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      ‘Phantom of the Opera’ to Delay Broadway Closing After Sales Spike

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      Last week was the highest-grossing in the show’s 35-year history.“The Phantom of the Opera” is going to continue haunting Broadway a while longer.The musical — the longest-running show in Broadway history — announced in September that it would close in February, ending a storied run shortly after celebrating its 35th anniversary.But immediately after the closing was announced, ticket sales spiked. And last week, when Broadway was bolstered by Thanksgiving travelers, “Phantom” enjoyed its highest-grossing week ever: $2.2 million.So on Tuesday the show’s producer, Cameron Mackintosh, plans to announce an eight-week extension of the run, to April 16.“What a phenomenal response there has been to the show ending,” Mackintosh said in a telephone interview on Monday. “We’ve sold out virtually everything that we have on sale.”And why not run forever? The answer is simple: Until the closing announcement, the show was not selling enough tickets to defray its rising running costs. The slow return of audiences to Broadway following the pandemic and inflation were both contributing factors.“For most of last year, we were losing every week,” Mackintosh said. “There comes a point when you become theatrical wallpaper. People took it for granted that it’s going to run forever.”Those driving the surge in sales include fans hoping to catch the show before the closing.George Etheredge for The New York TimesThe turnabout at the box office has been significant. The week before the closing plan was announced, the show grossed $867,997. After the announcement, the numbers began to climb.Broadway is gradually rebuilding following the lengthy pandemic shutdown and last winter’s Omicron slump, which forced a number of shows to close.Thanksgiving week — traditionally one of the biggest of the year for Broadway — saw a modest uptick in grosses from last year. The 33 shows running this year grossed $37.5 million last week, up from the $32.5 million that the 33 shows running last year earned during the same period. But Broadway has yet to return to prepandemic levels: in 2019 there were 35 shows running, and they grossed $41.7 million.Those driving the surge in “Phantom” sales include people who have seen the show before but want to catch it again before the closing, as well as those who have never seen it and realize it’s now(ish) or never.“The reason it is sold out is because it’s coming off, absolutely,” Mackintosh said. “We know that one of the reasons that it’s doing it is because this is your last chance to see the great show.”Among the recent patrons: Lucas Perez, a 37-year-old smoke shop worker from Manalapan, N.J., who bought a pair of tickets as soon as the closing was announced. He had seen the show twice before — once as an elementary school student, and once as an adult — but wanted to bring his mother, who had never been. They went in mid-October.“It felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend, to someone I’ll never see again,” Perez said. “I was very nostalgic the whole time. There’s something about the experience of ‘Phantom’ that other shows don’t have.”Featuring soaring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, “Phantom” is a Gothic melodrama about a masked music lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes fixated on a young soprano. The Broadway production, directed by Hal Prince, is a large-scale spectacle, with a 27-person orchestra and a famously crashing chandelier, emblematic of an earlier era of hyper-romantic musical theater. In 1988, the year the show opened, it won seven Tony Awards, including the one for best musical.Christina DiCillo, a 31-year-old Queens resident who works in the advertising department at the website TheaterMania, is a “Phan” — what the show’s superfans call themselves — who has seen the show 46 times so far, and hopes to hit 50 before it closes. She and her twin sister saw a touring production of the show when they were growing up in Buffalo; now they have each seen it repeatedly in multiple locations. (Christina has seen it in London, Las Vegas and South Korea, among other places.)“I feel bad for people that are just discovering it now,” she said. “The music always gets me, and when I’m there I’m transported. I keep thinking, ‘Maybe this time is the time it won’t feel as magical,’ but every time the chandelier rises you get the chills down your spine. I see a lot of Broadway shows for fun, and some of them are better and some of them are worse, but that’s one I know I’m going to love every time.”The Broadway run has been seen by 19.9 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion; at the time of its closing it will have had 13,981 performances. According to the production, it has employed about 6,500 people, including 400 actors.Mackintosh said there would be no further extensions. Following the show’s closing, he said, the Shubert Organization is planning a renovation of the Majestic Theater, where “Phantom” has run since its opening. The show will mark the end of its Broadway run with an April 14 benefit performance to raise money for charities, and a final performance with an audience including alumni and friends of the show.“Phantom” had a lengthy North American touring life, playing 14,500 performances in 77 cities, and productions are currently onstage in London (where running costs were lowered by reducing the orchestra size) and in Melbourne, Australia. A version in Mandarin is scheduled to open in China next year, and the actor Antonio Banderas is working on a new Spanish-language production.“It’s not like the show is going anywhere — the show will be done and is being done all over the world, and I’m sure it will come back to America and we’ll do a tour in the future,” Mackintosh said.And will it return to Broadway? “I’m sure at some point it will,” he said. “It’s a great show, and the great classics do come back.” More

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      London Theatergoers Are on the Edge of His Seats

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      One family firm supplies seating for most of the West End’s theaters, from flexible new spaces to Victorian treasures. Its chief designer reveals some tricks and traps of the trade.LONDON — Earlier this month, during the first performance at the West End’s newest theater, @sohoplace, the audience repeatedly cheered the actors performing “Marvellous,” a comedy about a British eccentric. At one point, several hundred theatergoers even applauded a technician who came on to clean the floor.But there was one person key to the evening whom no one cheered, whooped or even politely clapped. And Andrew Simpson, the designer of the theater’s seats, was happier that way.“If a seat’s good, you don’t notice it,” he said. “You only notice it when it’s bad.” In the world of theater seating, he added, “No news is good news.”Simpson, 62, is in a position to know. He is the lead designer at Kirwin & Simpson, a family firm his grandfather founded that started out patching upholstery in a local movie house during World War II and now supplies the seats for most West End theaters. (It works with some in New York, too, including the Hudson Theater and St. Ann’s Warehouse.)Andrew Simpson, Kirwin & Simpson’s lead designer (and the grandson of the company’s founder) at the firm’s headquarters in Grays, England.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesThe West End is challenging territory for a seating designer. Many of the London theaters Simpson caters for are Victorian jewel-boxes: tight, ornate spaces built with more attention to gradations of social class than to comfort.Originally, according to David Wilmore of Theatresearch, a company that restores historic theaters in Britain, they would have had a few front rows of luxurious armchairs — known as fauteuils — for their wealthiest patrons. Everyone else sat on wooden benches. When middle-class visitors were finally accorded seats, Wilmore said, theaters preserved their old sightlines by forcing the sitters bolt upright — “part of that Victorian strictness in all areas: ‘You jolly well better sit up and listen!’”That won’t do for seats that now often cost hundreds of dollars to occupy.A recent tour of Kirwin & Simpson’s works in Grays, a working-class town east of London, included a room filled with rolls of multicolored cloth and a shed where five men were busy screwing, stapling and gluing sleek maroon seats for the forthcoming Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York. One warehouse is filled with emergency replacements, so that if a seat rips at, say, the Victoria Palace Theater — the London home of “Hamilton” — a new, perfectly matching one can be installed within hours.Each theater needs many types of seats. The new, 602-capacity @sohoplace has 12 types, according to Simpson, all removable to allow different styles of staging, but some tricky older spaces require far more.A seat that Kirwin & Simpson designed for @sohoplace, a West End theater that opened this month.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesThere are high chairs with built-in footrests, to give a clear view from the back of Victorian balconies where front-row patrons would once have sat directly on a low step. There are chairs with wide backs, but smaller seats, designed to fit perfectly into tight curves, and others with hinged armrests that can be raised so wheelchair users to slip into them. And there may be any number of things in between. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Theater Royal, Drury Lane, has over 160 different designs, with widths and angles tweaked to ensure the best view.The seats themselves have become less cluttered over time, losing accessories like ashtrays and wire cages for men to store their top hats. But in the most cramped spaces, Simpson still sometimes employs an illusion. Short armrests make a narrow aisle feel wider, he said, because visitors don’t have to squeeze past them to get to their places, and they are then less inclined to start thinking about how little legroom they have. “It’s all psychology,” he added.It similarly helped if the show was a hit. “If the stuff onstage is really good,” he said, “then people don’t mind what they’re sitting on. If it’s anything less than that, then the surroundings come into focus, shall we say.”The Sondheim Theater in London, which has a capacity of more than 1,000. The seats are by Kirwin & Simpson.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesInside the Kirwin & Simpson workshop.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesEven with the good will of a good show, it can be tough to accommodate theatergoers of varying shapes, sizes and tastes. Nica Burns, the chief executive of Nimax Theaters, the company behind @sohoplace, said she wanted the seats in all her venues to be comfortable for short people like her (she’s 5 foot 2 inches), who don’t want their feet to dangle in midair, and for tall people like her 6 foot 3 inch husband. While the theater was being designed, she kept two Kirwin & Simpson seats in her office and asked visitors try them. But, she said, “you’ll never find a seat that suits everybody.”One demand that Simpson hears increasingly is for wider seats. Last year, Sofie Hagen, a popular comedian, began a campaign on Twitter, urging theaters to publish details of seat widths on their websites, to help larger people like her decide if they wanted to attend. “The amount of times I’ve gone to see a musical only to be in constant, excruciating pain,” Hagen wrote. “Once I had to leave before the show even started because the seat was too narrow.”Hagen said in a telephone interview that every venue on her current British tour had agreed to display details of the width of their seats and she hoped more would follow. “If theaters had signs up saying ‘Fat people are not welcome,’ people would be like, ‘What?’,” she said, “but that’s subliminally the message we’re being told.”At @sohoplace, some dozen seats at the orchestra level and balcony discreetly offer an extra three inches of width, on top of the standard 20 or so. Simpson, the designer, said that during a test event he had happily shared one with his 27-year-old son.For some, however, a big seat might be a little too much comfort. Seats that leave theatergoers “practically rubbing shoulders with one another” make for more of a communal experience, Wilmore, the theater restorer, said.An original cast-iron row end from the Victoria Palace Theater, in Kirwin & Simpson’s workshop.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesMichael Billington, who resigned in 2019 after nearly 50 years as The Guardian’s chief theater critic, said he felt “a degree of austerity” helped keep audiences awake. For example, Shakespeare’s Globe in London has both Elizabethan-style standing space and backless wooden benches: Billington described those benches as “a form of terror,” but added that he certainly paid attention whenever he sat on one.The new seats at @sohoplace drew typically mixed reviews from some of their first paying users. In interviews with a dozen audience members at the recent “Marvellous” performance, seven were glowing. John Yee, 22, visiting from Canada and sitting in the balcony, said they were “comfy as hell.”Josh Townsend, who had a spot in the orchestra level, said he was 6 foot 2 and often struggled with seats that lacked legroom, yet @sohoplace’s were “really good.” The week before, he had watched “Dear Evan Hansen” in London’s Noël Coward Theater — whose seats are also by Kirwin & Simpson — and his legs were jammed against the seat in front. This was a huge improvement, he said.But though she had loved the show, Ayesha Girach, 26, a doctor, said the seats were so hard they were “probably the most uncomfortable” she had ever sat in. She then praised those at the Gillian Lynne Theater, just a few blocks away, where she’d recently seen “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” “Those were really comfy,” she said. They were Kirwin & Simpson seats, too. More

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      Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Bad Cinderella’ to Open on Broadway in March

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      The musical, which was known simply as “Cinderella” during a previous run in London, is a new adaptation of the classic fairy tale.The famed composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s unbroken streak on Broadway — at least one of his musicals has been onstage since 1979 — will not end with the closing of “The Phantom of the Opera” next year.Lloyd Webber announced Monday that his next musical, “Bad Cinderella,” will begin performances on Feb. 17, one night before the scheduled closing of the long-running “Phantom.”“Bad Cinderella,” which had a previous run with a sparer title, “Cinderella,” in London, is a contemporary adaptation of the classic fairy tale, now with a consideration of beauty standards and body-shaming, plus bawdy language and same-sex relationships. “It adds up to not so much a ball as a blast,” Chris Wiegand wrote in a five-star review for The Guardian, adding that it was “silly but warm and inclusive, with relatable, down-to-earth heroes and pertinent points about our quest for perfection and our expectations of each other and ourselves.”The New York production is to star Linedy Genao, in her first leading role on Broadway. Genao, who described herself in a news release as “a proud Dominican American,” was in the ensemble of the Broadway production of “On Your Feet!” and an understudy in the Broadway production of “Dear Evan Hansen,” and this fall she is to star in a production of “On Your Feet!” at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, N.J.“Bad Cinderella” features music by Lloyd Webber (his many credits include “Evita,” “Cats” and “Phantom”), lyrics by David Zippel (“City of Angels”), and a book by Emerald Fennell (she won an Academy Award for the screenplay of “Promising Young Woman”). The director is Laurence Connor and the choreographer is JoAnn M. Hunter; they previously collaborated on Lloyd Webber’s “School of Rock.”The musical, produced by Christine Schwarzman’s company, No Guarantees, alongside Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, will run at the Imperial Theater, with a scheduled opening night of March 23.The run in London was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic. When it finally opened last year, Matt Wolf, a critic for The New York Times, declared it “worth the wait” and said it “looks set for a sturdy West End run.” But that turned out not to be the case: It closed in June, after a run of less than a year.Lloyd Webber said in a news release that the creative team has been developing “a few new songs” for the Broadway production. A spokesman said the show has also been redesigned. More

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      Cameron Mackintosh on Closing of ‘Phantom of the Opera’

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      In an interview, the storied British producer said that weakening box office and rising production costs led to the decision to end the longest run in Broadway history.Cameron Mackintosh is one of the most successful producers in musical theater history. His list of credits includes several of the defining hits of the late 20th century: Big budget, lavishly staged spectacles including “Cats,” “Les Misérables” and “Miss Saigon.” But looming over all of them has been the longest-running Broadway show of all time: “The Phantom of the Opera.”On Friday, Mackintosh announced that “Phantom,” a surprisingly enduring gothic melodrama about a masked musician obsessed with a beautiful soprano, plans to end its Broadway run Feb. 18, four weeks after it celebrates its 35th anniversary.The show, directed by Hal Prince and with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, has been an enormous success. On Broadway, it has been seen by 19.8 million people and has grossed $1.3 billion; globally, it has played to 145 million people in 41 countries.But it has been buffeted by a decline in international tourism — “Phantom” was particularly tourist-dependent, given its status as a symbol of Broadway and the fact that the local audience has already had so many years to see it — and by inflation, which has contributed to rising production costs.A Final Curtain Call for ‘The Phantom of the Opera’The longest-running show in Broadway history will close on Feb. 18, 2023.A Damaging Lockdown: “The Phantom of the Opera,” a symbol of musical theater for many, is the latest Broadway show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.Producer Q&A: In an interview with The Times, the storied British producer Cameron Mackintosh explained the decision to end the show.After ‘Phantom’: What will be the most-enduring-and-still-running shows on Broadway once “Phantom” closes? Here are the four productions that have been playing for more than a decade.From the Archives: “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it,” our critic wrote after the show’s Broadway opening in 1988.The show will continue to run in London, and in productions elsewhere around the world, and it could return to Broadway at some point, but the closing of the current production is nonetheless the end of an era, and the news brought an outpouring of shock and sadness from fans of many ages. (It also prompted a rush of ticket sales — nearly $2 million worth in the first 24 hours.)In a telephone interview Saturday, Mackintosh, who is 75 years old and is based in London, explained the decision. “You don’t want to run a great show into the ground,” he said. “It’s always been one of my mantras throughout my long career: There’s an art to closing a show, as well as opening one.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Tell me how this decision came about.Once we got through the first few months (after the reopening), we were getting to a situation where we were having regular running losses. We watched it through the spring and summer, and it became obvious that a show of this expense — because you know “Phantom” is more expensive than virtually any other show around, particularly the long-running shows — we were going to continue losing. And, as a veteran of long-running shows, I’ve found there comes a point with the greatest show where the only thing you can do is to tell people it isn’t going to be there indefinitely, which people always assume, with a long-runner, it is.What are the weekly running costs?Just under about $950,000 net now, which is about $100,000 more than it was pre-Covid. Costs on both sides of the Atlantic have gone up, whereas the box office hasn’t. And generally, I would say, across my group of theaters, there’s much less international tourism. Box office is down 10 to 15 percent on average. The truth is that “Phantom” was having a number of losing weeks pre-Covid, but the good weeks were much, much higher. And there comes a point, with any show, where there is a tipping point, where the number of good weeks has declined sufficiently that actually it’s outweighed by the number of losing weeks, and at that point there’s only one sensible decision to make.How do you know whether what’s happening on Broadway is a temporary dip or is going to last?Don’t be silly — how could anybody in this day and age make that kind of prediction? One can only see so far ahead. But we’re all going into uncharted waters, all over the world, with interest rates going up, the problems being caused internationally with Russia and Ukraine, and the cost of living shooting up in ways that no one’s even had to think about for 30 or 40 years.Do you think that “Phantom” would have closed if there had been no pandemic?I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s just the pandemic — I think it would be wrong to say that. The world has changed. The pandemic was a catalyst, but now suddenly the West is realizing that the whole situation which everyone let drift with Russia, and to a point with China, has changed the whole order, and we’re in the middle of discovering where it’s going to go. And the theater isn’t immune from that.In October, Senator Chuck Schumer, left, joined Mackintosh, center, and Andrew Lloyd Webber to celebrate the post-shutdown return of “Phantom.”OK McCausland for The New York TimesHow did you decide to reopen after the shutdown?In America, we would not have come back from the pandemic with “Phantom” if we had not had the gigantic amount of money from the federal fund, plus extremely healthy insurance. Having that allowed us to make a plan and bring the show back in the best possible way that we could.Why is “Phantom” so expensive to run?Many of the long-runners — “Cats,” “Chicago,” “Chorus Line,” even “Hamilton,” which will be a long-runner — they’re all single-set shows with mostly limited costumes. We’ve got 27 musicians. It’s a different world that Andrew and I created the show in. Most of my great shows were created during the ’80s, and that world has disappeared. We are in different times.How are you feeling about this? It’s not just a business decision.I’m both sad and celebrating. It’s an extraordinary achievement, one of the greatest successes of all time. What is there not to celebrate about that? When I started, a year to two years was considered a good run.What is your theory about why ‘Phantom’ has run so long?It is simply an amazing, beautiful musical. It is a wonderful, mythic story. We were by no means sure, when we were rehearsing it, that the thing was going to work at all, but miraculously it came together and there’s something quite extraordinary about it.Will you do another show on Broadway?I hope so. I’m not dead yet. Whether it will be a new show is another matter. But I’ve had a show on in New York since 1981, when I did “Tomfoolery” at the Village Gate. For me it’s been extraordinary run. More

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      ‘Phantom of the Opera,’ Broadway’s Longest-Running Show, to Close

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      The theatergoing audience has been slow to return after the pandemic lockdown, and the show hasn’t been selling well enough to defray its running costs.“The Phantom of the Opera,” the longest-running show in Broadway history and, for many, a symbol of musical theater, will drop its famous chandelier for the last time in February, becoming the latest show to fall victim to the drop-off in audiences since the pandemic hit.The closing is at once long-expected — no show runs forever, and this one’s grosses have been softening — but also startling, because “Phantom” had come to seem like a permanent part of the Broadway landscape, a period piece and a tourist magnet that stood apart from the vicissitudes of the commercial theater marketplace.But in the year since Broadway returned from its damaging pandemic lockdown, the theatergoing audience has not fully rebounded, and “Phantom,” which came back strong last fall, has not been selling well enough to defray its high weekly running costs.The show will commemorate its 35th anniversary in January, and then will play its final performance on Broadway on Feb. 18, according to a spokesman. The cast, crew and orchestra were informed of the decision on Friday.The show will continue to run elsewhere: The London production, which is even older than the one in New York, closed in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, but then returned, with a smaller orchestra and other cost-lowering reconfigurations, a year later. A new production opened last month in Australia, and the first Mandarin-language production is scheduled to open in China next year. Also: Antonio Banderas is working on a new Spanish-language production.“Phantom” is an icon of 1980s Broadway, created by three of the most legendary figures in musical theater history: the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, the director Hal Prince and the producer Cameron Mackintosh. All were long devoted to the show — in 2018, when it turned 30, they celebrated with a light show projected onto the Empire State Building in sync with parts of the score; last year, when the show resumed performances after the lockdown, Webber D.J.’d a block party outside the theater. (Yes, there was a remix of the “Phantom” theme.)The show, about a mask-wearing opera lover who haunts the Paris Opera House and becomes obsessed with a young soprano, is famous for that chandelier, which crashes onto the stage each night, and is characterized by over-the-top spectacle and melodrama.When the Broadway production opened on Jan. 26, 1988, the New York Times critic Frank Rich criticized many elements of the show, but began his review by acknowledging, “It may be possible to have a terrible time at ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ but you’ll have to work at it.”By 2014, when Times critic Charles Isherwood revisited, the show had won over many of its skeptics. “Soon after the orchestra struck up those thundering, ominous organ chords, I found my expectations upended, my jaded armor melting away,” Isherwood wrote. “With the distance of more than a decade — and a couple hundred new musicals — since my last visit, I found myself with a new appreciation for this beloved show’s gothic theatricality.”Over the years “Phantom” has become a fixture that has drawn enormous audiences around the world. Since the first production opened in London in 1986, the show has been seen by more than 145 million people in 183 cities around the world; it has been performed in 17 languages, and next year that number is expected to rise to 18, when the Mandarin production opens.On Broadway, the show has been seen by 19.8 million people, and has grossed $1.3 billion, since opening, according to figures compiled by the Broadway League. It grossed $867,997 during the week ending Sept. 11, which is decent but not good enough to sustain a run of a musical of this scale (with a large cast and large orchestra and elaborate set, all of which drive up running costs).The production’s intention to close the show was reported on Friday by The New York Post. More

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      This ‘Cats’ Adaptation Has the Kids Singing

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      Heather Biddle, the theater director at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas, wanted to put on a production of “Cats” for so long it became something of a comedy bit.Back in August 2020, following months of the pandemic shutdown and facing a year of remote learning, her students made commemorative T-shirts that read “At least we didn’t do ‘Cats.’”That all changed this month, when Biddle finally got her wish.J.J. Pearce High School students during a rehearsal. Many of them mostly knew the show in the context of its ill-fated 2019 cinematic adaptation.Eli Durst for The New York TimesShe staged one of the country’s first productions of “Cats: Young Actors Edition,” a one-hour version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s hit 1981 musical, adapted by iTheatrics for Concord Theatricals, and released to schools across North America last fall. And as Biddle had expected, her students — many of whom mostly knew the show in the context of its ill-fated 2019 cinematic adaptation — came around to it.“I text Biddle all the time, ‘I’m no longer a ‘Cats’ hater!’” Ainsley Ross, a senior and the production’s musical director, said during a break from rehearsals on May 10. “Now that I’m working on it, I love it so much.”Ginger Johnson, as Munkustrap, during a break from the dress rehearsal.Eli Durst for The New York TimesAt a dress rehearsal inside the school’s auditorium three days before the show opened, the nervous energy was palpable. Dozens of teenagers ran about in scruffy bodysuits that had been hand painted by fellow students and Biddle.Spencer Van Goor, a sophomore who played Rum Tum Tugger, purred “Hello, gorgeous” to a teased out wig as he picked it up off the stage and put it on his head. “I’ve wanted to do this show for nine years now,” the 15-year-old said. “I really like the dance and the music; it’s exotic and weird.”Sophie Pong, a Dallas high school senior who was interning with Heather Biddle, applying makeup to Isabella Denissen, a junior who played Demeter.Eli Durst for The New York TimesAmelia Pinney, a junior who not only took on the dance-heavy role of Bombalurina but also choreographed the entire show, moved in tandem with Isabella Denissen, a junior who played Demeter. They were as attached at the hip as their two characters would be throughout the show.“It’s mesmerizing. It’s so different from any other show that’s been done,” Pinney said wistfully.Zoe Lehman was cast as Mr. Mistoffelees.Eli Durst for The New York TimesPinney, as Bombalurina, choreographed the show.Eli Durst for The New York TimesIn the greenroom, students paced excitedly as they waited to get made up as cats. “You look like a sleep paralysis demon,” one actor told another, which got a laugh from the larger group. The students practiced their dance moves, twirling their hands, spinning their bodies, and kicking up pointed toes. They manically discussed their other favorite musicals. They all agreed that Hailey Gibson, a sophomore cast as Grizabella, was going to blow everyone away with her rendition of “Memory.”Concord Theatricals, the licensing house that represents the stage licensing rights to the Andrew Lloyd Webber catalog in North America, has long made 60-minute, kid-friendly versions of other stage works in its collection, such as Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” and Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” which J.J. Pearce students performed last fall.“I think people were shocked at how much they loved the show,” said Biddle, the theater director at J.J. Pearce High School in Richardson, Texas.Eli Durst for The New York Times“These editions do hundreds of performances a year; they are a gateway to theater,” said Imogen Lloyd Webber, a daughter of Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Concord’s senior vice president of communications.When the company decided to adapt Lloyd Webber’s work for younger performers and audiences, “Cats” was an obvious first choice. “It’s an ensemble show,” Imogen Lloyd Webber said. “Everybody’s got a part. Everybody can do a number. You can go mad with the costumes and the sets and the choreography.”The students meditated before the dress rehearsal.Eli Durst for The New York Times“And if you think about it, T.S. Eliot’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’ was originally a children’s poem,” she said, referring to the playful collection of poetry that makes up most of the musical’s book. “It made sense. Obviously, internally we’ve been calling it ‘Kittens’.”Final adjustments: Ava Johnson, as Victoria the White Cat, helping Uzo Bender, as Admetus, with his wig.Eli Durst for The New York TimesVan Goor, who was one of 32 students to perform in the production (five others contributed technical support), also appreciated that “Cats” is a true ensemble. “Technically everyone gets their own little feature,” he said. Though largely a plotless extravaganza, the musical is set in a junkyard where a group of so-called Jellicle cats have gathered for an annual celebration.“Cats: Young Actors Edition,” which is transposed in higher keys that are better suited for younger voices, was made with middle-school performers in mind. But Biddle really wanted it for her high schoolers. Most of them have worked with Biddle since they were 12 or 13, participating in her popular all-ages school summer program.The students’ parents were allowed to watch the final dress rehearsal on May 12.Eli Durst for The New York TimesThe show was J.J. Pearce’s first production without any pandemic precautions, like limited seating, masked performers or a masked audience. Three days after the rehearsal, there was still a vibrant energy among the students at their 2 p.m. show on Friday, which had been arranged not only for the performers’ high school classmates but also for local middle schoolers who were bused over after taking their annual standardized tests. Preteens and teenagers may have a reputation for not paying close attention at school-sponsored events, but the auditorium was silent when the descending riff of the musical’s opening number, “Prologue: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” began.As the show went on, Biddle’s performers were not the only ones coming around to the idea of “Cats.” The audience seemed just as entranced by the musical, which is equal parts spooky, silly and sentimental. Though some momentary loud shuffling occurred when the period bell rang, dozens of students remained rapt in their seats, cheering along to Van Goor’s provocative performance of “The Rum Tum Tugger” and when Pinney and others did back flips and handsprings onstage.Biddle said she was thrilled to have converted “a whole new group of ‘Cats’ lovers.”Eli Durst for The New York TimesWhen the house lights rose after the performance, the high school students who had been in the audience ran backstage to congratulate their friends.And the performers? They were basking in the moment, thrilled that they had pulled off the show. They’d done “Cats”! And they would do it again that evening and the next day.When asked if this production was everything she hoped it would be, Biddle replied, without a moment’s hesitation: “I think people were shocked at how much they loved the show. It was worth the wait and I love that we converted a whole new group of ‘Cats’ lovers. ‘Cats’ now and forever!” More

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      in Theater

      U.K. Theatergoers Cover Up Again, After Months Without Masks

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      Since England’s theaters reopened without restrictions in July, one thing has been as notable as the action onstage: the lack of masks in the audience.Unlike in Broadway theaters, patrons here have not been required to wear face coverings, and many attendees have chosen to ignore preshow announcements encouraging them to mask up.Several visiting theater critics have been left aghast. Laura Collins-Hughes, writing in The New York Times in September, said that at “nearly every production I saw, there were loads — sometimes a majority — of barefaced people in the crowd, which felt reckless and delusional.”Peter Marks, writing in The Washington Post in November, called London’s theaters “consistently shocking these days.” That had nothing to do with the action onstage, he added; it was entirely down to the absence of masks.Now, that image may be about to change. On Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson made masks mandatory in stores and on public transportation in England, responding to the newly discovered Omicron variant of the coronavirus.He did not make them mandatory in theaters, but several venues have now done so voluntarily. On Monday, the Royal Shakespeare Company said face coverings would be required at its theaters in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, unless an attendee is under age 12 or has a medical exemption.“We want to do all we can to ensure that we do not have to cancel performances and disappoint our audiences,” the company’s executive director, Catherine Mallyon, said in a news release.Other theaters quickly followed. On Monday, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer and theater impresario, quietly strengthened rules for the six theaters he owns in the West End. His company website was updated to say, “All audience members must wear a face covering throughout their visit, except when eating and drinking, or if they are medically exempt.” Previously, those theaters requested masks, but did not require them.On Tuesday, the National Theater, the Royal Opera House, the English National Opera and the Old Vic also said they would make masks mandatory.The rules might only last a few weeks. The National Theater’s website says the measure will be in place until Dec. 19, “when the next government review of Covid measures is due.”So far, there appears to be little resistance to the changes. Kate Evans, a spokeswoman for the Royal Shakespeare Company, said 45 people had asked for refunds or to exchange their tickets for vouchers to see a future show since the mandate was announced, out of 6,000 who had booked to see its current show, “The Magician’s Elephant.”“The majority of feedback we’ve received around the decision has been very positive,” she said. More

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      in Music

      What You Remember About ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’

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      Listening to the album. Singing along at the show. And wearing a loincloth to play the title role. All fresh in our readers’ minds in the 50 years since.Fifty year ago, “Jesus Christ Superstar” landed on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger Theater, and the careers of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice and Ben Vereen would never be the same. Responding to a recent article celebrating the anniversary, nearly 400 readers shared their own memories of hearing, seeing or acting in the show, then and since. Here is an edited selection.Setting: A dinner party at our house in Toledo, Ohio. Time: Fall 1970. Dramatis Personae: My parents (Mom, probably in a Halston Ultrasuede dress, Dad with au courant sideburns) and 10 of their groovy friends. Music: The “Jesus Christ Superstar” cast album is on the stereo. What is that incredible music? Everyone thought it was the most modern, creative and innovative thing they’d ever heard. I was 8 years old. I went on to memorize the whole album and can still, to this day, pretty much sing any song. LISA W. ALPERT, New YorkI played Jesus in my Connecticut boarding school production in November 1982. Me, a Pakistani Zoroastrian with a decent baritone — yes, “Gethsemane” was near impossible. Women played Simon and Judas; a mix of the school’s nerd and jock squads Caiaphas and his cabal; and the son of a French expat aristocrat sang Pilate. As I dragged the cross to Calvary, from stage through audience to exit, my loincloth snagged on I still don’t know what, and unbeknown to me unraveled slowly as I performed trudging up that imaginary hill. I’m certain Christ flashing a healthy mop bordered on blasphemy. FRAMJI MINWALLA, Karachi, PakistanI was asked to play Herod in the 2003 tour with Carl Anderson, Sebastian Bach and Natalie Toro. Carl blew me away every night as Judas. At 58 years old — still singing, wrapping each note with deep, rich, emotional life. He was a marvel! He is missed! Natalie Toro brought an exotic beauty to her performance and should be remembered as one of the best Marys ever. And then we come to Sebastian Bach of the ’80s rock band Skid Row [as Jesus.] It was an interpretation like no other. That’s the best way to remember it! PETER KEVOIAN, Dingmans Ferry, Pa.I appeared as Pilate in a dance recital production where my first wife went to see her sister perform and saw me as well. A week later she seduced me and then her ex-husband insisted we marry. He didn’t want his kids exposed to a “sinful” relationship. So I owe that part of my life and the rest as well to “Jesus Christ Superstar”! PAUL JANES-BROWN, Pukalani, Hawaii“Jesus Christ Superstar” was my first Broadway show. I had been listening to the double album for months when the time finally came for us to go: Me, my best friend, Stacy, and her magical Aunt Joanne. Stacy’s aunt took us — two 10-year-old kids — from Long Island to Times Square. I was breathless watching the cast sing all the songs I knew by heart, and had to keep myself from singing with them. And when King Herod appeared in heels higher than any platform shoes I’d yet seen in the early 1970s, I laughed with the best of them and felt oddly at home. RUSSELL KALTSCHMIDTMy husband Stephen Altman was the assistant electrician at the Mark Hellinger. Toward the beginning of the run, he remembers that one of the Apostles was supposed to put a safety clip on Judas’s harness, when they “hang” him at the end of the show. He missed the clip, and Nicky Knox, one of the flymen, grabbed Ben Vereen and saved him! Fortunately, Ben’s neck was very strong! Stephen is a proud 53-year retired member of IATSE Local #1. DOREEN ALTMAN, Morrisville, N.C.Age 21, and I took the girl of my dreams, who to this day remains one of my favorite people, to the final preview. When Yvonne Elliman sang “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and reached the extremely high note, I felt, for the first time in my life, an actual physical electrical stimulation going up and down my spine. JOSEPH R. REM Jr., Hackensack, N.J.I played King Herod in a production in Auckland, New Zealand, in the late ’80s. Of course every director was trying to find a new “take” on Herod’s song. I just happened to be cast by someone who thought it would be a brilliant idea to have me pop out of a giant Easter egg which then became an ornate bath, covered in pink balloons (and only balloons), with a pink shower cap and brandishing a golden loofah. My dancing troupe were dressed like Playboy Bunnies. Well, it was the ’80s, I suppose. CHRIS BALDOCK, Canberra, Australia More