What's Up, Hal Prince? Celebrating Milestones with the Phantom Master

We’ve loved The Phantom of the Opera since we stood in line to buy tickets back in 1988, so we were beyond excited to get an exclusive interview with director Harold Prince just after the show’s 9,000th Broadway performance. The scene was a tad surreal: The famous chandelier was suspended in midair over the first few rows of the empty Majestic Theatre, costumed cast members milled about onstage, and there, in the middle of it all, was a smallish man in a baseball cap. Hal Prince! And he couldn’t have been lovelier.

Did you ever think you’d be celebrating a milestone like this when Phantom first opened?
Nobody ever thinks anything will run 9,000 performances, but the point is that we’re not at the end at all, which is simply marvelous. We hit the 20-year mark [on Broadway]; we hit 23 in Europe; it’s really quite extraordinary. I’m overwhelmed. You do a show to be a hit and hopefully run a couple of years.

Why do audiences relate so strongly to this show?
Andrew and I had exactly the same goal in mind—we wanted to do a very romantic musical. You would think that romantic musicals would be a very common thing, but they’re not. One of the ones that Andrew and I shared a great affection for was South Pacific. Now that’s [from] 1949, so there really aren’t that many. When he proposed [Phantom] as an idea, I jumped. And I rarely jump. That’s the reason the audience is so consistently positive—it is very romantic, and you lose yourself in a world. I think people are grateful for that.

Once you hear the music of Phantom, you can't get it out of your head.
It’s just gorgeous stuff. And the story’s terrific, and the cast. We’ve done a great deal of work to keep this show in mint condition, believe me. I rehearse them every three months, and we have a staff director, Peter von Mayrhauser, who is extraordinary. The costumes are constantly replaced with new ones, the scenery and the drapes and so on; the minute they show any age they’re replaced.

You’re about to mark your 60th anniversary in the theater. [Prince first served as assistant stage manager on Tickets, Please! and Call Me Madam in 1950.]
Yes, I am, aren’t I? Whoa, how about that?

Of all the great shows you’ve worked on, is this the one you would have expected to become the longest-running of all time?
Not really. You don’t think about that, you just do the shows you want to do. Every once in a while you do one you don’t want to do, but you want to be busy. It’s nice that I’ve been working for 60 years. Somebody calculated that I’ve had a show on Broadway continuously in all those years but for two years and two months, which is a privilege, to put it mildly.

Did you watch the 9,000th performance of Phantom?
No, I was working at the office on my next show, which I can’t wait to go into rehearsal with. It’s called Paradise Found. I’m going to see Phantom tomorrow in Las Vegas [at the Venetian Hotel]. I’m flying out at 12:30 to see the 7 o’clock show.

Phantom works wonderfully in Las Vegas.
It’s very beautiful in Vegas. It’s a bit different, because we wanted to give even more spectacle and also it’s only an hour and 35 minutes. You can’t drop the chandelier in the middle of the show because then you wouldn’t go on, so you have to drop it in a different place, which is just as valid, and replace effects with other effects. In this case, we bring the whole Paris Opera House up out of the floor in gold. That’s ambitious, but it works.

So give us more scoop on Paradise Found!
It’s based on a book by Joseph Roth, a famous Viennese author. Richard Nelson has written the book, Ellen Fitzhugh has written the lyrics, we’re using a lot of music of Johann Strauss II. We have Mandy Patinkin, Shuler Hensley, John Cullum, Judy Kaye… I could go on. It’s a hell of a cast.

When do you think the show will make it to Broadway?
I’d say next fall.

We can't wait! Thanks for chatting, Mr. Prince.