Phantom Closes on Broadway

“Anywhere you go, let me go too.”  

One of my most favourite lines from a musical ever.

The Phantom of the Opera is closing on Broadway after 35 years of performing at The Majestic Theatre. What an incredible run. The public may have been surprised at this announcement but anyone who has been watching the entertainment industry try to bounce back after COVID knows that there are quite a few shows that were, and are, going to be collateral damage.

New York may be back to business, but the tourist footfall is not, and therefore the competition on Broadway for audience is fierce.

Phantom first opened in London in 1986, but it was soon brought to Broadway in 1988. The final performance in New York is scheduled for February 18, 2023.

Since Phantom’s first performance, the show has been seen by more than 145 million people in 183 cities and performed in 17 languages over 70,000 performances.

I was one of those 145 million. 

Phantom of the Opera was, in fact, the very first professional musical I ever saw. I went to see it on a school trip to Melbourne, Victoria in my early teens. I remember being completely spellbound by the music, by the lighting, the scenic elements, the amazing dresses and choreography in “Masquerade”.  It really left an impact on me. I had no idea at that time, that live performance like that would become part of who I was. That theatre would become a second home to me. Experiencing Phantom was surely one of the bricks laid in the path towards my career. Such can be the influence of the arts on a young person.

Many people may mourn the loss of a show. It is sad. But our industry knows this cycle. We build a creation, a team, a family, we run it for a period of time, then we pack it up and say goodbye. We miss family reunions, weddings, funerals, public holidays and many milestones that “normal” people have, all for the sake of our art.

One must be comfortable with many beginnings, middles and ends in our world. That is the nature of our business. And sometimes the show we love the most, is the most beautiful and special, precisely because it will not be there forever.

We should applaud Phantom for its incredible run, and not only for its excellence creatively, but for all the secure theatre jobs it provided globally for many people in the industry. In this case, this creative masterpiece has done more than its fair share of the employment load.

Phantom is, and always will be, a classic. It’s not going anywhere. Just because it isn’t gracing the Broadway stages, doesn’t mean it won’t live on. There are many musicals that end up in the dust bin never to see stage light again. Phantom is not one of them.

And like we in the industry tend to do when a Broadway theatre becomes vacant, we will await eagerly to see what new venture will come to replace it.

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