Dr. Blackwell's BLOG

From Playbill.com:

Love Never Dies, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to The Phantom of the Opera that was previously set to open at the West End’s Adelphi Theatre in late October or early November, is now eyeing a London premiere “in March of next year, and on Broadway in the same season,” according to the composer, quoted in a Variety report from a press conference at the Eurovision Song Contest.

The original London cast will likely be led by Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, who have previously respectively played the title role and Christine in the London and Las Vegas incarnations of The Phantom of the Opera, according to a previous report.  The creative team also includes director Jack O’Brien, lyricist Glenn Slater, choreographer Jerry Mitchell and music supervisor Gareth Valentine.

A recent casting notice offered this brief description of Love Never Dies: “In 1907 New York, the mysterious ‘Maestro’ who runs the theatre at Coney Island announces a one-off concert by legendary Parisian soprano Christine Daaé. Her arrival in New York with husband Raoul, Victome de Chagny and son Gustave, and their subsequent meeting with the ‘Maestro,’ bring the cataclysmic events of 10 years earlier at the Paris Opera crashing back into all their lives.”

One of the greatest musicals to ever grace the stages of Broadway is making its return at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Ragtime, which I had the privilege of seeing in New York back in 1998, was an amazingly lavish production featuring, at the time, the largest budget and cast of any show in Broadway history. Unfortunately, that led to its untimely and early closing despite winning the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical and Tony Awards for Best Score, Best Book, Best Orchestrations, and Best Featured Actress. Ragtime is a highly respected and loved show and producers have been trying for close to a decade to bring it back to the Big White Way.

 The JFK Center production, which opens today (April 18th) and closes on May 17th, marks the first significant step forward for Ragtime‘s return. According to Playbill: “The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ production of the award-winning Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens-Terrence McNally musical Ragtime begins performances at the Washington, DC, venue April 18. Originally scheduled to play the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater through May 10, the production was recently extended for an additional week of performances through May 17. Opening night remains April 25. Marcia Milgrom Dodge directs and choreographs.”

Ragtime  has a compelling story authored by EL Doctorow that highlights a turn-of-the-century classist American society entrenched with racism, genderism, intolerance, and a greedy upper class that exploits the labor of the lower classes for its own power and financial gain. According to Ragtime‘s press notes: “At the start of the 20th century, New York City was for many the land of opportunity. Through a poor Jewish immigrant selling wares on the street, a wealthy Victorian couple offering aid to a runaway, and a Harlem jazz pianist out for justice, that unique brand of American hope runs strong. Together, their stories celebrate the struggle between tradition and independence in pursuit of the American dream.”

Playbill.com reported today Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to the Phantom of the Opera entitled Love Never Dies got itself a choreographer in Jerry Mitchell. Mitchell is hard at work staging the upcoming musical Catch Me If You Can, based on the true story depicted in the 2002 Steven Spielberg film. Also reported was some “loose” dates for the musical: Rehearsals will begin “approximately [in] August 2009.” Opening night will be “approximately [in] October 2009.” In addition, a unique description of the show was provided giving just a little more insight to the storyline:  “In 1907 New York, the mysterious ‘Maestro’ who runs the theatre at Coney Island announces a one-off concert by legendary Parisian soprano Christine Daaé. Her arrival in New York with husband Raoul, Victome de Chagny and son Gustave, and their subsequent meeting with the ‘Maestro,’ bring the cataclysmic events of 10 years earlier at the Paris Opera crashing back into all their lives.” Exciting news, indeed.

Playbill is reporting that the role of Christine Daaé has been cast for  Andrew Lloyd Webber’s upcoming sequel to The Phantom of the Opera:

“The talk of the town is that Sierra Boggess, the golden-voiced actress who created the role of The Little Mermaid on Broadway, will be an older — but perhaps no less romantically conflicted — Christine in the sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Baz Bamigboye of The Daily Mail Online reported that Phantom: Love Never Dies will star Boggess  and Ramin Karimloo (who plays the masked tenor in the London production of The Phantom of the Opera). In Love Never Dies, the disfigured Phantom — who released his beloved soprano and her love, Raoul, at the end of The Phantom of the Opera, and then disappeared in a flash — has been relocated from the Paris Opera to Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Christine apparently has a son, and is unhappily married to a now dissipated Raoul. The new story was created by Lloyd Webber, lyricist Slater, director O’Brien “and a twist of it was given to us by Ben Elton,” the composer previously said.”

Webber is hoping the show will bow at the end of 2009 in 3 separate locations. Boggess originated the role of Christine in Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular (which I saw 2 years ago–it was great to hear the music but the show was way too rushed to be enjoyable) and made her Broadway debut as Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

According to Playbill, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to the original Phantom of the Opera currently entitled Phantom: Love Never Dies is moving forward and will simultaneously open in three different territories at the end of 2009. Webber is approaching his sequel to his original masterpiece with amazing care. The first act was workshopped in the summer of 2008 at Lloyd Webber’s private Sydmonton Festival at his Berkshire country home. We’ve already done the first act,” Lloyd Webber explained, “and rather like The Woman in White, where the first act worked wonderfully, what we cannot do is presume that the second act is going to as well.”

Working with director Jack O’Brien, who staged the Sydmonton workshop, and lyricist Glenn Slater, he is now writing the rest of the show, and when they have completed the work, “we are going to do a workshop of the second act, then take a month off and do it again with both halves this time and then we’ll see.” Although Webber says he has a good idea who the Phantoms will be, rumors are circulating that Hugh Jackman and Gerard Butler (who played the Phantom in the 2005 film version of the musical) might get the starring role in 2 of the productions.