LOVE NEVER DIES Lloyd Webber Phantom of the Opera sequel Broadway Window Card

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LOVE NEVER DIES Andrew Lloyd Webber Phantom of the Opera sequel 14"x22" U.S. Broadway National Tour Window Card
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Love Never Dies
is a romantic musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Glenn Slater and a book by Lloyd Webber, Ben Elton, Frederick Forsyth and Slater. It is a sequel to the long-running 1986 musical
The Phantom of the Opera
and was loosely adapted from Forsyth's 1999 novel
The Phantom of Manhattan
.
The plot is not based on the storyline in the original 1910 book by Gaston Leroux. Lloyd Webber stated: "I don't regard this as a sequel—it's a stand-alone piece."
He later clarified: "Clearly, it is a sequel, but I really do not believe that you have to have seen
Phantom of the Opera
to understand
Love Never Dies
."
Glenn Slater subsequently explained that Lloyd Webber "didn’t view it as a sequel as much as 'a second story with these characters'".
The musical is set in 1907,
which Lloyd Webber states is "ten years roughly after the end of the original
Phantom
",
although the events of the original actually took place in 1881.
In the show, Christine Daaé is invited by Oscar Hammerstein I for her American debut, until an anonymous impresario contracts her to perform at Phantasma, a new attraction on Coney Island. With her husband Raoul and son Gustave in tow, she journeys to Brooklyn, unaware that it is actually "The Phantom" who has arranged her appearance in the popular beach resort.
Although Lloyd Webber began working on
Love Never Dies
in 1990, it was not until 2007 that he began writing the music. The show opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London's West End on 9 March 2010, with previews from 22 February 2010. It was originally directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, but the show closed for four days in November 2010 for substantial re-writes, which were overseen by Lloyd Webber, and it re-opened with new direction from Bill Kenwright. Set and costume designs were by Bob Crowley.
The original London production received mostly negative reviews, but a subsequent Australian production featuring an entirely new design team and heavy revisions was generally better received, although the show finally closed with heavy discounting to tickets.
A planned Broadway production, which was to have opened simultaneously with the West End run, was cancelled,
the amount of negative press having deterred potential backers.
A touring production, identical to the Hamburg production, but in English, traveled through North America in the 2017–2018 season.
It premiered at the Stanley Theatre in Utica, New York on September 22, 2017,
and ended on December 2, 2018 at the Bass Performance Hall in Austin, Texas. The cast included Gardar Thor Cortes/Bronson Norris Murphy [later Bronson Norris Murphy/Michael Gillis] as The Phantom, Meghan Picerno/Rachel Anne Moore as Christine Daaé, Karen Mason as Madame Giry, Sean Thompson as Raoul, Mary Michael Patterson as Meg Giry, Katrina Kemp as Fleck, Richard Koons as Squelch, Stephen Petrovich as Gangle and Casey Lyons and Jake Miller sharing the role of Gustave
.