O.C. THEATER : ‘Phantom’ Flexes Its Muscles

You know the show that opens Sunday for a six-week stand at the Orange County Performing Arts Center as “The Phantom of the Opera.” But the troupe for this national touring production thinks of itself as “The Music Box Company.”

The name, chosen by producer Cameron Macintosh, suggests a delicate object tinged with nostalgia and romance. It refers to one of the most evocative elements in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s pop opera: the Phantom’s papier-mache music box with its little monkey on top and “Masquerade,” its haunting little tune, inside.

The box becomes a poignant symbol of the disfigured Phantom’s obsessive love for the beautiful young opera singer Christine, who is torn between him and the handsome Viscount Raoul de Chagny. The reason for the company name, however, is more practical than poetic.

According to Bill Miller, a spokesman for the show, Macintosh wanted to distinguish this production from his two other road versions now playing in the United States. The “Phantom” in San Francisco, which opened last Christmas after running for 4 1/2 years at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, is called “The Christine Company.” The “Phantom” in Boston, on a 19-city tour that began 4 1/2 years ago in Chicago, is “The Raoul Company.”

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Given the huge size of the Music Box troupe--36 performers on stage, 18 orchestra players in the pit and 60 crew members behind the scenes--Macintosh could have dubbed it the “Slavemaster Company” (for the brawny slavemaster in the Hannibal opera scene) and come closer to describing what is, after all, a very muscular tour.

Every time this $10-million production travels between venues on its 26-city journey, which began 19 months ago in Seattle, the move costs roughly $1 million. A minimum of 22 tractor-trailers is needed to haul some 700 tons of scenery and equipment. Lined up end to end, the gondolas for the costume racks are two-thirds the length of a football field. So how does it all look on stage, in comparison with the other tours and with the original production that transferred from London’s West End to Broadway in 1988?

“If you saw the New York show or the London show, which are probably the benchmarks, you would be hard-pressed to tell what the differences are without a little coaching,” answers John Paull, the production supervisor for all three U.S. touring companies. “Scenically, what the audience sees out front is almost exactly the same.”

Speaking from Boston, Paull noted that some changes had to be made in the production design of the road versions to accommodate variable theater sizes as well as the vicissitudes of touring. One of the large props originally made to come up through the floor--a candelabrum--moves onto the stage from the wings.

“In New York we took off the entire stage floor and excavated the basement for greater depth to get a lot of the tricks to come up from the basement,” he said. “We did it because that is basically what happened in London.

“The London theater had a Victorian stage with tricks already built in. On the road we can’t go around taking off stage floors. So we’ve come up with a way to create most of the tricks from a nine-inch-high show deck we carry with us and install in each theater.”

He emphasized, however, that all the traveling “Phantoms” are essentially full-scale replicas of the original, including the show’s most famous prop--the chandelier that hangs above the audience in front of the ornate Paris Opera House proscenium and, in a moment of spectacular melodrama, comes crashing to the stage floor.

“Cameron Macintosh does not believe in sending out cut-down versions of the show,” Paull said.

Steve McCorkle, part of whose job it is to attend every “Phantom” premiere in every city and report back to both Macintosh and director Harold Prince, confirmed that and explained why.

“The road is big business,” he said from New York. “People want to see first-class productions. Cameron can afford to make the investment because ‘Phantom’ has had such enormous success. He knows he is building and maintaining an audience.”

In fact, the road is so big for this show that it easily dwarfs Broadway. The four “Phantom” productions in this country alone (including the one still on Broadway) have done $641 million at the box office, Miller says. Of that amount, $435 million came from the road companies, more than double the $206 million taken in by the Broadway production.

The Christine Company did $155 million in Los Angeles from May, 1989, to August, 1993, and has done $21 million in San Francisco since December, 1993. The Raoul Company, touring large cities for engagements of several months to a year each, has done $186 million since May, 1990. The Music Box Company, touring small cities for engagements of five to six weeks each, has done $72 million since December, 1992.

The worldwide gross for “Phantom,” according to Miller, “exceeds $1.5 billion.” Besides London, there have been eight past or current productions in Toronto, Montreal, Melbourne, Tokyo, Stockholm, Hamburg and Vienna. Only “Cats,” which has been around longer, has earned more: roughly $2 billion. But “Phantom” is catching up fast.

“Attendance on the Music Box tour has been well over 90% in every city it has played,” Miller says. “That is mind-boggling. We’ve gone into cities like Nashville, Tenn., which historically has been a one-week market, and pulled off a six-week engagement with no trouble at all.

“Whatever anybody thinks of ‘Phantom’--merits or flaws--it brings in people who have never walked into a legitimate theater before.”

With so many productions running simultaneously, “Phantom” has created an apparently interchangeable corps of talented if little-known performers, even for the lead roles. The show does not depend on high-profile stars to attract theatergoers, as it did when Michael Crawford played the Phantom and Sarah Brightman played Christine.

For instance, Grant Norman, who understudied but never played the Phantom role on Broadway, is playing it with the Music Box company. He will star in Costa Mesa opposite Adrienne McEwan as Christine. She understudied the role for the Raoul company and made her debut as Christine on that tour last June in Washington.

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Tracy Shane, the original Christine for the Music Box, went to Broadway. Davis Gaines, who played the Phantom for the Christine company when it was in Los Angeles, has just taken over the role on Broadway. And Frank D’Ambrosio, who used to play the Phantom for the Music Box, has gone to the Christine Company in San Francisco.

“I don’t think there’s any difference in the talent of the different companies,” said McCorkle who in addition to his other duties helps find cast replacements and rehearses and directs them. “We have auditioned thousands and thousands of people. To form the company in San Francisco we saw 800 people, just in that city.

“When the Music Box was in Houston (in June), we put an ad in the paper because we’d never been there before. The city has a terrific opera community, and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. A hundred people showed up to sing for us. I think we found a future Christine in Houston, if there’s an opening.”

So what is the bottom line? Will “The Phantom of the Opera” be the sort of theatrical phenomenon in Costa Mesa that it has been everywhere else?

“I hope so,” McCorkle said. “I’m always amazed at how well-maintained and good-looking the show is on the road. But I’m particularly proud of this company.”

* “The Phantom of the Opera” opens Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, where it will continue through Sept. 3 (Tuesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., with extra performances Monday, Aug. 29 at 8 p.m. and Thursday, Sept. 1 at 2 p.m.). $16.25 to $61.25. (714) 556-2787.