erik u fucked up mate

Gary Mauer & Jennifer Hope Wills, POTO Broadway 2007

Favorite Final Lairs

Peter Karrie & Elizabeth DeGrazia, Phantom of the Opera 1998

Just Christine feeling responsible for all the murder and Phantom wrath, but she’s also dreading the trap set for her teacher. 

a few people asked me months ago if i sold prints and i did not but Now I Do...... you can get them here if you so desire!!! 👻

Hey, uh. This just destroyed me. Again.

This is hands-down my favourite end-of-STYDI ever caught on camera; I've said it before but it bears repeating that this moment in the show really defines for me both how I feel about an actor's Phantom portrayal and also how I feel about the Phantom/Christine relationship going on from here. (Like, this is the deciding factor in whether I spend the next 2 hours agonising over "they could have made it work!!!" versus being 100% on board with Christine running as far away as possible.)

ANYWAY. Ana Marina. Simon Pryce. Hands.

In my opinion it really paid off that they slowed down this scene and really let everyone marinate in the discomfort of it all. I'm obsessed with how she picks up the mask and looks at it almost reverentially before giving it back to him: it means something different to her now and that gesture itself is like... almost apologetic. She strokes the edge of it??? Hello???

And then most phantoms turn away here but he maintains eye contact with her the entire time, (and she with him! She doesn't look away!) and then there's the little tilt of the head with the nod and the smile like, it's ok (please please please let it be ok?) and how his hand hovers like he wants to reach out to her but doesn't dare - his discomfort and indecision are really, really palpable and I think this comes across as him very genuinely trying to process what has just happened, it reads to me as though he has - I don't know how to phrase it - dissociated beyond the point of embarrassment? Just sitting there staring at the woman he loves as if he isn't physically present in front of her at all.

Usually I see this scene played as though he's really so unused to human interaction that he thinks grabbing her arm and running off with her is the appropriate thing to do, but here it's like. He knows it isn't appropriate or right. He knows he has messed this up and whatever he does next will only make it worse, but he has to do something and he genuinely doesn't know what to do that will make it any better.

i kind of had to make @standandwatchshitburn's post into an audio post because it made me laugh so hard

glass break sfx from Natty23 on freesound, phantom audio from both the original cast recording and the royal prince albert hall recording