I was first introduced to it my sophomore year of high school. Though only a soph I was asked at the very last minute to take a spot on the Senior Choir tour (and by last minute- I mean Last. Minute. They called me Sunday night at 10:00 to leave at 4 am on Monday- fastest packing I've ever done in my life!). We went to Los Angeles that year. We spent a day at Disneyland- but oddly that was not my favorite thing. The evening spent at the Phantom changed my life.
I have always loved musicals- that's what I grew up on. While most kids my age were listening to rock and roll or country- I was listening to Rodgers and Hammerstein and Disney. But I had never experienced anything like this before. Andrew Lloyd Webber changed my world!
Me with my choir teacher, Hage.
How cute is my dress??? My mom made it! I felt so awkward and out of fashion- but looking back now, dang it was cute! I wish I could pull that kind of dress off now! No, I can't. Trust me.
I remember not being able to breathe. It was so amazing. I was afraid if I blinked I'd miss something. It was incredible.
That night I bought my first ever CD (that's a nice story, grandma). I still have it. It's well worn. But I keep it safe. Somewhere in the 20-something years I lost the booklet of lyrics- but the CDS and case are original.
Two years later on another choir tour we went to San Francisco. This time as a senior I didn't have to be invited. I was already in Senior Choir! We voted what activities we wanted to do on tour- of course I voted for Phantom. Oh. Yes.
The fanciest dress I've ever owned... it was also my graduation dress
This time was special because I had time to plan ahead. Last time I bought the CD... what could I buy this time? I opted for a replica of the phantom's mask. I even paid a little extra for a tour after the production. I got to see the stage, the trap doors and all the marks- and then we went backstage and met Franc D'Ambrosio who played the Phantom. You can't really see in the picture, but he signed my mask.
It was the best day of my life! I still have that mask! It is a box somewhere in my mom's basement- but this is inspiring me to go digging for it and bring it back out into the light of day.
In the ensuing years I listened to the music often- and sang it every time. Back in the day when my friends and I used to gather around the piano and sing it was always part of our repertoire. My friend Ryan and I would sing Think of Me- and my personal Favorite solo was Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again.
For years it was my angry music. And my cleaning music. And my don't talk to me music. And now it's my nostalgic take-me-back-to-better-days music. Then they came out with the movie. Oh my gosh. I LOVED the movie! I've practically worn out my DVD. It's not as good as seeing it in person- but they can definitely do things on film that they can't accomplish on stage. It also introduced me to one of my celebrity crushes- Gerard Butler (who reigned for years until I "met" my love Richard).
I saw it those two times in Cali and then thrice in Salt Lake. No one in my mind can match Michael Crawford's Phantom- and Sarah Brightman's {original} Christine (she's done some other versions I'm not a huge fan of).
Anyway... I'm just rambing now. I could really just sit here and talk about it forever. A.L.W. is a true genius. I genius, I tell you (not counting the whole Love Never Dies debacle). For a while there I got some flack for liking Phantom. But people always seem to find ways to criticize things that shoot to popularity. There's a reason it's so popular! The music- the scoring- the lyrics. It's all brilliant.
So hopefully you see this before the show is done streaming- you have 24 hours! on your mark, get set. WATCH!
And let it give you all the feels- the goose bumps and the tears that it deserves. It is not the greatest rendition I've seen, but it soothes my soul nonetheless.
I hope your heart can handle it!
