Death Takes a Holiday

In 1924 La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella may have resonated with an audience recovering from a war. The film adaptation in 1934 was a hit. The musical had less success in 2011. Dreamy leading man Julian Ovenden had to withdraw due to throat illness and the audience was quick to guess the stories few surprises. Pop culture has been telling us for decades that chicks dig dead guys as long as they're super cute.

Grand Hotel

The director and choreographer Tommy Tune may have the most extravagant imagination in the American musical theater right now, and there isn't a moment, or a square inch of stage space, that escapes its reach in ''Grand Hotel.'' The musical at the Martin Beck Theater is an uninterrupted two hours of continuous movement, all dedicated to creating the tumultuous atmosphere of the setting: an opulent way station at a distant crossroads of history in Berlin - that of 1928. ~ New York Times.1989.

Titanic

“In early 1986 the Space Shuttle blew up and that’s when I realized that we still haven’t learned the lesson of not putting our unconditional faith in the infallibility of technology. Now we really need to tell the story so that we can live and learn from it... Now Peter had written the show 1776, and had taken an historic event, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and convinced the audience by the end of the play that they were not going to sign it! I said, Peter, you are the perfect man to write Titanic because you are somehow going to convince the audience that the ship is not going to sink or at least hope that it won’t." ~ Maury Yeston

"It's good to be reminded that most of those who perished were travelling to the US to make new and better lives for themselves." ~ Guardian. 2013.

Dueling Phantoms

Yeston and Kopit wrote their version first. Webber's was produced first. Yeston and Kopit released their rights to regional theaters first allowing it to be produced around the country.

The Phantom of the Opera was originally a horror story, though both musicals emphasize the tragic romance. When the Phantom's do begin their killing sprees the tones are inconsistent, often promoting as many giggles as gasps.

There was something unwholesome and pathetic about the 1925 Phantom, who scuttled like a rat in the undercellars of the Paris Opera and nourished a hopeless love for Christine. The modern Phantom is more like a perverse Batman with a really neat cave. ~ Roger Ebert on the 2004 Webber Film.

What transpires from this point to the end of the show is a frustrating mix of comedy, spectacle, sentimentality, revelation and suspense, with great highs and great lows. ~ L.A. Times on Yeston and Kopit's Phantom. 

I've written about Webber's sequel here.