A Haunting Performance

Phantom ‘sequel’ Love Never Dies brings unexpected drama to Bass Concert Hall

The ability to craft a musical as moving as Love Never Dies or its predecessor, The Phantom of the Opera, requires the skilled hands, mind, and soul of a true artist ... or two.

While the name Andrew Lloyd Webber is synonymous with brilliant musical theater, lyricist Glenn Slater should also be held in high regard as it’s his storytelling that helps bring Webber’s compositions to life in Love Never Dies. Fans of the predecessor can find out what comes next for The Phantom and Christine when Love Never Dies comes to Bass Concert Hall November 27 through December 2.

The pair also worked together on the musical School of Rock, for which they were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score. Slater, a three-time Tony Award nominee and Grammy Award winner in his own right, clearly marvels at the musical brilliance of Webber. "He’s not like anybody else," explains Slater. "He’s not generally thinking in terms of pop hit moments. He’s generally thinking in terms of the big tapestry. How does this motif play out over the course of the story? And so very often he will have thought through an entire musical line that I’m not necessarily privy to when we start, but I go along for the ride."

Slater says he thinks The Phantom holds a special place in Webber’s heart and that he identifies with him. As such, he says Webber began devising the Love Never Dies story more than 30 years ago, not long after The Phantom of the Opera debuted. Slater says while it’s a continuation of the story, it’s not exactly a sequel as Love Never Dies was written to stand on its own and provides enough backstory to not require seeing The Phantom of the Opera first.

In their newest rendition, The Phantom (played by Bronson Norris Murphy) has found a new home amongst the side show freaks and human oddities living in New York’s Coney Island. Still in love with Christina Daae (Meghan Picerno), he lures her to the Big Apple.

"[Webber]'s retained a lot of that high European operatic tone, but also brought in the sounds of the new world. Musical. Burlesque. Things that are more reminiscent of Americans during that period," Salter explains. "There’s an evolution of the sound, while there is still a link to the earlier feel of Phantom."

Once Webber came up with the musical themes, Slater says it was his job to take the story and figure out how to pull it together through lyrics. The process took several years, and involved a lot of give and take and tweaking along the way.

"I would look at that moment and figure out how much story needs to be told musically within this moment, where does the movement peak emotionally, and how can I get that moment to peak at the same time as the music peaks," Slater says.

Occasionally, Slater would have to negotiate with Webber to adjust the music to fit lyrics into a specific section. He says when it came time to writing the lyrics for “Beneath a Moonless Sky,” which is the moment when The Phantom and Christine meet again for the first time in 10 years, he realized that the verse and chorus music Webber had written would need to be expanded to incorporate more backstory.

“To make it work, we had to pad it out. So, we now hear that verse and chorus several times,” he explains. "The music mutates and changes to match the story that they are telling and there’s a very definite high point to the story that the music has to rise to meet, so we worked that out together."

Slater has trouble picking a favorite piece in the musical, but says "'Til I Hear You Sing" is on the list. He says because of how it came together, he has a great feeling every time he hears it. “I wrote the lyric in two days. It just came pouring out," he remembers. "Just hearing this music, I was like, ‘I know who this man is I know what’s going through his mind,' and it was just one of those wonderful moments where everything comes together very quickly. I sent it off to [Webber] and heard back five minutes later, ‘We’re doing this, let’s go.'”

Slater says Love Never Dies is full of surprises, whether this musical is your introduction to Phantom or you are a long-time fan. "There are a lot of twists and turns that you don’t see coming, and the ending is just wildly over the top emotional," he explains. "Audiences are coming out with tears rolling down their cheeks saying, ‘That’s not what I expected.'"

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You can explore the unexpected during Love Never Dies’ week-long Austin run. Tickets range from $30-$125 and are available here. Attendees should review Bass' new bag policy prior to heading to the theater. Find details and entrance requirements here.

In the next iteration of The Phantom's love story, he is in New York City.

Bronson Norris Murphy and Meghan Picerno in Love Never Dies

Photo by Joan Marcus

In the next iteration of The Phantom's love story, he is in New York City.

theater

Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

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