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[0:57] Jess: Hello and welcome to this extra special bonus episode of the Cheese Wheel. And today I am joined by the one and only keeper of the cheese, Juliet Antonio, to talk about Andrew Lloyd Webber's Masquerade. Um, which Juliet was able to catch recently with their partner, down in middling New York City.

[1:19] Juliet Antonio: Now, Juliet, the only thing I actually liked about New York City, by the way, was the time we came to see Masquerade, because it literally looked like right out of a Nora Ephron movie. And I was so not used to it, because I'm like, what? It doesn't smell like a trash can right now. What is this? How dare the leaves be orange and pretty?

[1:36] Jess: Yeah, I know. We got to sit in Central Park for a while before the show, and I was like, this is actually nice. Um, okay, so you had been planning to see this for a minute. You got those tickets as soon as they went on sale.

[1:48] Juliet Antonio: Not as soon as they went on sale. I was on Tumblr when it was announced that they were doing this, and I thought, limited run, expensive tickets, I'm not sure. Then they said, we're extending the run, and by the way, Hugh Panaro's gonna be here. And I thought, oh, because I never saw the original run on Broadway. And I thought, okay, I have a one in six chance I'm gonna take it. So I texted my partner saying, I think I'm gonna go see Masquerade, and he went, buy two tickets. I went, You're not into musicals and you've never seen Phantom before. And he went, It's New York City with you. Buy two tickets. So I called him on the phone and we got tickets for the two o'clock pulse on October 4th.

[2:25] Jess: Now, um, let's rewind a little bit.

[2:28] Juliet Antonio: Yeah.

[2:29] Jess: Your relationship with Phantom of the Opera.

[2:31] Juliet Antonio: I I I I'm gonna make a wager a guess. I don't know this for a fact.

[2:35] Jess: Okay.

[2:35] Juliet Antonio: You and I have been an overlapping collective for many a year.

[2:41] Jess: We have. Is that how we met? Through Phantom of the Opera?

[2:44] Juliet Antonio: Sort of. So here's the story. I fell in love with Phantom when I was 13 years old. My friend M introduced me to it because she was a big Phantom fan and she would sing. She sang "Think of Me" at Summer Camp once. She showed it to my birthday, and I just started absorbing as much content as I could because it came at the perfect time in my life. I was going through the storms of puberty, and "Music of the Night" was my comfort song, so it reassured me that I was going to go. So I go online and I see this YouTube video for a review of the Phantom of the Opera 25th anniversary from a YouTube channel called XX Just World Xbox. And that's how I first knew you.

[3:20] Jess: That's not even, that's not a particularly good video.

[3:23] Juliet Antonio: It does not exist on the internets anymore for good reason. Some of the edits were pretty funny. The 2004 one, though, for some of the comments that you said, it's probably good that that one doesn't exist anymore, too. Although you and Robbie were hilarious.

[3:35] Jess: I uh, Robbie's gonna be back on the show one day. There's a lot of things that I'm very glad do not exist on the interwebs anymore.

[3:43] Juliet Antonio: But the relationship, the friends I've made along the way have been worth all the probable cancellations.

[3:50] Jess: And I'm sure. Um, it's that okay, so 30 or 10 years later, um, you go to see Masquerade. Um, walk me. So you've never seen the original Broadway cast, or not the original Broadway. You haven't seen it on Broadway. Have you seen it on a North American tour or anything like that?

[4:09] Juliet Antonio: I saw the restaged tour when it debuted in Providence, Rhode Island in 2013. My take was this was the early days of the tour. The early days of the US tour, I can vouch for this, were genuinely good. I saw Mark Campbell and Julia Udine as the Phantom and Christine. Mark Campbell understood the type of Phantom that was needed for that restaged show, and he was perfect. And I fell in love with that version of the stage show. And I actually wrote him a fan letter and he wrote back. I'd only seen the restaged tour, and I'd only seen the 25th anniversary in the 2004 movie in terms of different versions of the Andrew Lloyd Webber story prior to Masquerade. And Love Never Dies, but that's its own little person. That's its own can of beans.

[4:52] Jess: Um, I wanna know the process for getting it. Because there is a dress code, there are specific things, so I kind of want you to just kind of go crazy and tell me all about that.

[5:04] Juliet Antonio: Okay. So I buy my tickets, I get an email giving me a lowdown of how things are gonna go. Dress code wise, they specify we expect cocktail or formal attire, and the color code is you can wear black, white, or silver. All guests we ask that all guests be masked. If you don't have a mask, we will give you one for free. So I had a black dress and a white scarf, and I have my mask right here that I bought. They're little angel wings and they're glasses friendly. And when Mike came to my house, I said, What's that? And he said, It's my outfit. And I'm like, Mike, it's navy. And he went, We're going to Marshall's. So we ran down to the department store the night before. He got a shirt, dress pants, and a belt, and he was fine.

The irony being is that he always wears black clothes, but he doesn't have black fancy wear. Um, we got into the line, and they said in the email, if you're not dressed appropriately, you will be asked to make adjustments. We saw one particular individual who was wearing a gray sweatshirt and gray washed-out jeans, didn't see him for the rest of the show.

[6:10] Jess: So they enforced it.

[6:13] Juliet Antonio: That's terrifying.

[6:15] Jess: But also a good way to lose $250 a ticket.

[6:18] Juliet Antonio: Or not a seat, a ticket. A ticket, yep. The other stipulations were you had to be 21 plus in order to get in. They did check your ID and they stamped your hand before you came in because they were giving out drinks during the show. They had non-alcoholic options, but they had champagne and cognac for guests that they gave you as you went, and you didn't get a physical ticket. You got a password that was emailed to you 24 hours beforehand, and it was a lyric from the show. Mine was "silent tears."

[6:47] Jess: Oh my gosh. That's see, I feel like there's a way to game the system.

[6:54] Juliet Antonio: How so?

[6:54] Jess: Oh, like if you know a lyric to the show, you could just spout it off at random until you eventually. Or if you just know someone that's going to the show.

[7:00] Juliet Antonio: Oh, that's true. I didn't I hadn't thought of that, but I thought that was part of the intrigue and mystery and the fun for me. It's like, oh, I get a password. I mean, that's great. I mean, I'd be, but I'm just like, Juliet, let's just say I'm in New York the same day as you are. You see, like, yo, the password silent.

[7:17] Juliet Antonio: So I wonder if everyone got a specific password as opposed to one password that everyone got.

[7:22] Jess: That's a good question.

[7:23] Juliet Antonio: And to be fair, when you got up in line, they asked for the names that were on the reservation first before they asked for the password. So they would double check to make sure you're on the list that way, and they would check it against your physical IDs, and then they asked, okay, what's the password? If you got it right, then you could go in. They had it down to a science.

[7:41] Jess: What was the building like? Because I remember seeing the videos of people lined up outside of random New York City buildings.

[7:48] Juliet Antonio: So the building itself was Lee's Art Shop, I believe, on West 45th Street. When you came to the building itself, it was the Lee's Art Shop sign printed in capital red letters. And the building itself was wrapped, um, not wrapped, but behind the glass, was basically collages of newspapers. And there was some graffiti that was designed specifically for the show with spray painted on the outside of the building. And some of the newspapers also had Phantom-related articles from when Phantom first came out to the Alhersheld cartoons that were drawn, to even some articles about different film versions. The Lon Chaney one, Herbert Long, Maximilien Shell. So there were Easter eggs if you looked close enough, and I did definitely point some of them out to my partner, um, because we'd come to see where the building was, and then we went off and got lunch and did our own thing, and then we came back as it got closer to us.

[8:40] Jess: Alright. So you get in line, you say the password, what happens next?

[8:46] Juliet Antonio: Okay, Jess, here we go. So, um, we go in, and they also did ask you one last thing. They said, Will you be taking your phone with you, or will you be leaving it with our bag check people, which is a service they gave for free? And I didn't understand what they meant, so I said, Oh, I'll keep my phone with me. They put a red sticker over the camera lenses of my phone, which they did with everyone, and I realized, oh wait, I don't have a pocket, so I'm like, put it in his pocket. So now, previously they said they didn't have a bathroom, they did have one. So Mike went to use the restroom quickly. I stood in line, and there was this individual I saw beckoning people out of the corner of my eye.

And while this is going on, they're playing some sort of miscellaneous circus music in the background, not written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, but to give you some ambiance. And I look, and there's this individual standing across from me wearing a white mask and a full-length tuxedo. And they point at me and they beckon me forward. And I'm a good audience member and I take direction. So I walked forward and they looked at me and went, might as well get to head while you can, don't you think? And I went, handed the level of my eyes and all that. Didn't know what they were talking about. Um, so Mike comes out of the restroom, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go, and he goes, Okay, it's red. I'm like, what do you mean it's red?

You go in the bathroom. You know those hallucinogenic rectangular long light bulbs that they have on ceilings? They were red light bulbs, so the bathroom was completely awash in red. Like the fans for the opera's here inside my stall. And I'm like, looking around, I was blinking, it was turning green. Mike said he thinks he accidentally walked into the women's room because he was so disoriented with the red light. But I get out there and I'm blinking, I can't see. I'm like, whoa, that was weird. So I get back in line, and then the individual on the white mask claps their hands and draws our attention. They explain their version of Ushers. They say that they are the Phantom's butlers. All of them wear the same tuxedos, all of them have white masks, and they've all been given pocket watches to keep an eye on the time.

And I want to give a shout out to the butlers because their purpose was to help guide us through each stage of the theater. And they were excellent when it came to people who needed wheelchair accessibility and had mobility issues. They guided them to and from each location perfectly, made sure they got on the elevator, made sure that they had priority, and if you were lost they guided you along the way and if they needed people to move out, sit down, go to different areas of the scene they were able to escort you and make it seamless because all the pulses for Masquerade are in 15 minute increments so everybody's gotta go. We want to make sure that everybody has the same experience. So they primed us for that and then we go in.

[11:26] Jess: Okay, so I've only ever done one live experience like this, um, and it was Rocky Horror Picture Show done live by the opera moto. I've got questions about acoustics before we even start.

[11:26] Juliet Antonio: Okay, okay, what do you want to know?

[11:26] Jess: How like is the is there a band or is it played like live and are they mic'd or are they just kind of singing raw to the room?

[11:59] Juliet Antonio: Okay, so the music itself, Andrew Lloyd Webber's score is piped in through the speakers. Now I want to make it clear I'm not a sound designer, I don't have a sound tech background. The quality sounded fine to me. Some people say you can tell it’s canned, other people thought that the sound designer had a great job for the venue that they were in. Some of the singing, due to effects, are pre-recorded. Not all of it.

[12:23] Juliet Antonio: Most of them were singing live. And it's the same for any production of Phantom, though. Yeah, yeah. Um, but that one was different because of all the physicality that was involved in the Phantom role, but there's a little bit more, which we'll get into when we start the show itself. There was only one musician who played live, and it was the first person you saw when you entered the room after the ushers guided you. And they're gonna come back later when we talk about the rest of the show.

[12:49] Jess: Okay, okay. I so let I ask this question then. So because it kind of leads into this. So what do you see when you first enter in?

[12:57] Juliet Antonio: Okay. Go into a mini ballroom. The Phantom's butlers are there with trays of beverages. One is champagne, one was a non-alcoholic lavender spritz drink that was really delicious, which I one side of the room are shelves containing different hops and different costume pieces from Phantom History. I think some of it was from Masquerade, some from the original production. And in front of that bookshelf, up on a little stage, is a violin player who's playing to a medley of phantom songs. And when you look up at the ceiling, you're bathed in this pink light because the lights that are up there instead of lampshades are pink tutus. So it creates this very lovely lighting effect. The violinist is playing on a stage. He came down and walked through us and played the show. Well, not the show, he played his song. And then when he was done, he got back up on the podium, concluded, we all clapped, and then we went into the next box.

[14:00] Juliet Antonio: Um, okay. We go into the room, and I thought we were going to get the auction soon because it's all wood, there's a wooden stage, and there's a crate with the monkey music box on it. So I'm like, okay. So I gave Mike a general plot synopsis before he gave in there, but I gave him a rundown of the auction scene and what to expect. We don't get the auctions. Instead, Madame Giri comes out on the stage. And she has a note from the Phantom. She wishes us all a good evening, reads the note from the Phantom. The words are a bit of a blur, but she basically explains that she will be our guide for the rest of the show. And because she's the ballet mistress of the opera populaire, we're going to learn a dance.

So she teaches us a bit of the masquerade choreography. It's not an exact replica of the late great Dame Jillian Lynn's, but there's enough where she's with like the half mask going up the face and the lean to the side that if you're a fan you can recognize it. So we're doing this by my head. I'm thinking, oh my god, Mike's gonna hate this. We're spinning around, and she goes, Ravi, bravi si and she pointed to one person and said her iconic line. And you, you were a disgrace. But everybody was laughing. And then at some point she we all toast because we still have our glasses. I will say they didn't provide refills for the non-alcoholic drink, which we found out by accident when they came around and gave us refill, and we're like, that's champagne.

But we need to toast, and she said, to paraphrase again, because some of the lines are blurred now. Those of you who have known the story before, um, don't know the whole store's full story, and for those of you who had never seen this before, it's better that you don't know anything. So she said, Oh yep, so we went onto Masquerade. That's the first song you hear. The doors part, we enter a mini theater. Different people are dancing around us, and then Dais in the center of the stage. They're singing Masquerade, and then at one point, I thought this was Fiona, because he had the green skeleton outfit. Came up to me and said, Would you care to dance? I said, Yes. Gave my partner my glass, and I guess Femme.

We all then at one point, Madame Jury goes, All together now, dance! And we did the masquerade choreography. Femme wish me and you. I went back to my partner. But then at the end, you hear a laugh. Very phoenix. And it grows and grows and grows. And the lights cut out. And I grab my partner's arm and I went, It's him. And then the Phantom starts singing these new lyrics. Basically welcoming us into the theater, saying, How astute is you and how audacious to choose this venture so freely and foolishly. The lights flicker again when he sings a bit more. And this is where we set up the framing device of Masquerade, Jess. As he's singing, Madame Jury comes back up on the dais. She has an oval mirror with an intricate black frame.

Various ensemble members approach and touch the glass. And the Phantom says, this paraphrase again, experience you will find one of a kind as you enter my mind. So we are in the phantom's mind for this show. We're seeing it through his eyes. But as he sings the note, as you enter my mind, the mirror shakes and it explodes. It explodes into shakes. Which is like a hand mirror or like a big mirror. It's about the size of the mirror that you have on my that I have on my wall. So if I was to take this off and hold it in front of my face, it would go from my head to my torso. And some heads. So significant. Yes. So then it explodes, lights go out, and then a phantom appears on stage in a strobe light.

Now I want to give a quick shout out. Our Phantom for this plus was played by Clay. It's spelled Singer, his last name, but I've heard it pronounced Singer. He was the youngest to do it. I think he just turned 30, and all the other phantoms are in their 40s, and Hugh Panero is 60. His performance as the Phantom was my favorite part of the whole show. He embodied the character with their physicality, their voice suited the role, and their maniacal evil lact was perfect. And I'll also say this meant a lot to me because the cast of Masquerade is wonderfully diverse. Half the actors are performers in color who play the Phantom specifically. A lot of black, Asian, Latinx actors in the cast. The Phantom that I saw is gender fluid like me. So I got to see a gender fluid phantom in the lead role getting critical acclaim from fans and critics. And that made me so happy to see. And that was your performance that you went to go see.

[18:45] Jess: Was my performance.

[18:51] Juliet Antonio: It was a gift. So Phantom appears on the s yep, go ahead. I gotta ask, what is his costume look like? Or what the Phantom's costume look like during this section.

[19:02] Jess: Okay, so it's basically what he's gonna be wearing for the rest of the whole show. He has the full white tie suit, a mask, um covering half of his face, and I don't know if he had the leather gloves on yet. He does wear it for some of the show, but he takes them off during the um the first lair, which we'll get to later. But he's basically wearing the standard phantom outfit. So it's strobing, we all cheer, it's like, oh, it's a phantom, and then he disappears again. So the overture is blasting off. We go into the next room and we can see the chandelier rising into the air, which for all the Phantom fans, yes, the chandelier is also named Rufie after Hal Prince's assistant. So we still got that Easter.

Now, we go into rehearsals for Hannibal. So you hear Carlotta vocalizing. Carlotta came down to talk to us. She's holding the severed Hannibal head and she goes, I do not like this. It reminds me of my ex-husband. And so we start the manager scene. Our Andre was Jeremy Stoll. But where was Firma? Oh, yes. Well, Jeremy Stoll Norman plays Firma. But the Andre that night was out, and all the other manager covers were swinging for other roles. So Jeremy had to do all the manager scenes by himself. Oh my gosh. Which led to my favorite Tumblr quote: Whoever said no man is an island clearly has never met Jeremy Stoll. And Jeremy Stoll has a voice on top of them. Like I want to hear his pre-Madonna really bad.

Like the one man pre-Madonna. I'd watch the hell out of that, especially because you know he's covered the managers, he did the phantom, he did Raoul, he did Peonchi, he's done all of it. And he actually stepped into the Phantom role recently um to cover for a couple of days. So we start doing the Hannibal scene. They introduce uh Ralph who's played by Francisco Javier Gonzalez, wonderful actor, and Ralph comes out and I go, but quietly. Um, and so then a stagehand comes up to me, and after playing stagehand, he says, I'm with me. So he sits me at the rehearsal piano while they uh practice Hannibal, and they ask me to pretend to play. So I sit at the keyboards, and Pianji comes to talk to me.

Now here's my fun fact. My Pianchi for that night was Charles Osbourne. I thought, he looks very familiar. And then I realized, oh my god, he's made some of my favorite TikToks. Specifically, he did the noise. Look, here comes the consequence, consequence, consequence. And he did the series of Dark Vader marrying a Midwestern mom. It's really hilarious. Go watch it if you haven't seen it yet. But he comes up to me and goes, I much prefer the music coming out of your hands than out of the voice. And I deadass looked at Pianche and I went, That's not the only thing the sounds are good at, darling. And so we just wanted to make plans to meet up after the show without Carlos. So I'm playing the Hannibal part on the piano, and then of course the lights go out and they do the he's here, the mommy opera.

And the stage hand looks at me and goes, Um, maybe you should sit back down, and I go, Yeah, I agree, and I leave. So then I do the note scene, and Madame J says, I have a message from Yapra Ghost. He welcomes you to his opera and commands that Christine Dae sing the role because Carlotta by this point has left saying this thing does not happen. My Christine was played by Riley Nolan. Absolutely beautiful, perfect in the role. And so she does the think of me see. And what's really cute is that some of the audience members they gave roses to, so when she hits the final high note and the cadenza and curtsies, they threw roses on the stage for her that she collected and she bowed and she curtsied.

So then, so in the first taste we have of magic happening in the show. We hear the phantom do the blazzy bravi bravy scene. And he holds out a red rose as he sings Christine's name, it vanishes from his hand and it appears in hers. The rose will be important later. So they do the little Lottie scene, and then we get to the insolent boy, this slave of fashion. The Phantom you see a lot more in this show from where he is. But he and Christine descend the steps from where they are, and they come into the middle of the room where there's a long rectangular mirror, and as they do the mirror scene, the mirror starts spinning. So we all see ourselves reflected in it. We don't see the phantom in Christine's side of the glass, and we don't see Christine and the Phantom side of the glass, which that would have been cool, but I don't know how they would have done it.

So then the mirror slides open, the phantom appears, beckons her out, and then off we go. So now we're heading down to the lair. The butlers take our champagne glasses and they give us candles to hold. Like pill uh electric battery operated pillar candles. We go down to the lair, they're singing the main theme over the speakers, and we come to this area where there's kind of like another rectangular dais, and there's some stone seats for us. So they situate us everywhere. We all sit down and I go and I go, Mike, look! The Phantom and Christine are coming right towards us in the boat. Now there's no smoke yet, which kind of broke the illusion a little bit for me, but it's still pretty cool to see the phantom sailing at you.

So they come in on the boat, and then they do the cadenza in the boat. The Phantom takes off his mask, his not masks, his gloves, he does the sing for me, Christine sings, they outstretch their arms, and then he starts singing. Now, music of the night is cut in half, but that's because other lyrics are coming later. We'll get there when we get there. So he sings to Christine, and I knew that Clay Singer's performance was going to be good because as soon as they sang night time, I instantly relaxed. And as they were singing music of the night, they walked right by me and brushed my shoulder.

[24:46] Juliet Antonio: I went. I was into it. Don't you dare. Um, I don't mean to interrupt, but I got a question. I'm so curious. Your partner's name Mike, right?

[24:56] Jess: Mm-hmm.

[25:01] Juliet Antonio: Did they mess with him at all?

[25:01] Jess: They did.

[25:03] Juliet Antonio: Oh yeah, the Phantom almost wiped Mike out at one point, but we'll get there when we do care. And he brushed the shoulders of every audience member as he walked by, too. That was something he did to everybody. So during "Music of the Night," at one point, Christine is led onto the dais. She lies down on it. The Phantom starts, you know, moving his arms with his phantom moves, and Christine's arms are moving in response. And at one point during "Music of the Night," she's just spread out on the dais, and the Phantom is standing there in all his glory. And they did do the arm pose, but that's not how "Music of the Night" ends. And again, it's a bit of a bore, but they sang it. It was beautiful, and it was everything I wanted it to be. And then the bed scene.

[25:57] Juliet Antonio: Manu Jri comes to us and says, "He's taking her to his home beneath the opera house. You must remain silent." He says, "Do you know what to do?" This guy makes eye contact with me because he has no idea what to do. And I just lift my hand to the level of my eyes. He does the same thing, and she goes, "Yes, correct." So, in complete silence, we go down, down farther into the lair. We passed the Phantom's study. He had a desk, some bookshelves with sheet music, and some busts, and then I enter the next room, myself and the other women.

[26:32] Jess: Yes!

[26:33] Juliet Antonio: In the room is a very nice round bed with blue velvet. The Phantom enters and gently lowers Christine onto the mattress. He does a couple of things before he leaves. First, he takes a look at the monkey music box that's off on a side table and puts a little golden mask on his face. Next, he walks over to a bench and picks up a little hatch that has a note on it. He places it at Christine's side, tucks her in bed, and leaves. Christine wakes up. She sings a bit of "In Sleepy Sign" to me. And she goes back to sleep. And that's when someone exclaimed. Because on Christine's left side, an arm, a hand appeared and caressed her waist. She responded pleasurably. That hand went away. I then emerged on Christine's right side and caressed her waist.

She responded pleasure again. It disappeared again. And the Phantom's head emerged from the bed. His arms come out, and he wrapped himself around Christine, and she relaxed into his embrace. More people gasped, some laughed nervously. I was just sitting there going. I was into it. I was there for it. And quote a Theater Mania review that summed up this experience perfectly. This show is for every single Phantom fan who retweeted a gif of the Phantom slinking back his hair with the hashtag "odd." This was for us.

[28:06] Juliet Antonio: Now, Christine falls back asleep. She wakes up again, and she reads the note that the Phantom left her. This is gonna be paraphrasing again because it's been a week. Bear with me. So he says, "Christine, my dearest Christine, this strange new world will be your home. You are a creature of beauty." And then he says something about how in this world of darkness your dreams will come true. Remember, I am your angel of music. She lifts up the lid of the hat box. It's a wedding veil. So she puts it on, tries it on in the mirror, sees how it looks, takes the mask off the monkey, puts it down, lies back on the bed, and falls asleep. The veil disappears. Gone. Completely gone. And we're like, so then the Phantom comes back in, checks on her, and then he sees all of us for the first time, and beckons us forward with a hand, and we go off into the next room.

[29:05] Juliet Antonio: As we go into the next room, we see some of the Phantom's inventions. There's a violin that's playing itself. The one that's most disturbing and is foreshadowing for something later. And then there's a voice beside me. He basically saying, "He's an inventor, a composer, a genius." I look, it's Madame Giri. So she's explaining how the Phantom made all these things. And then we all turn around and we see two automatons. One of them is the mirror bride. The other is an automaton of the Phantom. The mirror bride curtsies, the Phantom bows, and they do a wedding dance to "Point of No Return." They pretend to kiss, and then they go back in their boxes. And you go into the next room. There is a throne in the middle, with a rose on it.

Supposed to be box five. And then there's a miniature, uh, not a diorama, but a miniature model of the opera populaire stage with another note on it. And Madame Giri reads the note saying, um, "In the new production of Umboto." And it's basically the Phantom giving his casting directions. And Madame Giri moves the dolls around on stage to show Christine, uh, to show the page boy and to show the contest. And she explains that the Phantom heard something in Christine he never heard before, and you hear him saying, "Sing for me," and her singing the cadenza, and she says, his music and her voice would create something the world has never seen. And they do the whole thing of, "I shall watch the performance from my normal seat in box five," and Madame Giri points at the throne, and then we go into "Stranger Than You Dreamt It," and that's where things take a turn.

[30:54] Juliet Antonio: Um, there was something else I wanted to say about this scene. I can't think of it, but it'll come to me. So and also keep this in mind. When we go into "Stranger Than You Dreamt It," because there's been two scenes in the middle, we don't know how much time has passed in the lair. Like in the original stage show, it's pretty clear it's the next morning. But with this one, I realized this could be days, this could be weeks. We don't know how long she's been down there for in this version. Don't know. So the Phantom's at his organ with Gustav.

[31:24] Jess: Yeah.

[31:25] Juliet Antonio: You know, I was thinking that after. Oh, his music and her voice will create something the world has never seen. Yeah, it's called Gustav. Anyway. So, the Phantom's at his organ, he's wearing the Persian robes, no fez this time, but still very nice dressing gown. Springy's music, and then they do the high less. And so Mike and I are told by the ushers, "Come, come." So there's two levels. There's the stage where the Phantom and Christine are, and then there's the regular floor. We get pulled up to the edge of the stage. This is where Mike's almost gonna get wiped out. So she does the "Was the shape in the shadows," she goes up to the Phantom, and each Phantom had different blocking for this one.

Hugh Panera's I'm told, which makes it sad was that before she had an ask, and he's about to show her new music that he wrote for her, which makes it more heartbreaking. But in this one, Christine does the 2004 thing where it looks like she's gonna lean in for a kiss, and then she yanks the mask off. He covers it up right away, does the whole "damn you" part. And as he sings, he also makes eye contact with direct audience members.

[32:25] Juliet Antonio: So Christine eventually gives the mask back, and this is where things diverge. Because onto the stage runs another actor wearing suspenders and a bag over their head with the eyes cut. It's the young Phantom. And Clay gets this look on their face. And there was a reviewer I agreed with. Because Clay is so young as a Phantom, he's not as removed from past events as the other Phantom actors are. So whenever they have a flashback, they act it like the Phantom was experiencing PTSD, and it worked really well. And then he says, "Oh, Christine, you knew what they did to me." Because by this point, what happened was while we were on the stage and the young Phantom actor entered, the Phantom starts having an episode and starts running around and drawing curtains around the perimeter of the stage shut.

And this is where he almost barreled into Mike, who was standing right in the corner and jumped out of the way. So whatever's happening with Christine, we can't see right now. We can only see the Phantom hallucinating something.

[33:36] Juliet Antonio: So eventually, the curtains repart, and I know what's coming as soon as we're about to move to the next room. Because we have to take an escalator to get to the next floor. At the very top of the escalator entrance is a giant demonic clown mask. I'm going. Oh no. And what's happening is behind us, the Phantom is running around behind us, losing our mind. He runs up the escalator and stops right at me with a look of terror on his face. I can't move. I'm just so full of... I don't know what to do. I don't know how to respond. Eventually, he runs past, but I go, So then we go into this hall of mirrors, and the young Phantom actor is running. The guy who runs the carnival is grabbing him, and the young Phantom's like, "Let me go, let me go." He's like, "Oh no, you're coming with me." And Mike looks at me and goes, "Context!" So I just whisper into his ear about how, okay, because he was deformed, his mom sold him to a freak show and he's here.

[34:36] Juliet Antonio: So we go into the next room, and I think what happened was um Diane Paulus hired some um members, I think of the Coney Island Circus to perform some circus acts. There was a pyromancer who was swallowing fire and lighting his tattoos on fire. There was Ammonia Oxide who was shoving nails up her nose with a hammer and said to an audience member, "Pull these out very slowly." There was also a ring tossing game where if you won, you got a shot of cognac. And there was another act where an audience member would come on the stage, ropes were placed around in a neck, and they were pulled tight, but the ropes would fall off. And then it turns out Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a new song for this portion called "Come See the Freak." I personally didn't like it. I didn't think it was needed.

[35:17] Jess: So again...

[35:17] Juliet Antonio: And that's already a song from "Sideshow."

[35:22] Jess: Yeah, oh, that's a Hupanara connection too.

[35:25] Juliet Antonio: Anyway. Um, so one of the Phantom's butlers finds me and Mike and they go, "Come with me, come this way." So we enter the freak show portion of the show. Most of the audience is on the ground floor, and if you're on the ground floor where the Phantom was in his cage, we were given like little curls of popcorn to feed him in or throw at him. But Mike and I are up in the balcony looking down at where the young Phantom is. And at one point, the young Phantom looked up at me with just this expression of please help me. I couldn't help it. I reached out over the balcony to try to grab him. Like me. But there was another arm reaching out to me, I'm like, "Who's that?" I look over. It's the Phantom. The Phantom's experiencing this. And he runs off and I go, "Gone again."

[36:06] Juliet Antonio: Now, they show the Phantom and then the carnival barker. The masquerade monkeys in the cage with him. He takes it away and the Phantom starts losing, and he's like, "Oh no, you don't play." So they drag the Phantom out by ropes and they force him to play on the piano. And guess who one of the carnival barkers is?

[36:25] Jess: What?

[36:27] Juliet Antonio: Joseph Bouquet!

[36:29] Jess: Okay, okay.

[36:31] Juliet Antonio: So yeah, Joseph Bouquet used to work at the circus and tortured the shit out of the Phantom. So in this one, they're really trying to humanize this Phantom. We'll get there. We'll get there.

[36:44] Juliet Antonio: Yeah, so um now the Phantom breaks free, knocks the carnival barker out, and he's looking like, "Where do I go? Where do I go? Where do I go?" Young Madame Giri comes out and goes, "Quickly, I know a place you can hide," and yikes them off. So we go into the next part. It's a dressing room in the opera populaire, and the young Phantom's curled up in a ball, just sitting there. Madame Giri takes a sponge and starts to wash the grime off of his arms, but he yanks away.

[37:12] Juliet Antonio: He's not ready to trust me.

[37:14] Jess: What song does Madame Jury sing?

[37:16] Juliet Antonio: What?

[37:17] Jess: Learn to be lonely.

[37:19] Juliet Antonio: Oh my god.

[37:21] Jess: Okay.

[37:23] Juliet Antonio: I would have never believed in a thousand years.

[37:27] Jess: Well, it found its way.

[37:29] Juliet Antonio: And so as she's singing it, the Phantom is still very withdrawn, clutching himself, doesn't want any human interaction.

[37:35] Jess: Right.

[37:36] Juliet Antonio: And Madame Jury is kind of slowly trying to convince him it's okay.

[37:39] Jess: Uh-huh.

[37:40] Juliet Antonio: So she finds some theater props, some of which include masks.

[37:43] Jess: Oh, okay.

[37:44] Juliet Antonio: And the Phantom slightly turns.

[37:46] Jess: Uh-huh.

[37:44] Juliet Antonio: She holds two up, one gold, one white.

[37:48] Jess: Right.

[37:48] Juliet Antonio: The Phantom sees the white one and points at it.

[37:53] Jess: Uh-huh.

[37:53] Juliet Antonio: She gives it to him. It's a full face white mask.

[37:53] Jess: Okay.

[37:53] Juliet Antonio: So he, um, I can't remember if he put it on his face or not, but he hugs Madame Jury.

[38:00] Jess: Aww.

[38:00] Juliet Antonio: She doesn't move. She eventually leaves him be.

[38:02] Jess: Right.

[38:02] Juliet Antonio: And then this is when the women in the audience started to cry.

[38:06] Jess: Aww.

[38:06] Juliet Antonio: As in the background is the adult Phantom, and he sings the portion of "Music of the Night" of "Close Your Eyes and Surrender to Your Darkest Dreams."

[38:14] Jess: Oh wow.

[38:14] Juliet Antonio: He sings a bit of this face, which are in a mother spare and loathing.

[38:17] Jess: Uh-huh.

[38:17] Juliet Antonio: He comes in and he hugs his younger self.

[38:20] Jess: Oh my god.

[38:20] Juliet Antonio: So many women start crying.

[38:23] Jess: I can imagine.

[38:23] Juliet Antonio: Then, eventually, the young Phantom is left alone, and he looks at himself in the mirror with the full mask, and he butts his head against the glass and it breaks.

[38:32] Jess: Oh wow.

[38:32] Juliet Antonio: Also cracking the mask in half.

[38:35] Jess: Oh, okay.

[38:36] Juliet Antonio: So that's how he got the hatches.

[38:39] Jess: Right.

[38:39] Juliet Antonio: He leaves. That's present day.

[38:41] Jess: Uh-huh.

[38:41] Juliet Antonio: Meg Jury's getting ready for "Il Muto."

[38:44] Jess: Right.

[38:44] Juliet Antonio: She asks Christine. She's like, "I saw you with the V-Cont. Is he your strange angel?"

[38:48] Jess: Oh no.

[38:48] Juliet Antonio: And Christine's just like panicking.

[38:50] Jess: Right.

[38:50] Juliet Antonio: And you hear over the speaker, "Five minutes to places, everybody."

[38:54] Jess: Uh-huh.

[38:54] Juliet Antonio: "Christine, please stand by for the page boy role."

[38:58] Jess: Right.

[38:58] Juliet Antonio: And Madame Jury comes out and says to Meg, you know, "Get to your places," and she goes, "Yes, places, mother always places."

[39:05] Jess: Right.

[39:05] Juliet Antonio: Christine gets to her place, and the Phantom pops out and goes, "Christine is the page boy."

[39:10] Jess: Oh no.

[39:10] Juliet Antonio: And says something along the lines of, "I don't think so."

[39:13] Jess: Oh wow.

[39:13] Juliet Antonio: And we go to the next scene.

[39:15] Jess: Okay.

[39:15] Juliet Antonio: So "Il Muto" is happening, but we don't see it because we're up in the rafters of the theater.

[39:20] Jess: Right.

[39:20] Juliet Antonio: Meg Jury has been sitting on a soil of choral swing, and Joseph Bouquet pulls her up, and she records her, and like, she goes, "Please let me down, please let me down."

[39:30] Jess: Oh no.

[39:30] Juliet Antonio: He says, "There's only one thing you can do to get down for me," being a total leech, lecherous bastard, and she's like trying to fight to get off.

[39:38] Jess: Oh no.

[39:38] Juliet Antonio: Madame Jury swoops in, like, "Uh, not my daughter," whisks her away, and she's like, "Stay away from her."

[39:43] Jess: Good.

[39:43] Juliet Antonio: And then, you know, Bouquet starts, you know, going off about the like, "Hello, parchment, is his skin."

[39:49] Jess: Oh no.

[39:49] Juliet Antonio: And he starts saying, you know, "Might be a bit drunk, but he's saying, 'They gave him home and clothes and food, and now to repay them by leaving.'"

[40:00] Jess: Oh wow.

[40:00] Juliet Antonio: Totally out of it, not recognizing that the Phantom's literally right fucking there.

[40:04] Jess: Oh no.

[40:04] Juliet Antonio: And so, now the Phantom, you kind of can't tell if he's still in the present moment or if part of his brain is still in circus territory.

[40:12] Jess: Right.

[40:12] Juliet Antonio: And he starts to mess with Bouquet, pulling ropes where they shouldn't be.

[40:15] Jess: Oh no.

[40:15] Juliet Antonio: And at first, Bouquet's like, "Well, that's not supposed to be," moves it around.

[40:18] Jess: Right.

[40:18] Juliet Antonio: But then it gets faster and faster and faster.

[40:22] Jess: Oh no.

[40:22] Juliet Antonio: Bouquet almost has a mental breakdown, confronts the Phantom, and instead of being hung in this one, Phantom pulls a rope, and Bouquet plunges to his death and goes splat on the stage.

[40:36] Jess: Oh my god.

[40:36] Juliet Antonio: The Phantom laughs maniacally, and guess who saw the whole thing?

[40:40] Jess: Who?

[40:40] Juliet Antonio: Christine.

[40:42] Jess: Oh no.

[40:42] Juliet Antonio: So she runs, bolts for it completely.

[40:45] Jess: Oh wow.

[40:45] Juliet Antonio: And we go up on the actual roof of Lizard shop for the rooftop scene.

[40:50] Jess: Right.

[40:50] Juliet Antonio: I have seen the footage of people walking the streets and getting...

[40:55] Jess: Uh-huh.

[40:55] Juliet Antonio: And the local New Yorkers saying, "Shh."

[40:59] Jess: Right.

[40:59] Juliet Antonio: Um, but apparently some rooftop scenes were done inside, um, because of weather, you know, again being weather, but also 15-minute pulses, not everybody could get up to the roof on time.

[41:09] Jess: Right.

[41:09] Juliet Antonio: So they do the "All I Ask of You," and Christine had this interesting acting choice where she hears the Phantom sing her name, and then Raoul starts to sing "All I Ask of You," and she kind of looks like she doesn't want to be brought out of the trance, but the Phantom is there watching the whole time.

[41:23] Jess: Oh wow.

[41:24] Juliet Antonio: You see him.

[41:24] Jess: Uh-huh.

[41:24] Juliet Antonio: Well, I didn't at first until Mike tapped me on the shoulder and went, "Uh."

[41:28] Jess: Oh wow.

[41:28] Juliet Antonio: So they sing.

[41:29] Jess: Right.

[41:29] Juliet Antonio: He does the "I Gave You My Music" major song kick wing, and he does, you know, the rocking back and forth, hands in the ears, "Who cursed the day you did not do."

[41:37] Jess: Right.

[41:37] Juliet Antonio: And then he laughs this maniacal laugh that was perfect and disappears in a cloud of smoke.

[41:42] Jess: Oh wow.

[41:42] Juliet Antonio: And I literally looked at Mike and went, "Oh boy, he's cracked. We're all gonna die."

[41:46] Jess: Oh no.

[41:46] Juliet Antonio: And then time for the graveyard scene.

[41:51] Jess: Right.

[41:51] Juliet Antonio: We walk down the stairs, and Jess, you remember the violin player from earlier?

[41:56] Jess: Yes.

[41:57] Juliet Antonio: Guess what?

[41:59] Jess: What?

[41:59] Juliet Antonio: Is he the instrumental for this, or is he just transition?

[42:03] Jess: I don't know.

[42:03] Juliet Antonio: He's Christine's dead dad.

[42:06] Jess: Oh god.

[42:07] Juliet Antonio: Oh god.

[42:08] Jess: Oh yeah.

[42:09] Juliet Antonio: Choices are being made.

[42:11] Jess: Yep.

[42:12] Juliet Antonio: So he's playing the violin at his grave.

[42:15] Jess: Oh wow.

[42:15] Juliet Antonio: Christine's looking at him.

[42:17] Jess: Right.

[42:17] Juliet Antonio: He doesn't say anything, but you kind of interpret it as she's seeing him there.

[42:21] Jess: Right.

[42:21] Juliet Antonio: He's not actually there.

[42:23] Jess: Right.

[42:23] Juliet Antonio: And so the reason for this graveyard scene, Raoul comes with her in this one.

[42:29] Jess: Right.

[42:29] Juliet Antonio: Because they want to get her father's blessing and visit his grave together before they get married.

[42:34] Jess: Oh wow.

[42:34] Juliet Antonio: The engagement is still secret.

[42:36] Jess: Right.

[42:36] Juliet Antonio: So they talk for a little bit, and Christine goes, "I would like a moment alone with him."

[42:40] Jess: Right.

[42:40] Juliet Antonio: Um, and you also find out that he tutored Raoul in the past as a violin teacher.

[42:45] Jess: Oh wow.

[42:45] Juliet Antonio: And Raoul says, "Okay, I shamble far if you need me."

[42:48] Jess: Right.

[42:48] Juliet Antonio: He leaves Christine to have a moment with her father in private.

[42:51] Jess: Right.

[42:51] Juliet Antonio: She sings "Wishing."

[42:53] Jess: Oh wow.

[42:53] Juliet Antonio: It's beautiful.

[42:55] Jess: Right.

[42:55] Juliet Antonio: Then we do the "Wandering Child" scene.

[42:57] Jess: Right.

[42:57] Juliet Antonio: The Phantom emerges from the angel statue.

[42:59] Jess: Oh wow.

[42:59] Juliet Antonio: Christine's father was in a moment ago.

[43:01] Jess: Right.

[43:01] Juliet Antonio: And another intriguing acting choice is made by Christine here.

[43:04] Jess: Right.

[43:04] Juliet Antonio: Because as she sings, Raoul's engagement necklace is still around her neck, but she stretches out in front of her.

[43:10] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:10] Juliet Antonio: And the way she looked at it, I thought, "Oh my god, is she gonna rip it off? Is the Phantom not gonna rip it off anymore?"

[43:16] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:16] Juliet Antonio: She doesn't rip it off.

[43:17] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:17] Juliet Antonio: Looked like she was gonna for us.

[43:19] Jess: Right.

[43:19] Juliet Antonio: So then doesn't "I Am Your Angel of Music?"

[43:23] Jess: Right.

[43:23] Juliet Antonio: Raoul comes in and goes, "Leave her. You have no claim on her, leave her."

[43:25] Jess: Right.

[43:25] Juliet Antonio: Oh, there's no sword fight, there's no fireball.

[43:30] Jess: Right.

[43:30] Juliet Antonio: The Phantom instead looks at him and gets an all too evil grin on his face.

[43:36] Jess: Oh no.

[43:36] Juliet Antonio: And he goes, "Rest assured, I bear no grudge."

[43:40] Jess: Oh no.

[43:40] Juliet Antonio: And then what he does in this one, and he goes, "I have written her an opera."

[43:44] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:44] Juliet Antonio: And he presents the score for "Don Juan," but as he sings "Don Juan Triumphant," he opens the book and it catches on fire.

[43:51] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:51] Juliet Antonio: And he closes it.

[43:53] Jess: Oh wow.

[43:53] Juliet Antonio: He goes, "I advise you to comply. My instructions should be clear."

[43:56] Jess: Right.

[43:56] Juliet Antonio: So Christine walks toward the Phantom.

[43:58] Jess: Right.

[43:58] Juliet Antonio: Raoul's like, trying to yank her back.

[44:00] Jess: Right.

[44:00] Juliet Antonio: Christine goes, "No."

[44:02] Jess: Right.

[44:02] Juliet Antonio: She goes, "I'm just gonna get the book."

[44:04] Jess: Right.

[44:04] Juliet Antonio: So she goes and gets the score from the Phantom's hands, and then the Phantom does, you know, picking up the necklace and going, "Your chains are still mine, you will sing for me," rips it off, disappears in a cloud of smoke.

[44:13] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:13] Juliet Antonio: Christine opens the book and starts sight reading, going, "Reading the Point of No Return."

[44:17] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:17] Juliet Antonio: And that's when Raoul gets dated. He goes, "Christine, don't you see? If you send in his opera, I'll be certain to attend and we can capture him."

[44:23] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:23] Juliet Antonio: And she looks at him and goes, "Raoul, I can't. I love you, but I can't," and leaves.

[44:28] Jess: Oh no.

[44:28] Juliet Antonio: And so he does the, "So it is to be war between us, but this time, my clever friend, the disaster will be yours."

[44:32] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:32] Juliet Antonio: And the Phantom goes, "We shall see, Monsieur Le Vicomte, we shall see."

[44:36] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:36] Juliet Antonio: Another crazed laugh.

[44:38] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:38] Juliet Antonio: Now this is where our group got split in half.

[44:40] Jess: Right.

[44:40] Juliet Antonio: I went into one dressing room, my partner went into another.

[44:44] Jess: Right.

[44:44] Juliet Antonio: Carlotta is in there.

[44:46] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:46] Juliet Antonio: She asks everybody to stand around her and take a seat.

[44:48] Jess: Right.

[44:48] Juliet Antonio: I say, "Grazi, Signora."

[44:49] Jess: Right.

[44:49] Juliet Antonio: She says, "Prego."

[44:50] Jess: Right.

[44:50] Juliet Antonio: She asks me to sit down on a bench, and she gives me a bottle of throat spray.

[44:54] Jess: Oh wow.

[44:54] Juliet Antonio: And I keep it in my hand.

[44:56] Jess: Right.

[44:56] Juliet Antonio: She sprays it in her mouth and says, she's starting to come to complain about how the Phantom's score is no good, how it's not even music.

[45:03] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:03] Juliet Antonio: Gianji comes in, and he starts saying, "Oh, I can sing this music," and he can't.

[45:10] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:10] Juliet Antonio: And she's having a bit of a meltdown.

[45:11] Jess: Oh no.

[45:11] Juliet Antonio: She goes and hugs an audience member and starts crying.

[45:14] Jess: Oh no.

[45:14] Juliet Antonio: The audience member pats her on the back.

[45:16] Jess: Oh no.

[45:16] Juliet Antonio: And then they start doing the "Prima Donna," and Charles Osborne's a bee, "Your devotees are on their knees," like gesturing for us to clap.

[45:22] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:22] Juliet Antonio: We all applaud.

[45:23] Jess: Right.

[45:23] Juliet Antonio: And I'm sitting there minding my own business, holding this bottle.

[45:26] Jess: Right.

[45:26] Juliet Antonio: And then, out from the curtains, pops out the Phantom and he swaps the bottles in my hand.

[45:31] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:31] Juliet Antonio: And my exact reaction was this.

[45:34] Jess: Right.

[45:34] Juliet Antonio: Thumbs up.

[45:35] Jess: Right.

[45:35] Juliet Antonio: And he looks at me and goes...

[45:38] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:38] Juliet Antonio: And it vanishes again.

[45:40] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:40] Juliet Antonio: So Carlotta sprays the throat spray in her mouth, starts croaking like a toad, and leaves the dressing room.

[45:46] Jess: Oh no.

[45:46] Juliet Antonio: Gianji starts to go to her, but the Phantom grabs him and pulls him back through the curtains.

[45:51] Jess: Oh no.

[45:51] Juliet Antonio: And the Phantom pops out and goes, "Don't shred, my friends."

[45:55] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:55] Juliet Antonio: He has an understudy and vanishes.

[45:58] Jess: Oh wow.

[45:58] Juliet Antonio: So Andre came in, played by the lovely Jeremy Stoll, reads the note that the Phantom has left.

[46:04] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:04] Juliet Antonio: Gal comes in, reiterates the plan.

[46:06] Jess: Right.

[46:06] Juliet Antonio: Then Christine comes in, and they do the, "I'm frightened. Don't let me do this."

[46:10] Jess: Right.

[46:10] Juliet Antonio: Then he comes and he leaves her.

[46:14] Jess: Right.

[46:14] Juliet Antonio: And then Christine comes up to me and says, because she's holding her costume for "Don Juan."

[46:18] Jess: Right.

[46:18] Juliet Antonio: She says, "Can you hold this for me, please?"

[46:20] Jess: Right.

[46:20] Juliet Antonio: I go, "Yes, of course."

[46:21] Jess: Right.

[46:21] Juliet Antonio: She gave it to me and goes, "Thank you, Michael."

[46:23] Jess: Right.

[46:23] Juliet Antonio: "You're welcome."

[46:24] Jess: Right.

[46:24] Juliet Antonio: She picks up the Phantom's note.

[46:26] Jess: Right.

[46:26] Juliet Antonio: It's one written for her.

[46:28] Jess: Right.

[46:28] Juliet Antonio: She opens it and he goes, "Soon the whole world will hear my score. The words are a blur now."

[46:33] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:33] Juliet Antonio: As he says, "To Christine, to Paracraze. After this, our spirits will be intertwined."

[46:36] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:36] Juliet Antonio: And she does "Twisted Every Way," looks dead at me when she goes, "Can I betray the man who once inspired my voice?"

[46:43] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:43] Juliet Antonio: And I just shake my head so sadly.

[46:45] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:45] Juliet Antonio: I'm like, "Please don't."

[46:47] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:47] Juliet Antonio: Then you hear the "I'm here, the Phantom of the Opera."

[46:54] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:54] Juliet Antonio: And the dressing room is surrounded with mirrors.

[46:57] Jess: Oh wow.

[46:57] Juliet Antonio: Comes out of one mirror that lights up, another mirror that lights up, until eventually all the mirrors light up, and you hear the Phantom's psychotic laugh.

[47:04] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:04] Juliet Antonio: Goes completely dark.

[47:05] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:05] Juliet Antonio: And Jess, this was the only time seeing Phantom where I've been truly terrified.

[47:10] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:10] Juliet Antonio: Because I don't know what's gonna happen.

[47:11] Jess: Right.

[47:11] Juliet Antonio: I literally go, I jump out.

[47:13] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:13] Juliet Antonio: I don't know.

[47:14] Jess: Right.

[47:14] Juliet Antonio: Now decide, Barb, really quickly.

[47:16] Jess: Right.

[47:16] Juliet Antonio: I go home and I'm giving my parents the recap, and my dad goes, "Wait, wait, wait."

[47:20] Jess: Right.

[47:20] Juliet Antonio: He literally sings, "I'm here, the Phantom of the Opera."

[47:23] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:23] Juliet Antonio: I go, "Yeah, why?"

[47:25] Jess: Right.

[47:25] Juliet Antonio: My dad starts to imitate Buddy the Elf and starts going, "I'm he, I'm the Phantom, and I'm singing."

[47:32] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:32] Juliet Antonio: So now that's all he and my partner do every time Phantom is brought up.

[47:36] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:36] Juliet Antonio: And they want to make an act of it called "The Dueling Phantoms" coming to a theater near you.

[47:40] Jess: Oh wow.

[47:40] Juliet Antonio: Never at no time.

[47:41] Jess: Right.

[47:43] Juliet Antonio: But I hate to interrupt, but you said you and your partner are split up.

[47:46] Jess: Right.

[47:46] Juliet Antonio: What happened in Mike's room?

[47:47] Jess: Right.

[47:47] Juliet Antonio: Mike's room was the same thing.

[47:49] Jess: Right.

[47:49] Juliet Antonio: They just had to coordinate it.

[47:50] Jess: Right.

[47:50] Juliet Antonio: The only difference was Jeremy's soul was in the room when the lights went out, as the Phantom laughed maniacally, and Jeremy saw Av lib to the line, "I want to go home now."

[48:01] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:01] Juliet Antonio: He was done.

[48:02] Jess: Right.

[48:02] Juliet Antonio: So then Christine says, you know, she gestures us to leave.

[48:06] Jess: Right.

[48:06] Juliet Antonio: As I pass by her, I looked and I went, "Be brave."

[48:09] Jess: Right.

[48:09] Juliet Antonio: And we go into "Don Juan."

[48:12] Jess: Right.

[48:12] Juliet Antonio: The same room where the "Hannibal" rehearsal was, only the chandelier's fully risen.

[48:15] Jess: Right.

[48:15] Juliet Antonio: There are two people who are dancing.

[48:17] Jess: Right.

[48:17] Juliet Antonio: They go off, and then the Phantom turns around, and I think what they did was they combined the "Don Juan" outfit with the Red Death, because he's wearing a fully hooded red cloak, and he's got a gold mask on as he sings.

[48:32] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:32] Juliet Antonio: Christine enters in a red dress, blindfolded, takes it off when she sees the Phantom, and they sing the duet.

[48:39] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:39] Juliet Antonio: There are people dancing in the background, and you see Raoul and Andre off stage, watching intently, waiting for the right moment.

[48:46] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:46] Juliet Antonio: She does the thing where they sing the song, she works up the hood, and he's frozen.

[48:49] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:49] Juliet Antonio: And Andre and Firman are about to rush the stage, but Christine motions them to stay still, like, "Do anything yet."

[48:55] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:55] Juliet Antonio: And the Phantom sings the "All I Ask of You" decrease.

[48:59] Jess: Oh wow.

[48:59] Juliet Antonio: While this is going on, two of the dancers come downstairs and they do a quick change right in front of us.

[49:04] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:04] Juliet Antonio: Christine takes off the "Don Juan" dress and slips into the wedding dress.

[49:09] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:09] Juliet Antonio: And the Phantom takes off his cloak and slips into his regular outfit.

[49:13] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:13] Juliet Antonio: So he kneels down, hugs Christine and goes, "Anywhere you go, let me go too."

[49:17] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:17] Juliet Antonio: She takes the mask off, and we see the Phantom's face.

[49:22] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:22] Juliet Antonio: He looks pruny!

[49:24] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:24] Juliet Antonio: Yeah, he looks pruny and wrinkled.

[49:26] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:26] Juliet Antonio: He's got some veins in there.

[49:27] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:27] Juliet Antonio: It's not Gerard Butler having tomato soup thrown in his face.

[49:30] Jess: Oh wow.

[49:30] Juliet Antonio: It's not Maria Bjornsen's original design either.

[49:33] Juliet Antonio: Nothing scary, but it's like, ugh, yeah, he doesn't look too good. I think they were trying to go for like the Ryan Reynolds Deadpool kind of look. Then I was like, I've just seen scarier. And Mike was like, I was expecting something even more scary. I'm like, yeah, I mean I've seen it where it's like it looks like his lip is fried and his skin is torn and porous and he's got rain poking out of his skull. Now, couldn't figure out what's going on in the moment because I only saw, I can only see one side of the scene. Like the Phantom's back was to me. But someone else saw the same pulse I did, and this is what was happening. So that the Phantom is unmasked and he realizes everybody's singing him, seeing him.

He has another PTSD episode and starts to convulse and have a panic attack on stage. One actor saw Clay's eyes literally roll into the back of their head. And that's when the chandelier starts to shake. So the Phantom's butler's like, run, run, back, back, back. Then the chandelier crashes. Now, because it's not, you know, it's the Majestic Theater and it's not as high up in the air, it's, you know, not as, doesn't have as real length to fall as it did in the original one, but you know, I still went, because you know, there's a big crash, and they go, run, run, everybody, run! So we run down to the lair, and the Phantom is losing it. He's pulling ropes, he's getting this trap ready. Christine's in the wedding dress.

They do the final lair, and during the wait, I think, my dear, we have a guest. Raoul comes in, completely bound by arms and legs. So Christine goes to him, tries to hold him, and then they do the Monsieur, I bid you welcome. And on the why should I make her pay for the sins which are yours? The Phantom pulls a robe. And I think what was supposed to happen was that Raoul was supposed to end up hanging himself because of how his limbs were gonna be contorted, but it kinda didn't work. And um, so they start singing, and this is where the rose comes back. Because Christine still has it, and this was a choice a lot of Christine made as she starts saying Angel Music who deserves this. She picks up the rose and points the thorny stem at the Phantom's neck. Like she's gonna stab him in the fucking throat. But she's got him at gunpoint, and it works. So men, you know, he does the you try my patience, make your choice, and they do the kiss.

[51:47] Jess: Whoever let that kiss.

[51:52] Juliet Antonio: It was beautiful. The first time they kiss, they did the traditional Hal Prince blocking of can't move his arms. Completely broken. She kisses him the second time, and his arms manage to move and hold her. And as he did so, they were big in this beautiful gold light. And it was theater magic to see. Now, we part, and both of them are smiling at each other. But we hear the track, Miss Murr! And the Phantom realizes if they catch her, she's gonna die too. So does the taker forget me, forget all this, and Christine had gets a look on her face of wait, what? And so he does the go now and leave me. And in this one, it's not Christine holding Raoul back, it's Raoul holding Christine back, and she's screaming, No! No! But he likes her away. And then they do the music box. And then this was where I thought they were gonna split from the canon completely.

[52:55] Juliet Antonio: I would too considering everything we've seen up to this point. Well, here's what they do. So Christine comes back like she does in the stage show, and the Phantom sings to her, Christine, I love you. Different key, mind you. But she comes out and she smiles at him, and I'm like, why is she smiling like that? She crosses to him and he holds her, and I'm thinking, Are they doing this? Half of me is thinking, they can't do this. The whole point of this is he has to love her enough to let her go and be free. Because it can never be, and he can't get the girl. The other half of me, and the half that won out was like, screw it! We're giving him the happy ending. We are doing this, we are red Cottingwell never dies, and we are dead here the first time.

Let's go! So I'm watching this literally like this. No chill, none. He holds her as they sing the say you'll share with me one love one lifetime. He sings to say the word, and I will follow you. Puts the black cloak over her, and then they start swaying and spinning. But then I'm like, why is Christine's voice getting echoey for these last couple of lyrics? The Phantom turns around even more, and the cloak is completely empty. It was all in his imagination.

[54:10] Jess: Oh, that's brilliant.

[54:12] Juliet Antonio: And I'm like, okay, I can accept that. That is totally fine by me. And it's unfortunate. Now at the end, yep, the Phantom is completely unmasked, and the young Phantom comes back up. Also takes his mask off. The young Phantom wasn't deformed, but I think that's because the actor who played him was swinging for a bunch of roles that night. Ensemble members come out and look at the Phantom and they direct us to all take off our masks. And the woman who was standing next to me was Kaylee and Worhe's was an ensemble member at my pulse. I'm like, oh, I'll show you. We took off our masks. We all look at the Phantom. He looks at us. Genuinely moved, but he was making eye contact with so many audience members during the show.

Because I think they were told the audience is an extension of Christine as one of their notes from Diane Paulus. And so he looked at all of us, took all of us in, saw that we were unmasked like he was. The lights went out. And that was the end of Masquerade. And I looked at my partner as we left. Yeah, and I said, I don't want it to be over. And I've been riding that high for a full week.

[55:16] Jess: How long do you think the runtime is altogether? Because there's no intermission or anything.

[55:20] Juliet Antonio: Two hours. And it's a hard cutoff. Um just because again the pulses keep running one after the other, like it's one o'clock, one fifteen, one thirty, one forty-five, two o'clock. So they have to have a hard cutoff, which I don't know how they did at the end, because they sort of did stage door where you kind of came into I think it was where music of the night was. They set up a bar and a merch stand and the actors would come out to meet you. I mean, my partner and I couldn't because we had to catch the train back home. Um, but I did end up buying some Phantom merch. Unfortunately left my t-shirt in the cab um before we got back to Grand Central. But I was able to get and show you this. Masquerade stationary.

Oh where um you open it and you have some Phantom black and gold stickers. You buy it. And you have these envelopes where if you open it up, you have a red card inside and it's emblazoned with the Masquerade Phantom logo on it. And so what I did when I got back home because I couldn't meet them, unfortunately, was I wrote a fan letter to Clay Singer using the stationery and I put it in the mail and I helped.

[56:25] Jess: Is it worth it? What are your thoughts? Because these are not cheap tickets.

[56:30] Juliet Antonio: It sounds like it is to me. For me, it was worth every single penny as a Phantom fan. I think because um, one again, if you didn't have a mask, they gave you one for free that you got to take home with you after the show, which was a black lace mask that had the Phantom logo embroidered onto it. Also because of the drinks, but for me, worth every penny that I spent as a Phantom fan, 100%. And I looked at my partner because he'd never seen Phantom before at all. I offered before the show to stab, give him a bit of context, he said no. I said, What'd you think he went? That was awesome. So I was like, Alright, it was worth it for him too.

[57:07] Jess: Well, I guess the only most important question I have, what would be your cheese rating?

[57:13] Juliet Antonio: I thought of this. You ready? I'm ready. Alright. My cheese rating is the Fantina grilled cheese championera bread. Much like the original Phantom of the Opera that's no longer on Broadway, the sandwich is no longer on the menu. You think you know what you're expecting with this broke cheese sandwich, some lovely tomato bread and some Fontina cheese. You think you know what it's gonna be like, but then you bite into it, and there's a bit of a twist because there's a dollop of cream cheese and a bit of herb. Something that you weren't expecting, but makes the sandwich in a way it's totally new in a way that you wouldn't expect from Grilled Cheese Sandwich, and creates a totally unique flavor that you can never forget for the rest of your life.

[57:55] Jess: Juliet, that is perfect. You've almost sold me. I'm like literally, I'm like thinking about just buying tickets and fucking doing it.

[58:04] Juliet Antonio: Cause you know what? How long is it running for?

[58:06] Jess: It is running until February 1st, 2026.

[58:10] Juliet Antonio: My advice would be go before the weather gets any colder and before we get snow in New York City, because I don't know how they're gonna do the rooftop scene. If the weather gets colder and there's snow. What I will also say is this. You have names in this cast. You have Hugh Pinero, you have Telly Leong, who side note I've been saying should do Phantom for years, was so happy they were cast. All the reviews from the Phantom fans, there's no bad apple among the bunch. Hugh Pinero, Telly Leong, Kyle Scatcliffe, Nick Walker, who's coming back from Bull Durham in about a month, Jeff Cree and Clay Singer, all of them are perfectly cast. So are the Christine and so are the Raouls. If you go see it, you will not have one bad actor among the bunch. Diane Paulus knew what she was doing casting those men and women and non-binary calls.

[58:53] Jess: I love it. Um if you can go check out Masquerade, and if that hadn't sold you, it sold me, so.

[59:00] Juliet Antonio: Yeah, it's just I somehow have to see the I have to like take a mortgage out of my house and like go see this fucking thing.

[59:10] Jess: Here's what I will say, if you want to see Clay Singer, um, uh who I hope has many more great roles to more success in New York, uh biggestly, if you're interested, they did Per Chicken Fiddler on the Roof at the Muni, and they did Mercu Show with Diane Paulus in Cambridge. Their pulses are two o'clock and eight o'clock. You can see what Phantom schedules are there on Instagram. People will post who does what time slot, but again, whoever you get, no bad apple among the bunch.

[59:33] Juliet Antonio: Amazing.

[59:34] Jess: Juliet, you are amazing. Thank you for remaining the keeper of the cheese. Please promote your socials and uh all the content that you if you still make are you still making content, Juliet?

[59:45] Juliet Antonio: Yes, I do. I still make content. Um, I do a podcast with my dad called My Dad Listens to This, where we review albums in his music collection. Our next episode coming out this Sunday is gonna be on Earth Wind and Fire, which is a good time. Also write uh ASMR roleplay for the wonderful voice actors, Darien Audio, and for uh Foxhound, ASMR. My latest script has a twist on the South Pacific song, Some Enchanted Evening. It's very beautiful and romantic. If you want to find me on social media, I'm uh Julia Antonio and Blue Sky, Aurora99 on Instagram, and if you're part of the Phantom Tumblr community, you can find me at Eric's Angel666, and you can always find me in the credits of the Cheese Yule Podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[1:00:31] Jess: I hope Nathan still says your name every week.

[1:00:33] Juliet Antonio: I don't listen to what his credits say.

[1:00:35] Jess: He does say though.

[1:00:37] Juliet Antonio: Aww, I'm gonna I'm gonna write him an angry letter.

[1:00:43] Jess: Um, no, no.

[1:00:44] Juliet Antonio: That needs to be a I don't listen to the show, Juliet.

[1:00:50] Jess: I'm sorry.

[1:00:52] Juliet Antonio: That man has an annoying voice.

[1:00:56] Jess: Juliet, thank you so much for staying such a loyal fan and friend for all these years. You are a wonderful joy and a bright spot in my life. Thank you so much for everything that you do, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

[1:01:06] Juliet Antonio: Thank you for your time and see you next time on the Cheese.

[1:01:18] Jess: My angel of music.

[1:01:21] Juliet Antonio: Saying a strange duet.