Readying a ‘Phantom’ Showing

“What am I doing after this tour?” says Michael Crawford. “I’ll probably be in a rest home!”

Given the energy level of the singer, who is indelibly identified with the title role in “The Phantom of the Opera,” that’s unlikely. But there’s no denying that Crawford has taken on a rigorous assignment in his current concert tour, which includes appearances Thursday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl, rescheduled from May when the singer became ill.

Crawford’s diverse program includes songs from “Phantom” and several other Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, traditional numbers, standards and tunes from his current inspirational album, “On Eagle’s Wings.” The tour is a major effort--virtually a complete stage show--set up and taken down for each program.

“The trucks, the lights and sound, the amount of people that it takes to make it work is incredible,” Crawford said. “And the schedule is intense. On any given day, I go to the theater at 3 in the afternoon to start warming up.

“Then the guys come in to set up the rigging and the lights. Then the choir arrives at about 4:30 to start rehearsing at 5, with the orchestra coming afterward to do a complete sound check.

“They usually play the overture for the sound check while I’m sitting out in the middle of the theater, listening. And that’s usually when the tingles come on, and the hairs come up on the back of my neck, and I think, ‘This is going to be my concert!’ ”

It’s not exactly the same experience Crawford had doing eight performances a week in his record run as the Phantom, a role he played in London, New York and Los Angeles. (Worldwide sales of the original cast album, released in 1987, exceed 12 million copies.)

It’s been several years, several tours, a few hit recordings and one other major show since he performed in a “Phantom” production.

That other show, “EFX,” an expensive, technologically complex production that opened in 1995 at the MGM Grand Theatre in Las Vegas, was a physical disaster for Crawford. A hip injury suffered early in the show’s run caused severe pain for most of the 600-plus performances he played. The result--aside from some ongoing litigation--was a successful operation for a hip-joint replacement.

“It was a very unpleasant experience,” Crawford, 56, said. “But I’m fine now, although I don’t expect to be doing any demanding physical roles any time soon.”

Born Michael Patrick Dumble-Smith in Salisbury, England, Crawford found his stage name on a biscuit box. He was a well-established English actor and singer long before “Phantom.”

As a boy soprano, he performed in composer Benjamin Britten’s “Let’s Make an Opera” and went on to hundreds of radio and television appearances, as well as roles in films such as “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and “How I Won the War.”

In the ‘70s and ‘80s, he starred in

two major London musicals, “Billy” and “Barnum,” before his career-defining 1986 opening in “Phantom.”

Feature-film prospects for the enormously successful musical have been surfacing on and off for years. The latest rumors identify John Travolta and Antonio Banderas as potential film Phantoms. In fact, a group of Crawford fans will be holding demonstrations Friday and Saturday at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank to lobby studio executives to cast Crawford in the role he originated on stage. They’ve also set up a Web site at https://www.av.qnet.com/~smf /phantom.htm.

Crawford responds to the reports, and to the presumably decreasing possibility that he will have a shot at the role, with a shrug.

“What is to be will be, is all I can say,” he said. “It’s not in my hands. It’s something I would love to do, but if it doesn’t pass my way, at least I had the chance to create the man, and that was more than anyone could ask for.

“In all honesty, if I was producing the picture and had someone who was a four-star box-office draw, and they could sing the part, I would have to cast them.”

Reminded that Julie Andrews experienced a similar fate when Audrey Hepburn was cast as Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady,” lip-syncing to vocal tracks provided by singer Marni Nixon, Crawford chuckled.

“Julie went on to do ‘The Sound of Music’ after being dropped from ‘My Fair Lady,’ so maybe I’ve got something like that in my future. And, if they cast somebody who can’t sing the Phantom, I’ll be happy to even sing it for them.”

* Michael Crawford sings Thursday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. With Dale Kristien and David Arkenstone. 8 p.m. $25.50-$128. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster) 855-4515. Also Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl, $23-$128, 7:30 p.m. (323) 850-2000.