Webber, Brightman & Crawford at Phantom NY Opening / WireImage
Hollywood has made millions of dollars off of sequels; now it is the Broadway's turn. Andrew Lloyd Webber has announced that he has written the music for a sequel to his smash international hit Phantom of the Opera and hopes to stage it in 2009. Ok then. We have had the movie-to-musical experience and the movie-to musical-to movie deal; now we can begin to squeeze more life out of shows by coming up with sequels. This should get very interesting.
Sir Andrew has been quoted as saying...
"I've made a decision that I will do The Phantom of the Opera sequel. And I have met with a couple people today who have persuaded me to do it, who I will not reveal, but it's a very exciting day for me. . . It's going to be very exciting, and I can reveal that it will be set in New York."
The new musical is will follow Mr. Phantom to New York City (can you say "Phantom Takes Manhattan"?) and is set at Coney Island. The show will reportedly take place in 1900 and will reunite our leading man with Christine. Earlier, Webber was using the book Phantom in Manhattan as the inspiration/source material for the project but at this point that is not the case.
I love the idea of a Coney Island locale. My first thought is: will there be some fantastic roller coaster special effect that can rival the falling chandelier? Pause here whilst I admit that I was NEVER a fan of the chandelier - when I saw Phantom the first time, the chandelier fell and I thought, "that was it?" A friend of mine saw the show and the chandelier got stuck "mid-fall" - hysterical.
Back to the sequel. The show will have book and music by Sir Andrew and the lyrics will be written by Glenn Slater. Earlier reports had Webber reuniting with Tim Rice for this project, but that turned out to be incorrect info. Slater is on board having previously penned new songs for the B'way version of The Little Mermaid and is working on the upcoming Sister Act as well as a musical version of the Coen Brothers' film The Hudsucker Proxy. Jack O'Brien (Hairspray) is expected to direct and Bob Crowley (Mary Poppins) will take on the design tasks.
There have already been so many rumors about this show and most of them have turned out to be false, but I can't help letting you in on another one that I heard. Word on the street is that Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman have both agreed to return to the roles that made them famous. Who knows if this is true, but if it is - WOW! That is how they do it in Hollywood; the stars always come back for the first sequel.
If Phantom Takes Manhattan (that is my title, not the actual title of the show) is a huge hit, we can expect more and more sequels. Here are my suggestions for some sequels: Cats II: Felines vs. Canines (the junkyard isn't big enough for cats and dogs - one of them has to go - they battle in dance and song), Grease: The Reunion (20 years later the kids from Rydell High return to find out that they are no longer cool - Rizzo has 5 kids, Sandy is a Avon representative and Danny Zuko teaches geometry at Rydell and has a pocket protector - hilarity ensues). Oh and there is another breed of sequel in the Alien vs. Predator mode - where you mash two shows together. They could do Oklahoma vs. Chicago (Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly end up in Oklahoma and duke it out for Curly's affections until Laurie tries to reclaim her man. The Dream Ballet could be a very Fosse meets DeMille.) Ok, those are my ideas - what are yours?
~ See You On The Aisle
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The Wizards of OZ - sent in the prison,OZ - gives "Follow the yellow brick road" a whole new meaning!
Cats II could take a West Side Story feel to it: Tony(!) the Tiger(looking cat) falls in love with Lady, even though they know they can never be together. Litter-box training or going in the yard, how can they even live together?? Or Hairspray:Death to Aerosol, where all of the earth-friendly groups attack Baltimore for literally putting a hole in the Ozone Layer. Discuss.
Death of a Salesman 2; the comedy!
I love the thought of Agnes and Bob's chorography together. They would roll over in their graves.
This is either a huge ego or good old American greed speaking. Mr. Webber should take a page from GWTW 2. Sometimes you don't need a sequel Andrew!
"Test" the musical? Perhaps Act 2 will only continue if the audience correctly answers enough musical theater triva questions
NO NO NO NO they need to stop it!!!!! They couldn't even come close to the original. Phantom of the Opera is a masterpiece and I think the idea is nice of letting you know what happens to Christine/Phantom but thats the beauty of the original- the mystery the show leaves in your head"What happened to Christine/Phantom"? along side with that its a beautiful love story, beautiful costumes, beautiful songs just an all around MASTERPIECE.
how about Evita meets Mary Poppins?
Was this article written by a junior high journalism student? More details and less corny jokes, please! This article tells us very little. Perhaps very little is known about this project, but then the author should have written a short article without all the extra fluff.
Maybe Webber needs the money?! However, some insight into the sequal to Phantom: Christine becomes a waitress in NYC at "21" and the Phantom moves to Brooklyn and opens and becomes the main attraction at the Coney Island side show. Christine leaves her job in Manhattan and joins the show as Brooklyn version of Jenny Lind.
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