Illusions of Grandeur

Well, that is certainly applicable as I prepare to step into the role long filled by a person who has demonstrated a dedicated commitment to building community. A person who changed my life with just a few words, and, as I have learned especially these past few weeks, changed so many people's lives for the better over the years.

That person is @wheel-of-fish, and this past Saturday was her 300th Saturday Stream of so many versions and visions of The Phantom of the Opera.

Fish has built an amazing and enduring community in the Saturday Streams. She brought us all together weekly, gathering amid the highs and lows of our internal lives, the highs and lows of the real world swirling around us, often shadowed and dark and incomprehensible these last several years.

Fish's Saturday Streams are a refuge, a source of companionship and wit, of shared heartbreak and sadness, as we long each week for a different ending for our trio despite knowing it is not meant to be. And amidst the tragedy on stage, there is always that glint of compassion and redemption, sparked by a kiss--and the specter of hope for the future held in an empty chair.

One of the truest things I know is that shared pain is lessened and shared joy increased. Thank you so much, Fish, for what you have made here in this place you have built, and thank you for entrusting it to me so that it can continue to be a place for us to gather and share joy. This week we will be watching a performance that has significance in Streams history and personal significance for me.

The Streams had been a bit intermittent in the fall of 2019, with two Streams in October, two in November, one in December and then...had gone quiet. Meanwhile, the Fourth American Phantom Tour was nearing its end and came through my home city in November 2019. It was then I saw Phantom for the first time, with Derrick Davis as the Phantom, and I was thunderstruck. I saw it twice, in November and December, followed it to a neighboring state for a third show and then to Chicago for a fourth and last performance. The show was closing at its next stop in Toronto January and February 2020 and the pieces almost came together for me to get to the closing show, February 2nd...but work had other plans and I was not able to go.

What was I going to do now?

I was not yet on social media at all, but had been poking around as a visitor to tumblr and fate smiled when I saw an announcement for something called Saturday Streams:

"Special reappearance of Saturday Streams!

Saturday, Feb. 15 • 9 p.m. EST: David Shannon, Gina Beck & Will Barratt (London 2010)"

And written in that announcement, the words that would change my life in such a profound fashion: "shy anons are welcome."

This stream that we are playing again this coming Saturday was the first time I saw the brilliant original, and not the restaged version which contained enough of the heart and soul of the show to already hook me completely. To say the stream was a profound experience is a profound understatement.

I was not yet a tumblr member and so I missed the announcement a month later--as we all became aware that the world was heading into a crisis and we had no notion of how it would all turn out--that Fish was bringing back the Streams on March 14, 2020 with stream number 34...and well, we all just experienced number 300 this past Saturday. I missed 34 and 35 but then saw the announcement for 36 and here I have been ever since.

This performance is a Streams favorite and has been played five times since that first showing in 2020--once for Fish's 100th stream! The last showing was in a colossal marathon of eleven productions of London Phantom that began on August 2nd, 2025. Both Fish and @glassprism -- keeper of Phantom knowledge-- agree that "this is a much-requested pairing with great chemistry and acting and a classic", and that Gina Beck is widely regarded as one of the best Christines of all time.

And so, after all that being said, I get to post for the first time the words that brought me into Phantom fandom, onto tumblr, into POTO fanfic writing, and led to more friendships and experiences than I could ever have possibly imagined:

As always, the stream will be on cy.tube and

shy anons are welcome.

Thanks for all of it, Fish.

Here goes...everything.

⭐PFPs featured on the Saturday Streams banner are left to right Streams Founder @operaofthephantom, 300 Club Streams Host @wheel-of-fish, new host @from-aldebaran, and our Phantom Founder, Gaston Leroux. Massive thanks to @opera-ghost for the PFP additions to Fish's original banner.

⭐For more info, please see the Saturday Streams FAQ 

⭐Remember to follow @from-aldebaran for stream posts going forward.

⭐Streams announcement posting schedule after this outlier on Wednesday will go back to the usual Tuesday and Thursday posts, a post noonish on Saturday and then the showtime post Saturday evening.

⭐Link and password will be posted here at 8:45.