Chasing Phantom

Send us Fan Mail How do you avoid talking about a dreadful show? You invite on a delightful guest! The so-called comedy, "Never Too Late," was a play that ran for an unbelievable 1,007 performances back in the early 1960s, remarkable given the lack of any discernible jokes. My pal, Jesse Rabinowitz, Ph. D., who has forgotten more about old movies than I will ever know, takes what could h...

Send us Fan Mail How the hell did they get away with this? Join me with a only slightly legalistic consideration of what they were thinking when they made "Beatlemania." It opened in 1977 when sadness about the supergroup's breakup was still running high. Not really a musical, the tribute concert was more a multimedia trip through the 1960s. My not-a-lawyer best pal, Randy Evans, ch...

Send us Fan Mail Join Chasing Phantom for a rollicking ride down "Big River," the 1985 musical based on Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" that ran for 1,005 performances. My buddy, Christopher Haushalter, and I rave about Roger Miller's score, consider whether it's a show that requires racial recontextualization, and remember when John Goodman was...

Send us Fan Mail In the inaugural episode of "Chasing Phantom," I review and reflect on "Newsies," the Disney screen-to-stage adaptation that ran for 1,004 performances. I am joined by Dr. Caroline Weist, a professor at University of Richmond, who augments her "Newsies" fandom with insightful commentary on the differences between the movie and stage versions of the st...

Send us Fan Mail On April 16th, 2023, the historic run of "Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway will end just shy of 14,000 performances. While the next closest show will need to run at least 9 more years to catch it, the door is now open for some other production to eventually surpass this incredible number. "Chasing Phantom" will look at those contenders, in addition to the more...