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THE ‘PHANTOM’ PHENOMENON
Harold Prince Has Made Broadway Hits For 60 Years
By FRANK RIZZO
April 26, 2009
NEW YORK
Harold Prince was sitting with his wife, Judy, at a popular theater-district
restaurant recently, gazing out from his table at the Majestic Theatre where
"The Phantom of the Opera" has been playing for the past 21 years.
It was
7 p.m., and there was no line of people waiting for cancellations. Prince, who
directed the production, wondered if this marked the beginning of the end for
the show, which is the longest-running in Broadway history, at nearly 9,000
performances.
Not to worry.
By 7:30, a line had formed and quickly
grew, eventually stretching down 44th Street past theaters with newer
shows.
"The Phantom of the Opera" was there to stay. But for how
long?
When asked this week if he could guess at the show's eventual
closing date, Prince shook his head and shrugged, "I just don't see it
closing."
People are returning again and again, in good times and in bad,
to the spectacular-looking musical about a half-masked man and his romantic
obsession. Audiences are still turning out for the national tour, which is in
its fourth engagement at Hartford's Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts. Its
three-week run opened Wednesday and continues through May 10.
"Phantom"
fans are excited, too, about the prospect of a sequel. "Love Never Dies," which
is set in Coney Island and includes the original's leading characters, opens
this fall in Toronto. Andrew Lloyd Webber has created the score, with lyrics by
Glenn Slater and a book by Ben Elton.
Has there ever been a successful
sequel of a hit musical?
Prince could not recall, mentioning "Annie 2,"
which failed to enchant audiences. "Bring Back Birdie," a follow-up to "Bye Bye
Birdie," also flopped. A follow-up to a hit — a staple in movies — has proved to
be elusive on the stage.
Prince says he wishes the best to Sir Andrew and
the director of the sequel, Jack O'Brien. But the multiple Tony Award-winning
director (Prince has 21 statuettes) has his own projects to develop.
At
81, Prince is tan and robust, seemingly unaffected by a minor stroke he had last
year.
In his office at Rockefeller Center, he recalled when he was first
asked to be part of "Phantom."
He was dining alone in the mid-'80s in a
restaurant when he was asked by Lloyd Webber and his-then wife, Sarah Brightman,
to join them. Prince had staged the Lloyd Webber- Tim Rice musical "Evita" —
which became a worldwide sensation years earlier — and had developed a
friendship with the composer. Lloyd Webber told Prince he was working on a new
show based on the famous Lon Chaney silent film (itself based on a 1910 French
novel) about a deformed and mad composer hiding in the catacombs of the Paris
Opera House.
Prince says he was immediately sold.
"What I loved
about the idea of the show was the romance," he says. Prince signed on to direct
the show, but he insisted that Brightman compete for the role of heroine
Christine Daae.
"He was not happy about that at all," says Prince of
Lloyd Webber. "In fact he was very angry about it, but I told him that was my
condition for taking the job."
Prince had long been seen as the master
director of musicals, staging "Cabaret," "Zorba," "Candide," "She Loves Me" and
"On the Twentieth Century," as well as the Stephen Sondheim shows "Company,"
"Follies," "A Little Night Music," "Pacific Overtures," "Merrily We Roll Along"
and "Sweeney Todd."
Brightman, who Prince says looks like the
quintessential Victorian figurine and could reach impossibly high notes, won the
role. But the nonmusical scenes were a challenge; Prince pared down the dialogue
and made the production more of a sung-through show.
Lloyd Webber was a
willing and creative collaborator during the long period from conception to the
first audience. It was worth the time, effort and travel between London and New
York, Prince says, as "the first preview is virtually the same show that is
running today."
That it would become a phenomenon was something neither
he nor any of the creators could have predicted.
Methods of producing
since Prince worked on his first Broadway show 60 years ago have changed
dramatically. Gone are the days of the out-of-town tryout and a single producer
casting and crafting a show.
"We have to have more creative producers and
fewer producers [in name only]," he says, referring to those who are strictly
investors. "Just putting your name over the title of a play does not mean you're
a producer. It may mean you get a Tony Award, but who are they fooling? Do they
think they've earned that award? I don't think so."
Prince laments the
proliferation of revivals over new work on Broadway and says he can't understand
their popularity with producers, inasmuch as few are financial successes. (He
notes the just-opened revival of "West Side Story" appears to be an
exception.)
Though most of his hit shows have been revived and revived
again over the years, he says many would not be produced today if they were new
works.
There is plenty of talent, but they're not given time to grow into
greatness. "Almost every show I did with new composers were flops," he says. "It
was their next show that was a hit."
He is not
interested in writing his memoirs. He took one stab at it in the 1970s
("Contradictions") and will leave the stories and analysis to others. Several
biographies have been written about him, including an authoritative one by Carol
Ilson. Prince is focusing on his next big project, "Paradise Found," with a book
by playwright Richard Nelson, inspired by Joseph Roth's Vienna-set novel "The
Tale of the 1002nd Night." The show has music by waltz king Johann Strauss II
and Jonathan Tunick, who also orchestrates. Lyrics are by Ellen Fitzhugh. Prince
envisions a Boston tryout and a cast that includes Mandy Patinkin, John Cullum
and Judy Kaye. But the future of the show is in the hands of the producers, who
must find financing for the lush, romantic musical.
Prince says he can't
understand the trend of making musicals from movies, when the success rate is so
low. It is suggested that familiarity with a movie title may be the
reason.
"Look, one of the most dangerous things that ever happened to
Broadway, oddly enough, I am the beneficiary of, and that's the onerous word
'branding.' 'Phantom' is the biggest brand there is. But 'Phantom' didn't start
out a brand. It started out as a show.
"I think it's time, before it's
too late, that we take the audience where we want to go," he
says, and not just give them what is expected. "Audiences are smarter than we
think, and they will follow."
Sometimes, as with "Phantom," they'll keep
following for decades.