Luxe Life Blog

Phantom producer Scott Zeiger reveals secrets to show’s third anniversary

Posted July 1, 2009 • 2:06 p.m.

Andrew Ragone (Raoul), Anthony Crivello (The Phantom) and Kristi Holden (Christine Daae) celebrate Phantom -- Las Vegas Spectacular's third anniversary at The Venetian.

Photo: Erik Kabik/Retna/www.erikkabikphoto.com

The Phantom of the Opera has enjoyed extraordinary success since it was created by Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and premiered in London 23 years ago. Here in Las Vegas, Phantom -- Las Vegas Spectacular has just celebrated its third anniversary.

Now the world’s greatest theatrical musical love story is getting a sequel! Andrew is at work on it for its world premiere in England next spring.

I talked with Scott Zeiger, co-CEO of BASE Entertainment who produces Phantom here at The Venetian, along with Jersey Boys at the Palazzo, Peepshow at Planet Hollywood and Wayne Brady’s Sh*t Happens at The Venetian.

Robin Leach: Why is Phantom such a phenomenon? Why do people keep coming back to it? Why are they so emotionally moved by it? Why is it such a strong piece of theater?

Scott Zeiger: In my opinion, there are quintessential key things that bring people back. First, the score: It’s the sort of music that is haunting and penetrating and stirs your soul, and I think it’s beautiful. I think the fact is, it’s a tragic love story, and people want to be moved, it’s a moving, tragic love story. So, you have a combination of the extraordinary score and a powerful and dramatic book. And what we’ve done, at least in Las Vegas, is taken the unbelievable blueprint that was set out both in London and on Broadway, and blown it into a spectacular experience that has enhanced those other productions without taking anything away from the original DNA from the show. I’m proud of it. The show is not 2 hours and 20 minutes long. It’s not the same exact show that’s on Broadway or in London.

While the author, the lyricist and the composer gave us permission to call it The Phantom of the Opera, they had no qualm with our shorter version. In fact, on the title page of the Playbill, it says The Phantom of the Opera. But from a marketing perspective, we thought we had to do something to validate its existence as a permanent installation in Las Vegas. We needed to do something where many people across this great world of ours have seen Phantom in their own hometowns or in the permanent installations in the major theater markets. And what we wanted them to do was to come back and see our production, in a market where there are so many other choices for interesting spectacle shows, that if they had a choice of seeing Phantom when it visits Chicago and plays the Palace Theater, or they’re visiting Vegas, they can see Phantom, a Cirque show or they can see Cher. We want to remind them from a marketing perspective that our show is the spectacle version of Phantom, that it brings something to the table from the physical production that they can’t see anywhere else, and we were looking for as few words as possible to convey that message but still deliver the message.

I mean, perhaps today it can be Phantom the Spectacular, maybe we don’t need to have the words Las Vegas in it any longer, but it was branded that way to launch. Now when you see Phantom in New York, while the title page says The Phantom of the Opera, all the advertising in New York says Phantom now, it doesn’t even say Phantom of the Opera, it doesn’t even say Broadway. Any ad in The New York Times says Phantom. That show has evolved from The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway to simply just Phantom. We took that brand and tried to get a new gold foil around it, if you will, that point of differentiation from a marketing perspective that we felt to justify it’s being in Las Vegas.

RL: Without putting words in your mouth, is it possible that you might just change it to Phantom the Spectacular for the fourth year?

SZ: I haven’t thought about it until right now. As you know, we changed more than just the title. The artwork for the Las Vegas show is different than the artwork from Broadway or London. I think that the Las Vegas production owes everything to the other incarnations. We had the benefit, quite frankly, of 20 years that didn’t exist when Phantom opened, so they’ve never gone back to change it except for the sound system. They took the sound system that we created especially for Vegas and installed them into New York and London. They actually took the show down for four days in each city to install the sound system that we invented for ours here in Vegas. But beyond that, the show and the technology, with the exception of the pyrotechnics and the crash-exploding chandelier, did not exist when Phantom first opened in 1986, so we had the advantage of all the new technology.

We also had the advantage of The Venetian willing to build our theater specifically for the show rather than inheriting something and moving into theaters that had been standing for 70 years. We created something from a whole cloth. We had all these extraordinary opportunities to build upon that. And also, I think that many Phantom fans fill in the blanks of certain elements of the show that we tightened or shortened. They see the whole show, even though a book scene or a ballet might have been abbreviated in some way. The ballet on Broadway is four minutes long; the ballet in Las Vegas is 30 seconds.

RL: What have Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Hal Prince said about the changes that have taken place with the Vegas production?

SZ: I think they have been extremely complimentary, and, quite frankly, they’re the ones that made them. I didn’t make them; I gave them the creative latitude. Part of the stopwatch on the show is that at our initial 95-minute running time, Actor’s Equity in Las Vegas allowed us to do 10 shows a week without incremental payment to the actors. We’re now only doing eight, which means that the show could have been 100 minutes, it could have been 105 minutes, and there is only a penalty if it runs longer. There is nothing linked to an audience’s attention span in Las Vegas at 95 minutes. That 95 minutes for me was an Actor’s Equity requirement. We only did 10 shows a week for the first year of operation. I know the Cirque show kind of goes by that rule of thumb, but it’s more of a rule of thumb than a union regulation.

RL: Is the Vegas box office still strong going into a fourth year and standing up to the tough economy?

SZ: It’s performing nicely. When you say strong, my response to that is, just like every other show in Las Vegas, including Cher, including O, including Love, seats are available. Every single show in Las Vegas and every single show on Broadway has inventory available because the economics of today’s world are what they are. But, if you look at the overall landscape, we are performing well and looking strongly into the future.

RL: Andrew Lloyd Webber has been at work on Phantom 2 …

SZ: Next spring, London, and now you will want to know if I have the rights for it for Las Vegas. I do not. I don’t think that any rights are going to be disposed anywhere in the world until the show is on its feet. Some producers in the past, me included, will take an investment on a certain investor who speaks for a territory. Phantom 2 will not be taking those sort of investments. Phantom 2 will open, and Andrew Lloyd Weber will then decide what happens next. But Broadway would definitely be first, not Vegas.

Robin Leach has been a journalist for more than 50 years and has spent the past decade giving readers the inside scoop on Las Vegas, the world’s premier platinum playground.

Follow Robin Leach on Twitter HERE.

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