PHirst ever Phan Interview! Interview with Julia Tranberg

This afternoon I had the pleasure of interviewing Julia Tranberg, a phantom phan for five years now and a resident of Florida. This is the first of what I hope to be many phan interviews I will conduct for this blog. I like to use this blog to name the sexy phantom each month and well as review phantom materials, but since I don't get to much reviewing but would like to keep entries coming and this blog alive I figured phan interviews would be great. So below is a partial transcript of my interview with Julia, we did have other bits of conversation in between interview questions but I'll leave those out.

Julia Tranberg - resident of Florida and devout phantom phan of five years! 

Diana Brewster: I guess we can start with the questions lol. when did you become a phantom phan? how did it happen?
Julia Tranberg: I was in 7th grade and that was when the movie was comming out. For Christmas my friend gave me a copy of the OLC of Phantom....I was hooked the moment I heard the music! I saw the movie a few times and then in October of 2006 my mom took us to see Phantom. It was a touring company
I sat 3rd row and Gary Mauer was my 1st Phantom. Just looked at the ticket it was October 1st 2005. I have it framed with an autograph from Gary Mauer lol and since then I have seen the show 4 times 2 touring and 2 in NYC and I am going again in March of next year
Diana Brewster: who is your favorite phantom?
Julia Tranberg: Gary Mauer hands down the best one I have seen live...he brought sooo much emotion and passion to the role...and in his voice when he sang you could hear the phantoms pain and sorrow and yet it was beautiful at the same time, had me sobbing in the final lair scene
Diana Brewster: a great phantom will do that. Is your favorite version of phantom the ALW play? or a different movie or theatre version you may have seen?
Julia Tranberg: the ALW verion is my fav and my second fave is is the Charles Dance film! I LOVE it
and Yeston and Kopit Phantom is a good stage version too I want to see it live....
Diana Brewster: I've seen it live twice it's pretty good sometimes little companies put it on keep your eye out
Julia Tranberg: I deff will :)
Diana Brewster: how does phantom inspire you in your life? for example do you make phan art? write phan phiction? do you want to chose a career based on phantom?
Julia Tranberg: Phantom is a big part of my life...It's appart of who I am....since fiirst loving Phantom I have been in many shows...I did alot of shows my 4 years of HS...We even did a Phantom of the Opera marching band show my 2nd year of HS...my former band director and good friend is a huge Phan as well....It would be my dream someday to play Christine...on Broadway, tour company, or local production....I am going to become a music teacher and share my love for Phantom with my students and hopefully inspire them...My whole house is decorated Phantom...and I have a whole cuiro cabinet of Phantom music boxes...and I do like to draw Phantom art and I do alot of Phantom ceramics at the ceramic studio I work at. Plates and coffee mugs, and I love to read good Phantom Phan fics, I bought Angel of Music Tales of the Phantom of the Opera by Carrie Hernandez its good. Soon I am getting the hood of my car done Phantom lol
Diana Brewster: Do you like Love Never dies? Explain why you might like it dislike it?
Julia Tranberg: lol i have a huge respone for this lol
Diana Brewster: lol you can write it if you wish
Julia Tranberg: ok lol here it goes. I do not like it at all, ever since I heard there was going to be a sequel I was not happy. Phantom needs no sequel! The story was beautiful the way it ended, in the orginal novel he does of a broken heart. I tried to give LND a chance and bought the CD and watched the show on youtube...and it just made me dislike it even more. As a music major and all my experience with music the score is lacking and the plot makes no sense, it makes no sense that Christine found the Phantom had sex with him...he left and then she married raoul the next day. How does she know the kid is the Phantoms??? There were no tests back then!!!What happened to the Phantom's disformity???? Did his lip thing just fall off!!!! It looks like his deformity shrunk!!!!There was no plastic surgery back then..... what did he just get better looking with age???!!!! There is just sooo much wrong with that show, and don't even get me started with Bathing Beauty....shudders lol lol. Its like Phantom of the Soap Opera, I think it was a desperate attempt for ALW to get more fame and wealth out of it. He cant deal with the fact that Phantom was it for him It was his high water mark, he even said himself in an interview on the second disk of the 2004 film in the segment behind the mask that he know he will NEVER BE ABLE TO TOP PHANTOM, there you go straight for the horses mouth lol lol. I think love should die and I am a big supporter of the Love Should Die group :)
Diana Brewster: I agree with you 100 %. What is it about phantom that you love the most? is it the music, the story?
Julia Tranberg: its a good mix of both, the music stays in your head for days and sometimes wakes up up at night and ur humming it, MOTN is my fav song, such beauty and then PONR such passion and longing for someone you want but cant have...and then the story...guy loves a girl but she loves someone else. It's classic but in the phantom i think u get a hint of christine loving him, part of her loves him but she knows she cant be with him but he is appart of her soul... it never gets old to me
Diana Brewster: same here :)

At this point I had to conclude the interview. I must say it was a pleasure interviewing Julia, she made this first experience conducting a phan interview a great one :)

Curio cabinet full of Julia's music boxes! 

Julia's birthday cake!