His Queen Photos - Broadway

Hale Centre Theatre in Gilbert presents No, No, Nanette, a delightful Broadway musical by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel. The lighthearted romp transports us back in time to the roaring 1920's where we meet three couples in the midst of a blackmail scheme. We meet Tom who wants to marry Nanette, Jimmy who is secretly the financial benefactor to 3 single young ladies, unbeknown to his frugal wife, Sue. And finally Billy, who is tasked with cleaning up Jimmy's mess, helping Tom win over Nanette, and keeping his own wife, Lucille, from getting suspicious!

When Gaston Leroux published THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA back in 1911, little did he realize the numerous chandeliers that would come crashing down through the decades, and I've witnessed a good number of them. First, in 1925, there was 'the Man of a Thousand Faces,' Lon Chaney, Sr., who frightened poor Mary Philbin (a well-done version, even IF the film was silent); then, for Universal in 1941, Claude Rains (Bette Davis' favorite co-star) was a more subdued vocal coach for soprano Susanna Foster (a wooden Nelson Eddy, alas, is a greater impending horror as 'Raoul'). I could go on - even Herbert Lom, the actor who was the harried police superior to Peter Sellers' 'Inspector Clousseau,' took a swing on the old light fixture. (And let us not forget diminutive Paul Williams in the slightly askew PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE.) All of these pale, of course, in comparison to the legendary interpretation by Michael Crawford in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which first brought the audience to its feet in 1986.