Light show

he trailer for the current Broadway tour of The Phantom of the Opera looks less like a theater piece than a sumptuous Hollywood blockbuster: gunshots, pyrotechnic flares, gold-bedecked sets, smoke and gondola excursions, and precariously plunging chandeliers. Yes, the chandelier remains a scene-stealing costar in this new production by Cameron Mackintosh, a billionaire British impresario. Weighing 1,500 to 2,000 pounds, the colossal battery-powered light fixture contains 6,000 beads and 48 bulbs, and it’s been dropped more than 10,000 times in its show-stopping act-one climax. Audience gasps are common during this sequence and many others, with crowds in London, New York, Budapest, Hamburg, and Moscow responding to the show’s spare-no-expense theatrics. If your only experience with Phantom is the meretriciously empty 2004 film adaptation, you owe it to yourself to experience Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ghostly melodramatic love triangle the way it is meant to be seen—which in this case means the original, Tony-winning costume design, a new lighting design by a Tony winner, and a cast and orchestra of no fewer than 52. The Phantom of the Opera runs at 8 p.m. Tuesdays to Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, located at 201 SW Fifth Ave. in Fort Lauderdale. Tickets cost $34.75 to $159.75. Call 954-462-0222, or visit browardcenter.org.
Thu., Nov. 20, 2014