I've been neglecting my blog lately. The last couple weeks haven't been all that great around here. But enough about that for now.....I may get back to it at some point, or I may not.

When I was in high school, I was in the marching band. Our band was a competition band. During my 4 years in the band, we had competition shows using music from "West Side Story," our "Simply Streisand" show featuring songs by Barbara Streisand, a show that really had no theme, and finally, "The Phantom of the Opera." That show, done in my senior year (fall of 1989), began my fascination with "Phantom." In 1992, my mom and I went to Toronto to see "Phantom" on stage. It was incredible. Growing up near Cleveland and Akron, I was no stranger to professional productions. I had even seen a ballet in Paris when I was there as an exchange student, and a musical on Broadway ("City of Angels," which went on to win the Tony for Best Musical that year). But this was something else. There had been some impressive effects in "City of Angels," but the effects in "Phantom" left me wondering "where did he come from?" or "how did they do that?" When it was over, I talked my mom into buying me the tape of Toronto cast album and the book that told about the production. I listened to the tape the whole way home. If I could have seen the show again, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Little did I know that I would get that chance.

In 1995, Kevin and I were trying to come up with an idea for short vacation. I threw out going to Toronto to see "Phantom," never thinking that he'd be interested in it. Kevin grew up in northern Maine. Going to plays, musicals, ballets and things like that was something he never had the opportunity to do. To my surprise, he agreed, and we set about making the arrangements. We came across the CDs of the original London cast and picked them up. We stumbled across the original, 1920's, movie version of "Phantom" with Lon Chaney, and bought that, too. We were able to get seats close to where my mom and I had sat.....they were actually a little better than what we had had. The show was just as good the second time around as it had been the first. Kevin, having never seen anything like it before, thought is was incredible. I left wishing that there was a video of the show available. I wanted to be able to see it again and again and again. My mom went to see it again a few years ago, as it was ending it's run in Toronto (Paul Stanley, yes the guy from KISS, was playing the Phantom then). I was deeply jealous and wished I could have gone, too.

Somehow, I had not heard that there was a film adaptation of the musical in the works. Imagine my surprise when I started seeing commercials for it! Imagine my disappointment when it was opening only in selected cities last year and would not be opening nationwide until this month. Now imagine how happy I was that my mom was visiting when it finally did open nationwide two weekends ago. We don't go to a whole lot of movies. In fact, I think we only went to one last year. But there was no way I was going to miss seeing "Phantom" in the theater, especially after seeing the "making of" on HBO. I was really excited, but also a little worried that it wouldn't live up to my expectations. I can honestly say that I was not disappointed. I thought the casting was perfect, and was really impressed that the three leads did all of their own singing (a requirement of Andrew Lloyd Webber). I loved being able to see things up close, see facial expressions, details in the sets/scenery that you can't see in the theater unless you're in the front row. There was, what I felt was, an akward cut away at the end of one scene, some of the song lyrics were changed a bit, there was a scene that was cut out completely, and the chandelier didn't fall at the end of Act I like it was supposed to, but overall, I loved the movie. I left the theater wishing I could go back in and see it again. When telling my mom about it the next morning I said that Kevin and I should have gone Friday night and then I could have gone back and seen it with her Saturday night. Maybe, if we get the opportunity, I'll get a chance to see it again while it's in the theater. If not, I will the first in line to buy it when it finally comes out on video!