Just a collection of unintentionally funny moments, featuring: 1) David Arnsperger and his smooth af caress 2) Cooper Grodin going "ew get off me" 3) Cooper Grodin going "don't trip don't trip don't trip" 4) John Cudia falling off the organ 5) John Cudia whipping a poor partygoer 6) Peter Joback doing his best impression of "Hello, My Baby" 7) Peter Karrie's self-caress 8) Michael Crawford throwing a tantrum 9) Thiago Arancam thinking he's going to get laid

Credit for most of the gifs goes to @glassprism and @wheel-of-fish

...God give me courage to show you, you are not alone...

(the Final Lair hug in the Restaged Tour)

John Owen-Jones, Katie Hall and Simon Bailey, UK

Earl Carpenter and katie Hall, UK

John Owen-Jones, Katie Hall and Simon Bailey, UK

Mark Campbell and Julia Udine, US

Quentin Oliver Lee and Eva Tavares, US

Cooper Grodin (?) and Julia Udine, US

Quentin Oliver Lee and Eva Tavares, US

Derrick Davis and Emma Grimsley, US

Derrick Davis and Katie Travis, US

Chris Mann and Katie Travis, US

Josh Piterman and Amy Manford, Australia

Josh Piterman and Amy Manford, Australia

hello hi fish how are you

I was wondering if you could put a non-cooper restaged production on the watchlist? I know it’s bad but it’s so much fun to watch 😅 The way the Phantom jumps onto the don juan table is just so funny to me like why don’t they just shoot him? He’s right there! They just back off dramatically like

We do love Derrick Davis, so I suppose I could do that.

In the meantime, a gif:

So I discovered the absurdities of the Poto re-staged tour the other night

How do I articulate how I feel about the blocking/choreo?

I guess... I guess I would say its like watching

PotO! (The Musical!): a cheesy musical adaptation of what was already a musical.

I've seen High School Productions with more tasteful blocking

Which phantoms really cry during the final lair? Michael Crawford said that he did cry every night.

What happened to Eiji Akutagawa in PONR? I mean Japanese people are so restrained, so reserved. I got shocked (in a good way). LOL

Do you know if there any video bootlegs that exist of Ian Jon Bourg in Phantom World Tour? I’ve only seen a couple of short clips from 2019 and would love to get to see a whole boot if one exists!

Why folks say that Cooper Grodin is your husband? Sorry for the question. I'm new here.

To take it in order:

Are you asking for "stage crying" or "real crying"? I'd assume most Phantoms stage cry at some point in the show, since the blocking practically requires that they fall on their knees and start sobbing into the veil. Which Phantoms cross over into "real crying" is much harder to say or to tell from "stage crying", though I'd hope if they are crying for realsies that they do so in an emotionally healthy way, especially since they're expected to come out smiling and cheerful at the curtain call five minutes later.

Eiji Akutagawa is just built different, I guess. But it's worth noting that no culture is a monolith, and even if there are certain traits associated with them, that does not mean every person in that culture is expected to, or should, act in that way.

I've seen some clips that look to be from a full-ish boot (these are the ones usually posted on the Stage Enterpainment Instagram). But the only one I know of that's been released is a blindshot, highlights video of Bourg with Meghan Picerno; however, it's only available through the master, who I'm not even sure is around anymore, and I think can't be listed on any site either, so it's fairly difficult to find.

Because of my constant tendency to recommend to @wheel-of-fish that she stream Cooper Grodin, as well as other luminaries like Uwe Kroger and Thiago Arancam. This eventually led a lot of my friends on Discord to theorize that I am married to Grodin and trying to promote him this way. Which I am, by the way, and we are very happy together. But the real answer as to why I recommend him is because I enjoy inflicting Pain.

I hope that helps, and welcome to the blog as well!

who played the phantom worst in your opinion? :D

It sounds so mean calling someone the worst, but I was pretty harsh on Killian earlier, so… 🤣

Some Phantoms that I didn’t personally enjoy would be Peter Joback, Cooper Grodin, Jason Mills, Thiago Arancam, and Tim Martin Gleason. Most of these guys were just super boring, or in the case of Peter and Cooper, their voices were… not great. At least in my opinion.

With all the Restaged content we’ve been getting I wanted to ask, who’s your favorite Restaged Phantom & Christine?

We all know I can never pick just one, so here are my favorites:

Phantom: Derrick Davis (acting and voice), Victor Wallace (acting and voice), Cooper Grodin (voice), Travis Taylor (voice), Patrick Dunn (voice based on maybe 2 clips lol)

Christine: Julia Udine (acting and voice), Kaitlyn Davis (acting), Emma Grimsley (acting), Celia Hottenstein (voice), Jenna Burns (voice)

I also really loved Katie Travis' voice when she came back for like one show in 2019 lol. But not as much during her principal run.

So essentially, my dream trio would be Derrick Davis, Julia Udine, and Michael Maliakel as Raoul. The acting, the singing, the diversity!

EDIT: I ABSOLUTELY forgot that Australia existed for 5 minutes when I typed this out. So I will add Josh Piterman and Amy Manford to the list as well.

we need more cooper content

SO TRUE COOPER GRODIN COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE

Cooper Grodin & Grace Morgan ▼ Phantom of the Opera US Tour ▼ 7.27.14 ▼ Milwaukee

Socks' Ultimate Phantoms list

Phantoms

Franc D'Ambrosio - Yes. Brings all the sad noises and I am here for it. Nice voice. Excellent acting and facial expressions. Very expressive eyes. Is a cinnamon roll irl. Gary Mauer - Best voice ever. 10/10 would believe this man was an angel. Greg Mills - Looks like a cinnamon roll, will kill you. I never thought tongue action could be sexy but here we are. Ted Keegan - Looks like a cinnamon roll, is a cinnamon roll. Surprisingly sexy. Killian Donnelly - Looks like a cinnamon roll. I can't explain why I like him, but I do. Christopher Carl - I've only heard audio of him but I like him based on how he sobbed on the golden angel. Jeremy Stolle - Nice voice. Acting is too subtle. Peter Karrie - I love how he takes certain notes up a step, just to show that he can. Slightly nasally, but tolerable. Davis Gaines - tbh all I remember really is him slowly rocking his hips while he was sprawled on the portcullis and I now judge all phantoms on a metric of how good their pants look. 9/10 his pants. Peter Joback - I absolutely hated him when he sang in English. I liked him a little better when he did the show in Swedish. James Hume - Unmemorable. Michael Nicholson - Excellent acting choices. Was thinking about him for two weeks after watching. I just really like the production in German, okay? Earl Carpenter - Better in his earlier runs. Good acting choices. Simon Pryce - Very deep voice. Stands nicely. Scott Davies - He looked like fun and I wanted to like him. Noped out of that one pretty quick. Too much vibrato. Anthony Crivello - From the Vegas boot! I actually don't remember too much about him. But I know I liked the boot! Ben Crawford - Tended to have really weird pronunciation toward the end of his run. He was decent when I saw him right after the Broadway reopening. The most remarkable thing he did was to belly slide all the way across the stage during STYDI. Other than that, I recall nothing specific. Thiago Arancam - Remarkable only in the fact that he is boring. Uwe Kroger - The boob-stroking guy. I remember nothing else. Cooper Grodin - Entertaining in the fact that his acting is so wooden. Nice voice when he's not doing blocking at the same time. Good pants. It helps that he never skips leg day. Laird Mackintosh - I think he was good? I honestly don't remember. Geronimo Rauch - I remember I liked him! Norm Lewis - Nice voice, a little boring. Sorry Norm. John Owen-Jones - Hands. Michael Crawford - Absolutely not. I do not understand what anyone sees in him. His voice sounds like it's about to snap any second, and he is very unsexy. David Shannon - Yes. Absolutely yes. Excellent acting choices and nice voice. Does sad very well. Deserved better. Saulo Vasconcelos - All I can recall is @wheel-of-fish spamming the chat with "hands" all night and that's all anyone really needs to know about his Phantom. Ethan Freeman - Looks like a goddamn stick insect during Final Lair and I am here for it. Looks like Tony Shaloub. Bronson Norris Murphy - Technically only was the Phantom in Love Never Dies. RIP. He deserved better. Anyway. His voice is a little deeper than Franc's or Gary's. I wish he had gotten a chance to play the Phantom in POTO proper. I am very curious as to how he would have played it. Looks like a cinnamon roll, is a burnt cinnamon roll. Ramin Karimloo - He was my intro to POTO on stage. I liked his performance enough that I went looking for more clips of the musical, and found the Saturday Streams. Eiji Akutagawa - Ah yes. The self-groping Phantom. That's all I can remember about him. Josh Piterman - Does sad very well. Gerard Butler - My first-first Phantom. I still like him. There's something about his voice that I do actually like, and it annoys me very much when people go "he can't sing" yes he can, everyone has the ability to sing. Just shut up and let me enjoy what I like in peace. Hugh Panaro - Great voice, excellent acting. Funny. Fun to watch. Reminds me of Franc, in that they're both innocent/childish. Hugh is more childish and angry. Looks like he could kill you, and he might, it depends on his mood.

PART TWO

Two of the non-replica productions currently playing in Europe feature two different - yet bpth fairly literal - takes on "the darkness of the music of the night":

In the Mediterranean version (Italia / Monaco / Spain) the Phantom brings over a candle from his organ, place it in front of Christine who is sitting on the floor, and eventually blows out this candle during the song. (depicted: Gerónimo Rauch and Talía del Val in Madrid)

In the Restaged version (UK, US, Australia, Austria) the Phantom blindfolds Christine during the song while singing about the music of the night. The blindfold later comes off. (depicted: Cooper Grodin/Julia Udine in the US, and Anton Zetterholm/Lisanne Clémence Veeneman in Austria)

Beloved wifey, please make a gif of Cooper my beloved climbing on the table. Love, your loving glass

Anon, you are very obviously not @glassprism, but I made it anyway

Reviewing more phantoms and Raouls. As usual, I’m doing both in one post.

Dmitry Ermak had a very good first lair, with a sensual motn and a very strong unmasking. He had a very nice, classic phantom voice that he made rather raspy in his more emotional scenes, which I enjoyed. He was a very...wriggly boy in stydi, I loved it. Very much enjoyed his second unmasking and final lair, he played a very tired, sad phantom who did a very good job reacting to Christine and Raoul.

I’ve said before why I like Hugh Panaro (along with a million other people) but I’ll say it again here I guess. His reputation as a “sexy phantom” is uh not unfounded. His acting really emphasizes the sensuality and underlying darkness of the character. Every aspect of his movement is clearly very well thought out. I know he’s a fan of Susan Kay’s phantom and it definitely comes across in his performance. He can also be very sassy at times, which I’m not always a huge fan of but it definitely works well with his performance.

Cooper Grodin....oh Cooper. His voice is...as others have pointed out, he sounds like he was doing some heavy drinking before performing. His acting is extremely aggressive even for the restaged tour. He barely cared about Christine and it felt like he barely cared about the show.

As with Hugh, it’s been discussed why Michael Crawford is so wonderful, aside from bringing to life the character and creating an iconic portrayal. His acting is truly something else, I suppose it helps that as the first he isn’t influenced by any other actors in the role and truly took the time to make it his own. He has a very smooth, elegant motn, with the whole thing feeling like one very long, deliberate movement with a lot of emphasis on his hands. His more distressed scenes have some very Lon Chaney vibes, with more great hands and great distressed noises. His very light voice works well with his portrayal, making him feel even more ethereal and simultaneously phantom-like and angel-like.

Marcus Lovett has a pretty rough voice. Not necessarily bad, just rough. His acting though...we love to see it. A hypnotic motn, he’s very mature, very in control, knows what he’s doing and is perfectly comfortable leading Christine around his lair. This maturity extends all throughout the show up to the final lair, when he seems old and tired. He’s certainly no man-child yet there’s a real sense of desperation.

As for Raouls...

I wasn’t too impressed with Evgeny Zaytsev at first but he significantly improved when with a decent Christine. Overall he can be relatively boring but he does have quite a few nice touches, and his final lair stands out as very good.

Jeremy Hays was there. He existed. He had a very nice voice, I just found his acting kind of boring, he didn’t do much.

Ben Jacoby came across relatively charming in Little Lotte and got progressively worse from there, culminating in him grabbing Grace Morgan’s ears and dragging her head around the rooftop like that.

Reece Holland has a hell of a voice and he knows how to use it. He has some very interesting infliction and was clearly having fun playing with the notes. He was a very earnest, very sweet Raoul who put a lot of energy into his performance.

Simon Thomas doesn’t really stand out to me in any way other than his good chemistry with Anna O’Byrne. He doesn’t really do much but he does go out of his way to be very gentle and soft with Anna’s more nervous, hysterical approach and they work well together.

if JAJ is the Raoul version of Cooper, who is the Christine version of Cooper?

Katie Knight Adams, no contest. Most Christines that I dislike are merely boring; Katie Knight Adams is the only one who is actively weird. Look, I even put her in the same gifset as Cooper Grodin. Clearly they belong together.

Tumblr, I gotta kvetch about the US tour for a sec. I saw it with Mark Campbell in 2014, and I loved his performance, he left me sobbing in my seat. And then after 1 month he left, why we don’t know but the two theories are 1) he was getting vocally ill and 2) artistic disagreement with director Laurence Connor (which apparently happened during rehearsals for the tour in London with one of the Phantoms they hired as well) But I’m not mad about him leaving what I am mad about is... 

Cooper. Grodin. 

If you like Cooper, I am totally fine you liking him. But I find him to be...weak sauce. Like I saw him as Bouquet when I went and...the dude’s acting was weird. Just not for me. The vibe I got from him as Bouquet was kinda like the stereotypical high school bully you see in teen movies. And his Phantom came across to me as awfully cocky and his voice is nice, but not Phantomy, not one that would spirit me away through a mirror. And when the reviews for Phantom came out with Cooper in them, the reviews were very mixed. 

But I’m not even mad about Cooper’s performance. What I am mad about is that the only bootlegs that came out in the early days of 2015 were of Cooper! The only bootlegs we have of Mark are audios, and even then they didn’t come out for months afterwards so it was like Mark’s performance never existed! And don’t get me wrong, we now have plenty of other bootlegs of Chris Mann, Quentin Oliver Lee, and Derrick Davis for people to watch. And many people love those Phantoms, which is great! I’m just soooooooooooo stung that I can never rewatch the performance of one of my favorite Phantoms of all time because there are no visual bootlegs and I can’t relive one of the best performances I’ve seen in my life other than in my head :/ 

Anyway that’s my Tuesday, how’s yours?

Gotta tell a bit of a story with this one. I can’t remember the first time we watched this production of the restaged tour, but I know it was a long time ago, and this unique “Delilah” has been stuck in my head since then. Needless to say, I was shocked to hear it again as we watched some funny clips during a stream. Now my earworm is in a short audio clip so it can become stuck in your brain as well!