Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Chaz Bono as the Phantom!

This has inspired me to learn the tango! 

My favorite thing about the month of October is that the phantom seems to be extremely popular due to the fact that it's Halloween and he's thought to be extremely spooky. There's all sorts of Phantom sightings, people dressed as him for Halloween, appearances or mentions in episodes of television shows etc. Which reminds me I've always meant to get a phantom sighting entry created. Last night my cousin informed me that Chaz Bono was going to dance to Phantom on dancing with the stars in honor of Broadway week. I missed it last night but found it on youtube today. I might have taken a slightly longer break than I was supposed to so that I can view the video on my cell phone but phantom is worth breaking rules for. 

Interestingly enough Shawn would like to take tango lessons, I am pretty sure he would like the tango to be our first dance at the wedding reception. I'm more than perfectly willing to learn the tango if that means Shawn will don the mask and the phantom of the opera title song can be our first dance. The question is can I get my dear sweet future husband to go along with this?!? 

Monday, October 24, 2011

Phantom of the Opera Masquerade Cruise

I've been a bad phan :( Haven't been checking the message boards or websites to keep up on my phantom news since leaving facebook. Thankfully a PHellow PHan alerted me of this Phantom of the Opera Cruise in an e-mail.

It's a Masquerade cruise on October 29, 2011 leaving NYC. It's from 9 PM to 12 AM. With your admission you get the boat ride, plus seasonal beer and champagne. There's a costume contest in which the lucky winner will receive tickets to Phantom of the Opera's 10,000th performance (If I do go there's a high chance that winner shall be mugged for their tickets before the boat ride is over).

Okay so I really want to go to this, so very badly. Sadly I don't think I'm going to get to go. There's a chance I might and if I do I will post some photos and give a blog entry. But I'm pretty sure I'm not really going to have the money for it. I'm trying to save every single penny I can for my wedding and honeymoon and I am also trying to get myself a car. I do have money saved but it's for the wedding (although this is a high temptation to blow some of the wedding money I have saved). Shawn and I have other local events we were invited to that night, which will be cheaper than this event, and Shawn might be suffering from Phantom burn out still. So the odds aren't in my favor as of this moment. But to the lucky Phans who definitely can go please enjoy!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Phantom of the Opera Candy...it is possible!

This past weekend I attended back to back street fairs. While I was at the fair in Farmingdale, I wandered into the chocolate duck with Terry, Anabel and baby Vincent. Anabel asked the cashier if they had masquerade molds, he pointed out the correct aisle to her and she made quite a discovery. Half mask chocolate molds that I'm sure are definitely phantom of the opera based circa ALW. I immediately bought them along with some white chocolate chips so that I could experiment and hopefully make some phantom chocolate. I found out what to do in order to melt the chocolate pieces in order to fit them into the mold....then I suffered through the rest of the fair until I could get home and experiment with this new creation.
I got home, tore open the chocolate, did what I had to do and was very successful, making chocolate is ridiculously easy. The phantom of the opera chocolate came out so great, that I intend to make them for my job's Halloween fundraising bake sale at the end of this month, as well as making them to send out to some of my PHan PHriends for Christmas....only thing is now their Christmas present isn't a surprise if they read this entry.
Here's the step-by-step process along with photographic accompaniment so that you too may create Phantom of the Opera candy if you can get the mold
Step 1 - start by boiling water in a pot
Step 2 - obtain a bowl made of metal, any other metal object that can fit on top of the boiling pot of water is fine, there are also appliances made to melt chocolate pieces specifically I wouldn't invest unless you intend to make much chocolate though.
Step 3 - place bowl or desired metal object on top of the pot of boiling water, then pour the desired amount of chocolate pieces or chips into the bowl. Begin to stir chocolate as it starts to melt and take liquid form.
Step 4 - Once the chocolate is in hot liquid form pour it into the plastic molds, than place in the freezer for a few hours.
Step 5 - after the chocolate has frozen into the shape of the mold and is solid again remove the mold from the freezer. The chocolate pieces should easily pop out of the mold, leaving you with your chocolate creations, now phans can be very happy with Phantom of the Opera candy!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Phantom Burn Out!

Okay don't panic! I'm not suffering from phantom burn out, but sometimes people close to me are in danger of phantom burn out. The purpose of this blog entry will be to explain the tragedies of phantom burn out and how you can handle it

What exactly is Phantom Burn Out

Phantom Burn Out is a horrible experience, usually phans don't suffer from phantom burn out, but people close to a phan are the ones in danger. These unfortunate people at a certain point will have had *GASP* enough of Phantom after being exposed to phantom for a certain amount of time. Sometimes they'll be nice enough to inform their phan that they are suffering, some burn out victims may start avoiding you like the plague. If you're lucky the burn out victim will be okay and ready for more exposure once they've been semi-phantom free or have had limited phantom experience for a month or two.

What to do for your suffering loved one

If your loved one is suffering from Phantom burn out there are many things to do! If there's another phantom event coming up and they are going through burn out, you may extend the invitation to them to attend the event but if they decline, lean on another local fellow Phan, or another friend or relative that you know. If you wish to hear music or watch a DVD and you live with the burn out victim, by all means indulge yourself but do so with headphones. Make sure to do this especially if your co habitating burn out victim must see your phantom shrine every day, as this will most likely ensure your shrine stays up and unharmed. Don't forget the burn out victim under normal circumstances isn't privy to your thoughts so feel free to think about Phantom as much as you'd like. After some time the burn out victim should be okay and than it's time to drag them to more phantom events once they're fully recovered.

That ladies and gents is phantom burn out and how it should be handled.

October 2011-Sexy Phantom!

I really should make sure my sexy phantom titles follow the same format. Hopefully next month when I name November's sexy Phantom I'll remember that I want to have this month's title the official format for the monthly sexy phantoms.

Now that my babbling gibberish about how I should format the title is over and done with, this month's sexy Phantom is Ciaran Sheehan. Ciaran is one of the phantoms who has played both the role of Raoul and Phantom. What inspired me to name him as sexy phantom for October of 2011, was the fact that he made an appearance with Kimilee Bryant to the Phan gathering a week and a half ago. I figured since he took some time out to speak with some of the phans he automatically deserved the title and glory as well as the buckets of phan girl drool that come with the title of sexy phantom.

So ladies and men who aren't straight...here's our sexy phantom this month, Ciaran Sheehan!

This is Ciaran on the cover of his CD, I bought this CD at the phan gathering but haven't opened it yet.
This is how we prefer to see Ciaran as the sexy man this blog pays tribute to every month!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Phantom of the Opera sans a falling chandelier

At 2 PM on October 2, 2011 - Phantom of the Opera streamed a live performance of the 25th anniversary performance from Royal Albert Hall to Phans accross the UK, Canada and USA. Thankfully my friend Michael snagged three tickets to the showing at Farmingdale Multiplex cinemas, thus ensuring that the plans for Sunday afternoon of October 2, for Shawn and I was to attend the screening of the live performance stream. The viewing started at 2 PM, Shawn and I were a little bit late so we ended up coming into the theatre during the rehearsal for Hannibal. It was the first time ever that I was late for anything involving phantom, I figure with all the phantom events I do end up being able to attend this misfortune was bound to happen sometime, it's better it happened for a screening and not for an actual performance so I won't gripe. Besides this will be available on DVD soon, which I'm definitely going to buy so it's not like I won't be able to view the little bit that I missed. The performance was wonderful. There were a few key elements and props that were missing because the show took place at Royal Albert Hall and not at Her Majesty's. I guess they were able to put together certain scenes and had to forgo using some prop pieces because the space they were using doesn't normally accommodate the production. Most notable items missing were the mirror bride at the end of music of the night, half of Christine's dressing room, the boat in the final lair scene and the most notable by far the falling chandelier. There was a chandelier in the hall, but my guess was the theatre managers at Royal Albert Hall were definitely not going to let that thing fall, not even for the greatest musical to ever grace the presence of the stage. The cast was huge, the biggest cast I've ever seen come together in order to perform the phantom. Ramin Karimloo played the man of the evening, the phantom. He was terrific, his voice was absolutely wonderful, and he added something great to the final lair scene that I've never seen done before, he actually almost huddled up and cried after screaming orders to Raoul and Christine to go after he released Raoul. I definitely lost it at that point and starting bawling like a baby as I usually do during the final lair scene. Sierra Boggess was a good Christine. Shawn said she was a bit creepy because he didn't really notice her blink, but creepy non blinking aside her Christine performance was pretty damn cool. She played up Christine's torn emotions between the phantom and Raoul more than any Christine I've ever seen. I was really glad to have seen these two perform the title roles, I've been dying to see them in action since I knew about them. I did see Sierra when she was the little mermaid on Broadway but was really glad to see her as Christine. I'm more excited over the fact that I will have this on DVD soon and will see them any time I want to pop my copy in the DVD player (which might be any time I'm home). Kiera Duffy was a fair Carlotta. The rest of the cast was good, very on target, and they did an admirable job in performing phantom in a space not entirely meant to house it. Masquerade was disappointingly undazzling, they chose to have the cast members enter the stage after the managers discovered each other in the beginning of the song, rather than have them waiting on one of the staircases while a curtain was pulled back. The cool part about Masquerade - three monkeys. There was some really cool digitized movie projections during the performance. I've heard rumors of a new version of phantom being released, I don't have my facts straight for any blog piece about this new version yet but I'm wondering if these movie projections will be featured in the new version or if they were just for the Royal Albert Hall specifically. The pit orchestra played above the stage, because the camera men were down in the pit. When the performance was over, of course Andrew Lloyd Webber had to come out in order to take a bow and give a speech. I think he does these special performances just so he can have some moments (maybe also because the phans might crucify him if he doesn't....but it's probably more to have his moments). Wasn't a fan of his speech, Shawn was ready to go to sleep the minute he came on stage, and Michael made fun of his fashionable shirt. He blubbered a few words, bought out the original London Company and crew, minus the few that have passed away including Maria Bjornson and Steve Barton. He introduced Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman separately, it was pretty amusing when Sarah came out, he was trying to grab her fiercely but she insisted on embracing Michael Crawford. Sarah Brightman sang the title song with four separate phantoms and Ramin, the four phantoms followed by singing a rendition of music of the night with many voices. That was very cool, I was able to see brief musical clips performed by John Owen Jones, Anthony Warlow, Colm Wilkinson, and Peter Joback. I only recognized Colm Wilkinson, at the end of the performance I ended up not being able to catch the names of the phantoms when they flashed on the credits screen. Thankfully my fellow phan Christopher Marsh in London saw the show in person and posted these phantom's names so I was able to get my reporter facts straight. (When I'm a real reporter I'll have to make a mental note not to reveal my sources). It's alright for my blog though, I think my friends and fellow PHans like the recognition. Overall I was pretty impressed with the 25th anniversary performance, I was really happy that the decision was made to stream it live to movie theatres, this was probably so ALW could have many more people see him make a speech, but still it was cool to have the opportunity to see this without having to take a plane to London, and to than be able to buy it on DVD in a month is pretty good too. May phantom have another 25 years...who am I kidding...I hope phantom has another 125 year and than some!
Michael, Shawn and I during the intermission, I used the front facing camera on my cell phone, grainy dark picture but still glad to have it.