Started out by getting to the theatre. We had some time before the tours started, so we went shopping! Spent $100 for people who sent me money and $80 on myself. (I got a program, 2 t-shirts, a Nice poster and a chandelier sun-catcher.)
What kind of new stuff did they have? A Phantom's 10th year pewter coin for $15, Phantom sun catcher in the shape of the chandelier (I bought one!) ($20), A lightning mask t-shirt which also said "10th year" on it, the normal gorgeous mask and rose painting t-shirt with "10th year" on it. Oh, you remember the 10th anniversary Les Mis t-shirts? Well, they had some with 4 Phantoms masks in a square! (That was the only t-shirt which didn't have "10th year" on it.) All t-shirts were $20. They had Peter's CD for sale, silver lapel pins, gold necklace, a nice pewter mask and rose brooch, coasters with the design on the copied 10th Les Mis t-shirt, the watch, a nice fleece long-sleeved shirt with either a zip up or button up collar, a new poster that has the mask on a red rose petal background. Um...The Toronto cast CD (as usual), and the previous programme with "AT&T Performing Arts Centre" in silver in the middle. During the show, they did sell a bag with 3 programmes- The newest one, the North American tour (basically the Canadian tour from 1991-2 but said it's destinations form 1994) and the Vancouver programme. (I did notice that this edition of the Vancouver programme did have one picture which was a little bluer than the original version.) You could also buy 3 for $12 or $5 each posters: The 2nd anniversary cast photo, and two Canadian Tour posters, one with "Phantastic" written on it and another without it. (I can't remember if the pictures are the same or not, don't feel like going back to my room and looking!) Plus they had the cheap pens and the executive pens, a Nice print for $25, the pewter mask sculpture, the normal poster, and the papier mache sculpture.
So then the tour started. We went in the theatre first because rehearsal was going to start and they wanted us out of there. The tour guides were pretty good in the respect that they talked loudly and clearly plus were quite knowledgeable about the show and the theatre.
They talked about what Famous Players did to the theatre, what Livent had to do to fix up the theatre, how many trap doors were on the stage and stuff like that.
Then off to look over the lobby opposite the stairs. They talked about the re-drawn mural, finding the stained glass window and fixing the dome. (The seats actually used to go right up to the stairs when the theatre was first built and they had sound pipes running through the ceiling and finally opening in the dome in the foyer so people could hear what was going on onstage.
Then we went and sat in the Yonge St. Gallery. They talked about how most of the marble, except the flooring, was fake and painted on. They also talked about how evil Famous Players painted the poor theatre (red, black and yellow?! What were they thinking! Those colours clash!) Also, they glued mirrors on top of the paintings in the gallery. And drilled a hole in the bottom of one of the paintings. So they had to re-paint that section of the painting.
And that was the end of the tour..So you know what we did? Finished shopping!
And then it was 12:15 so we walked over to JJ Muggs to meet all of our 'net friends. The minute I got upstairs, I recognized Stefanie from her pictures. (Yes, she IS a redhead!) And then I FINALLY met Heidi and everyone else that I've been emailing since AT LEAST July!
We had a great time at the restaurant. Most of us ordered the buffet. For $15 we could have roast beef, lobster, breakfast stuff, breakfast pastries, DESSERTS! and all sorts of other stuff!
Everyone talked about their past Phantom experiences, what has been going on with them, who they are (that's you?!!? I don't believe it!) and stuff like that. We also talked about (and laughed at) some stupid things people have done/said about Phantom! Oh, and Anita showed us the pictures from the other anniversary events that had taken place the past week and Jeff Timmons showed us his ballet shoes (used in the show) signed by all of the ballet girls. (They are/were being sold for $20 which was a donation to a Breast Cancer foundation in Canada.)
That's when we decided to meet at the Victoria St. entrance at 5:45PM. (Ahem!, some of you! Where were you?!)
Then Stefanie, Heidi, the two people that came with me, Jeff Timmons and Anita went to the stage door. We showed Heidi and Stef the Phantom bird house and they took pictures..We needed to go to the stage door because Jeff needed another signature to his ballet shoes because someone forgot to sign the ones he bought and the rest of us asked if there were any more shoes left. So we were talking and lo and behold-there's Kim! WITH RED HAIR! It looked nice though! So we chatted a bit, told her we were lucky we came over to try and get some ballet shoes and Kim had to go and move her car. (Yes, for those of you that knew that her car was totalled, she DOES have a nice new car!) So I started chatting with Stef and Stef whirled me around because there was someone looking at me...SANDRA! She cut her hair and looked really nice and we all chatted with her for a while. We took pictures (if Sandra gets a copy of this, no your hair did NOT look frizzy!) So then Sandra had to go in for rehearsal and the guy came out with three pairs of ballet shoes! Yeah! So Heidi, my friend Lindsay and I got the shoes. (I got the ones with the ribbons still attached.) And then Kim came back with some food and we got pics with her.
After that, Stefanie, Heidi and the two people that came with me went over to Stef and Heidi's hotel to rest for a bit and to iron some clothes! Heidi talked to James for about 4 hours while the rest of us talked and showed horribly ugly passport pictures!
Stef's dress was handmade by her, floor length green velvet with black elbow length gloves, a headband that looked like a small tiara and a nice bracelet which matched the headband. Heidi had a nice purple dress that almost went to the floor with a comb in her hair (held together by a rubber band!) on the right side.
Then we took the bus BACK to Yonge St. Everyone looked at us because we were dressed so nicely on this public transportation bus! So Stef and I started the Queen wave at all the people on the streets..
So we were at the theatre with nothing else to do..So what did we do? SHOPPING!
Heidi and Stef both got silver lapel pins to put on their dresses and I got two more things for two people who still had extra money from what they gave me. Our buddy in the boutique, Roger, was still there (if you ever go to Toronto, go talk to Roger.) He told us he was going to be tending bar during the show and to go find him.
And then we found 2 people from Michigan who had seen the show 10 times and we proceeded to chat with them till we went in. Well, what did the theatre look like all dolled up? Helium balloons on the stairs and banisters. The balloons where white with black stars on it or vice versa. Plus there were balloons hanging from the dome inside the theatre.
So we got into the theatre and...
When Piangi finally gets ROME right, Kim gave this little look and nod at the managers to say "Ha. See? He can do it right." I had never seen her do this before and I told her I noticed it and Kim said she does that from time to time. I liked it!
Carlotta (Kim Stengel) had a cute little "Ahem!" right before Lefevre introduced her to the new managers. Kinda sounded like "Excuse me! Don't forget about me!"
Carlotta: Never saw her drape her scarf over Andre's neck like that before.Cute ;)
Carlotta: Great shocked look after 'These things do happen" Then she did the rest of the speech quiet and shouted the final "happen."
Raoul (David Rogers) GREAT VOICE!
Christine (Liz deGrazia) Still acts very innocent (which is good!) Her obbligato was the slowest I'd ever heard...which is nice because it doesn't sound like 'hurry up because I don't know how to sing this!"
Meg (I don't feel like looking it up, but I think it's Catriona Ferguson still) had a foggy voice, but it was strong and the projection was good. You can actually here her and it sounds like she has some talent!
Raoul: Nice delivery of his "can it be" lines. During Little Lotte, there was an AWESOME oboe note!
BTW, the orchestra was the best I'd EVER heard it. Notes were crisp and clear, intonation was wonderful...
Christine all of a sudden got really frightened after Raoul suggests going out to eat.
Jeff Hyslop was in the mirror.
Raoul actually *sang* "Whose voice.."!!
They must have made a new tape or turned up the volume or something because Liz's voice during the final notes of the title song seemed louder than usual.
There seemed to be more dry ice today than usual. And the lightning effects have gotten brighter.
MOTN was Ciaran.. (He also did the title song.) And what a GREAT job he did! Soar was *gorgeous* (he and Peter can ALWAYS be counted upon to make that note 'soar'.)
Sandra Margolese (the bride doll) didn't move. Anyone who knows me KNOWS I must check and make sure! ;)
There did seem to be a little blue light right on Sandra after MOTN. I don't think it was a reflection on the glass because it seemed (to me) to be right above the glass and too focused. Who knows?!
Ethan's 'Stranger than you" was nice and evil! During the "Oh Christine" line, he touched her dress slightly.
The managers said "Opera Ghost" kind of resigned-like. Almost as if they were saying "OH, it's a ghost. Great. Just what we need."
Kim did an AWESOME job in the notes. You know when everyone fights over the note Mme Giry has? Well, EVERYONE screamed "let me see it!" Sometimes a cast will be like 'Oh, let me see it. Whoop de do." but these guys put a nice energy in it! Anyway, back to Kim. After Firmin has the note, he kind of hoists it up in the air like 'Look! I got it! Hahaha!" and Kim just gave him this *look* and then looked over at Piangi like "Look at him. He's pathetic."
The click track (recorded note) was Peter. Actually, all of the recorded stuff was Peter, except one thing..but that is later.
Kristina-Marie Guiget (Mme Giry) was nice and loud. Actually, the whole balance of cast members was wonderful. I have never been able to pick out certain actors, but this time you could say "Hey, I want to hear Piangi" and you could hear him. And they all blended so nicely. It was just so nice to hear all of them instead of just the loud ones!
Kim's "Non vo cantar" note was superb.
After Andre says "Your public needs you" he gestured towards Firmin and Firmin pointed at himself as if to say "What? I have to say something nice to her too?" And then he says, very nasally, "We need you too."
While Firmin and Andre are telling Carlotta how everyone needs her, she acted so giddy, like a little school girl who was told she could have whatever toy she wanted in the toy store.
When Carlotta sings "You took a snub but there's a public who needs you!", Kim squeaked the 'public' word.
Nice high notes at end of Prima Donna for all!
The dressers in Il Muto, when they came on stage, looked at the audience like "Wow! We're on stage! Look at all those people that are looking at us!"
Don Attilio's low note wasn't that long..
During the "Adio"'s, they actually powdered Carlotta's wig..Never seen powder.
Carlotta's "blech" after Atillio kisses her is priceless.
Kim was kicking her left foot whenever she did the 'ha ha''s! I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it was cute!
After the Phantom (Ethan Freeman) did his lines, Kim ran up (without grabbing Christine, I think) and kinda looked up at the audience embarrassed when she asks to start at the top. And during the whole croaking part, Kim looked even more scared than usual. I do love how when she starts to sing she'll look up at the phantom to see if he's doing anything.
Firmin announced the first part of the "The performance will continue" from the box and Andre ran down and *really* fumbled while looking for the ballet's placement in the opera.
Firmin did NOT say the word 'simply' in 'It was simply an accident!" He just dropped the word 'simply' entirely.
Liz's "but his voice" was nice, slow and quiet like she was thinking about the fact that there was something good about it..
Christine's "soar" was pretty.
After "What was that," Christine stayed frozen for a moment like she was terrified then ran to Raoul.
When Raoul says "Christine, that's all I ask.." he got down on his knee like he was actually proposing.
BTW, how many syllables does the word "Raoul" have? Liz was pronouncing it like 'Raw-oo-oo-la" That's a new thing though, didn't hear her do that the last time. Tonight she seemed like she was *over* emphasizing things.
The Phantom for that scene was Jeff Hyslop and he took his merry sweet time coming up from the Angel.
When the phantom sang "no", he covered his ears. Nice effect, looked like hearing them would kill him.
The Phantom over-emphasized the word "that" in "All that the Phantom asked.." so it came out sounding like 'That-a"
2nd act.
I *think* they have a new corner with a candelabra on the Masquerade stairs. This one has a big red mahogany centre thing that I don't remember being there.
Stefanie, if you read this, I'm sorry for making fun of your body glitter. It appears that Kim had something shiny like body glitter on her arms for Masquerade!
Speaking of Kim..she has a new skirt. And even when she stops moving, this skirt simply REFUSES to stop! It kept going from side to side the whole scene! At the end when everyone would be frozen, that skirt kept a movin'!
Sandra Margolese looked like she was having fun with her scarf thing..She kept waving it in the air, gave the little spot on the stairs little more movement so it looked like a big party.
Carlotta talked with Andre a lot during the mingling part..
Piangi has a new costume. He know officially looks like a sun. (It helps one to figure this out because he now has a huge sun on his chest.)
The whole cast had such nice, strong hand movements. They also looked like they were having a great time during this song.
Phantom was Peter Karrie.
Firmin said "Look, my friend, what we have here . . ." as though he was really scared of what those letters contained, instead of the usual line sung like on the OLC.
Kim is into squeaking, apparently. She squeaked out the second "Outrage!" and the word "Part". I kinda liked it.
During the whole Christine/Carlotta almost fight thing, Carlotta had her nose up in the air in true diva style! And there was a nice eyebrow raising by Kim when Christine said "I don't want any part of this plot.."
Carlotta was getting very annoyed with all the attention with Christine and she did 'strut' around a bit ;)
Raoul's "We have all been blind - " had a very nice blind'and 'clever.' If you guys get an illegal recording of this, you'll know what I mean. Nice.
When Raoul says that Christine should sing, there was a GREAT shocked reaction form Kim like 'What the heck is this world coming to?!?"
During the "What glory can she hope," Kim got right up in Christine's face and was pushing her kinda upstage.
Christine seemed like she was hyper ventilating and gasping for breath the whole "Twisted" song! That part was a little too fast for my tastes though..
Anyone who has heard Rosemary Ashe's "She's mad" knows how Kim said it tonight. I also like how she is the only one turned away from Christine at this point. The "She's mad" was delivered as more of an aside than talking to anyone.
I also LOVE the way that during the big instrumental part at the end of the scene everyone (but Carlotta) rushing to Christine and Carlotta is left alone upstage left. Kinda like she's the forgotten diva. Love it!
Ooh! Siztprobe! Awesome things are done here..Kim's "His way is better" was great because she slammed the music book closed during it and looked away from Giry putting her hand up to her as if to say "I'm not listening!"
I still marvel at how Kim can do that screech so well..and tonight it seemed especially long! (liked it!)
During beginning of "Wishing," Christine held the scarf to her face like it was a security blanket. She started off Wishing quietly (which is how I like it) and very innocently.
Wonderful crescendo on "Good-bye"!
Cris Groendaal did "Wandering Child."
Beautiful intonation on the duet.
Lyrics change! "Wandering child . . .
so lost . . .
so FRIGHTENED . . ."
Phantom's "You" was nicely spat on Raoul as was "Such spirited words."
OK! Here is where they changed the click tape (recorded stuff)!!! It was the normal click tape UNTIL the "I'm here's"! Each of the Phantom's said they're "I'm here" (taped, of course) but they were spread out throughout the auditorium!!! After that, there was about a full minute of applause.
Carlotta 'strutted' around, apparently not heeding the Phantom's orders to learn how to act!
Did not know Sandra dressed up as a boy during this scene! The things you learn!
Nice tenor voice on the final note! Nice blend!
Piangi's "Come hide with me was nice and high pitched! Sounded like he was actually giddy! (Now, he must be a really great actor because he would NEVER be giddy to see ANYONE but his Carlotta.)
PONR was Chris. How could you not tell with him being so tall?!
Chris's word 'prey in the " set and waits for its prey" line was an odd choice of a note. It wasn't the normal high one it was a lower note. I know I've heard it before, but I still didn't like it.
Liz sounded like she was listening to some J&H from the way she was singing PONR! She had the Lucy voice from "Bring on the Men" down pat!
He really pulled Christine closer during the last refrain for PONR. And Christine was the only one who said '-turn.'
Christine put the ring on herself.
After Christine pulled off the wig and mask, she held them in her hands and stared at them in disbelief. Nice touch! Most Christines I see just toss them aside!
Carlotta didn't do all her lines! She stopped after "Uba!!" (didn't even finish his name) and just kept saying 'Oh! Oh!!"
But then, as we all know, PIangi is not dead. Even though he looks that way.
My family has the "Slacer Finger" which is basically a very straight index finger pointed at someone to emphasize a point. (Except us Slacer's do it in such a way that it *really* means "Do not defy me or you will never breathe again") Kristina has the Slacer finger down pat!
Boat-Well, that was Peter in the boat for all of you who couldn't figure it out! (Like you can mistake his voice for someone else's!)
Peter loves to fluff Christine's veil!
Raoul stopped wiggling! It looked like he just decided he was going to stand there all night and not try to figure out how to get out.
Peter didn't throw the dummy very far, disappointing. Take some baseball lessons!
Christine did a good job of 'protecting Raoul from Erik. She stood in front with a very strong stance and arms and didn't move even though Erik came closer.
AWESOME GROWL during the "You try my patience" part, But, then again, it's Peter and that's his best part!
Only problem is that his hands had the tendency to shake VERY fast so it looked like he was having a seizure. Which could be a good effect, really. He's so upset he can't keep his hands still..
After Christine leaves, she acted like a child who had just lost his best friend..Would have been moving had i been interested in the whole Erik/Christine/Raoul story line!
Now for the special stuff..
Well, all 5 five Phantoms came out one by one. Chris, then Ciaran, then Jeff then Ethan and Finally Peter. As each came out, they removed their mask so you could see who it was. Except for Peter, who still had his make-up on.
I stood up for Kim, I think only me, Ma and Mar were the only ones who stood up that early! (Was trying to stand up for Sandra as usual but had so much crap in my lap!)
Then they all opened up a black book and MOTN started. The whole cast sang it this time in a nice arrangement (if anyone can get the sheet music, I'll pay!!) then each of the phantoms took a turn singing part. While each of the Phantoms sang a part, the cast sang oohs and aaahs..
No speeches. We did get fireworks, streamers, confetti and a balloon drop.
THE STAGE DOOR
After the show we all ran over to Stef and Heidi and we compared answers to the "Who did what scene" thing. And we also gathered up a few balloons! Tried going out the O'Keefe lane exit but the security guard wouldn't let us go out that way. So we pushed our way out through the Victoria St entrance. They gave out chocolates and Haagan-Daaz ice cream. So I convinced Stef to go to the stage door (she didn't think anyone would be left). Good thing we went too! At the entrance to the alley, we ran into Cris Griondaal in his t-shirt and jeans. He signed programmes and was quite nice (contrary to what the couple we chatted with while waiting for the doors to open said). He even ave one of his roses to my friend Lindsay (she was on cloud nine for the rest of the night).
So we waited for people to come out... Laird and Ciaran were out (didn't get a chance to talk to either though). I FINALLY met David Rogers, who is as sweet as pie! (Not to mention the cutest butt in the whole cast!) I told him he was my first, and favorite Phantom and he said "Oh, wow! Thanks!"
Ethan was the first I actually saw come out. I met Ethan!!! Anyway ;) Stef was REALLY thrilled to finally meet him.
Then Sandra came out. She was wearing a gorgeous floor-length purple lace dress with long sleeves. I got to see her husband Paul again, who looked very nice in his suit and Phantom mask/red ribbon pin.
Then Kim finally came out with the comment "had to make myself beautiful". She was wearing a long black dress.
Then finally Peter came out. He was wearing something that reminded me of the outfits from Sgt. Pepper's (Beatles). His was a cream/yellowish colour. My friend Lindsay was on cloud nine when she met her favorite and first Phantom!