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Showing posts from January, 2019

Broadway's Newest Phantom: Ben Crawford's Rise to the Role as the Phantom of the Opera

This review was originally written for my school's newspaper, Marymount Manhattan's The Monitor. The original article can be found here on their website.  This past April, almost halfway through Phantom of the Opera’s 30th year on Broadway, Ben Crawford joined the current cast as the Phantom. Unlike many former Phantoms, Ben Crawford was entirely new to the production - many Phantoms return to the show after previously playing a role such as Raoul, some of the biggest names including West End star Ramin Karimloo and Broadway star Hugh Panaro. Crawford’s track record prior to joining the Phantom cast included recent shows such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Shrek. For Phantom fans, this was simultaneously exciting and unnerving. How would someone who has never been involved with Phantom play the role? How would his voice sound with the score, which is not quite as modern as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Shrek? I had the opportunity to finally see C

Introduction (otherwise known as: my attempt at making you think I'm interesting so you go read my other articles)

When I was a kid, I hated musicals. I thought they were corny, overzealous and profusely glorified interpretations of life. No one bursts into song and dance on a daily basis, or even on special occasions. No one wears jazz shoes to work or has a shining spotlight following them wherever they go. I was a pretty cynical ten year old, as I’m sure you can surmise. However, somewhere in my teenage angst, I realized that no piece of art has to be a real reflection of the dullness that life sometimes embodies - art can be an escape from suburban hell where everyday is the same, and take you on adventures of glittery costumes and cascading confetti and sparkling lights. I also learned that so many musicals do capture the hardships of life, and some of them tell heart wrenching tales that far surpass my own trials in my young life. A lot of them don’t even have tap dancing or kicklines! (Sidenote: I LOVE tap dancing and kicklines now.) To put it simply, I realized in high school my first