Phantom captures CCP stage

New York baritone Josh Powell stars as The Phantom, with New Orleans and Knoxville soprano Nicole Begue, a member of the Playhouse’s resident company, as Christine when the Phantom captures the stage. (Photo provided)

Cumberland County Playhouse has no trouble transforming itself into New York, Japan, the Grand Ole Opry, Kansas, London, North Carolina, Oz, anywhere. From March 19 though May 1, theater goers will feel as though they are walking the streets of Paris, dropping by the Bistro across the street from the Paris Opera House, and descending into the most extensive underground city in the world — the world of Arthur Kopit and Maury Yeston’s Phantom.

Most people think that Andrew Lloyd Webber is the only one to score a hit by turning Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel, “The Phantom of the Opera,” into a beloved musical. In fact Leroux’s family granted the rights to the Tony Award Winning team of Kopit and Yeston first. Fresh off a streak of London successes, Lloyd Webber beat them to the draw when it came to financing. Their Phantom sat on the shelf until Houston’s Theater Under the Stars noticed the beauty of the music and the fact that Kopit and Yeston had chosen to begin their story much earlier in order to explain what caused the disfigurement and masking of the Phantom. Theater Under the Stars chose to premiere what many in the theater industry call “the best—the most beautiful Phantom of them all.”

“Yeston’s absolutely gorgeous score and Kopit’s powerful devotion to the novel’s story will have Lloyd Webber fans thrilled with the comparisons and newcomers to the Phantom phenomenon spellbound by the haunting romance, great beauty, and unforgettable drama of this show,” said Bryce McDonald, playhouse company manager. “I think all theatergoers will discover what the Boston Globe said about Phantom: that it ‘has a glory all its own’,” he said.

New York baritone Josh Powell stars as The Phantom, with New Orleans and Knoxville soprano Nicole Begue, a member of the Playhouse’s resident company, as Christine.

Phantom is the love story of a disfigured musical genius and Christine, his beautiful prot?g?. A striking difference between Lloyd Webber’s version is that Kopit and Yeston reveal so much more of the Phantom’s story that audiences feel great sympathy for him. In their version, the Phantom is not the monster Lloyd Webber depicted.

“Christine becomes, for a lonely man, the ideal of beauty, creativity, and the creative spark of the Divine,” said Crabtree. The Phantom story is in the tradition of the woman and beauty as rescuer of brutish man—the same tradition as Beauty and the Beast (which follows later in the Playhouse’s 2004 Play Season), the Hunchback of Notre Dame and other well known stories which express respect for and celebrate the empowerment of women.

Crabtree calls Phantom “one of the greatest love stories of all time.” “Phantom makes it clear that beauty is not just physical but must be accompanied by strength of spirit, character, and power of will in both men and women. Man without woman dies. The species dies unless the man and woman unite and live on together,” he said.

For tickets call 931-484-5000. Adults $22; seniors (62 & over) $20, groups (of 20 or more) $19, children and students, including full time college students, $11.