#I Am Screaming

Michael Crawford's "I love you" wail and "[big voice] YOU ALONE [sad wet cat voice] can make my song take flight" are actively disrupting my day.

The chat next Saturday is going to be so unstable and I am totally here for it 💀

Saturday, May 3, 2025: NO STREAM

I try my best to schedule around Saturday evenings, but it's an event night! I might be back in time, but I don't want to risk it. See you next weekend!

Phantom Acting Choices That Live in My Head Rent Free (Part 3)

Final lair edition because this scene alone has permanent residence in an entire area of my brain.

When Davis Gaines and Stephen Buntrock take "this face which earned a mother's fear and loathing" up an octave. If you got the range, flaunt it I guess.

Hugh Panaro absolutely torments Raoul. Why are you waving at him from the other side of the portcullis? Why are you singing "raise up your hands to the level of your eyes" like that?!

The way Ian Jon Bourg and Kevin Gray scream "I love you."

The way Hugh Panaro whispers "I love you."

The way John Cudia fumbles "I love you. I--" in his performance with Sarah Lawrence.

Honestly there are no less than fifty Phantom I love you's that play in my head at any given moment. I'm obsessed with extra ilys.

But also Earl Carpenter saying "fuck an ily" and just dropping to his knees to offer Christine the ring again like the sad wet cat he is.

David Shannon screaming "No!" when Christine says "you deceived me."

Phantoms who lean their cheek against Christine's hair between kisses (shout out to Ben Crawford, Laird Mackintosh, and Jonathan Roxmouth, this is an underrated 2020s calling card).

Any Christine putting their hand to the Phantom's cheek during the kiss. Common West End staple, but bonus points if a Phantom reacts to it (Ramin, Earl, David Shannon, etc.)

When Sierra Boggess turns back to look at Erik one last time during the 25th anniversary performance and RK gives her that slight nod like, "Go ahead, it's ok." Kill me.

Lucy St. Louis staring down Killian Donnelly's Phantom through the portcullis while she (supposedly) sings "share each day with me" to another man.

Legs.

1. Jeremy Stolle 2. Davis Gaines 3. Hugh Panaro 4. Ivan Ozhogin 5. Ben Lewis 6. Gary Mauer 7. Howard McGillin 8. Earl Carpenter 9. Mathais Edenborn

I went to dinner and when I checked my phone a little later my best friend was live tweeting the Phantom boot I gifted him. Suffice it to say...I think I've converted my first person to the phandom.

I started him out with the 25th anniversary performance and then proceeded to give him comparative highlights of Hugh Panaro, Earl Carpenter, Davis Gaines and Norm Lewis to give him a sense of scope. Then built it out with others. Sprinkled in information about canon and the different Erik/Christine types and ranted a lot about hands and my personal tastes.

And then I gave him a Lucy St. Louis boot bc I suspected he'd like her and I asked him to share his thoughts afterward. Now his takes have me screaming because I've totally indoctrinated him.

"She was good, but I didn't like this Phantom. His ILY was weak! The hands weren't right. DO YOU WANT HER OR NOT BRO??" I warned him about the post-COVID fall off but now he's blaming me for setting him up with high expectations and declaring his allegiance to the 2000s era.

And he's already abbreviating POTO.

I'm so damn proud of myself (and him) lol.

David Thaxton's Phantom is a special kind of unhinged and...amazing?

Slowly starting to discover Phantoms 2018-present as I build my mini archive. He and Killian Donnelly (but also maybe Dean Chisnall?) are carrying the post-Panaro era on their backs.

Whoa Jon Robyns and Lily Kerhoas were such a good pairing, their voices mesh so well and their interpretations make sense together.

Thinking about how Erik wasn't just left alone by people, but also had no support system in the century he was born. His traumas would never be taken seriously (specially considering the men in his time), his mental illness would never be treated, he would probably be locked in an asylum and endure horrific torture if he ever tried to search for help. His abusers were protected by this very system and got away with everything they did to him. He was left down by everyone, even in his family, anywhere he went he was met with abuse, discrimination and ableism, and there was no way to escape this monstrous society other than hiding from it.

Thinking about no matter how much Leroux evidenced Erik's humanity, his nuances, the good he was capable of making, how his crimes were circumstantial (and in a lot of cases even forced), but not from thoughtless sadistic satisfaction, how he had no chance of living as a normal person in the world that casted him out like a 'monster'... he will always be a "villain" in the eyes of so many people. Because it's easier to blame one single person that already doesn't have anything or anyone and is already down on his misery, poverty and trauma, than to aknowledge the very system and society that forced him to live that way. It's easier to create an enemy that won't be accepted by anyone as anything other than an enemy, an 'other'.

Just thinking about how tragic and sadly realistic Erik is.

A heartbreaking Davis Gaines hand thing.

Edit: Boots are cinema because do you SEE how this master lets the camera linger on the empty space even after Christine leaves the frame? Do you understand we give filmmakers oscars for this kind of thing?!

The chandelier rises one last time.