He Has Played *The Phantom of the Opera* More Than 2,000 Times. A Musical Theater Actor on His Life on Broadway

“The Phantom of the Opera is, for me, like a happy marriage. A happy marriage is never perfect and you are not always happy, but the good times always outnumber the bad.”

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Brad Little is best known as a lead in the musical The Phantom of the Opera. Of his 30 years in the business, he has given 21 to this one show, which makes him one of only four actors in the world to have performed in it more than 2,000 times. As he half-jokingly puts it, “Sooner or later, first place will be mine.”

He has performed musicals on Broadway for nearly 30 years and has watched this cultural landmark change in all sorts of ways. The American writer Truman Capote said something especially forceful about the place: Broadway is not just a location, it is an atmosphere.

We talked with him about what happened to him, and to Broadway, over those 30 years. Here is the conversation.

How did you get into musical theater?

My father was a theater professor and my mother was a piano teacher. So I was “performing” in musicals before I can remember. I was still in diapers: if a production needed a baby, I'd get carried onstage. The first performance I remember was Fiddler on the Roof, when I was 6. Funnily enough, many years later it also became the first musical I performed in on Broadway.

So it was mainly your family's influence, the hope that you would follow in your father's footsteps?

There was a lot of luck involved, though you could also call it destiny. My father, for one, would have been more excited if I had become an athlete. We all loved basketball, and because I'm tall, I actually played in middle school.

And you know, when your whole family is in one line of work, you often don't want to go into it yourself. But I gradually found that I really wasn't cut out for basketball. I'm tall, but I move so slowly it was painful to watch. So when it came time to pick an extracurricular group, I gave up basketball and went back to the family trade.

Having a father in the theater must have helped your career, and perhaps made things easier.

It's not the way some people imagine, that I got to perform on Broadway and achieved what I have because of my father. My parents helped me mainly on the artistic side. Early on I got to know some people in the industry through them, but if you really want to make it onto Broadway, you still need real skill.

Less than 1% of the members of the actors' union ever get to perform on Broadway; the other 99% never get the chance. I was lucky to run into The Phantom of the Opera and to seize what may have been my only chance to get there.

That was in 1994, right? What happened?

Yes, 1994. In musical theater there is a role called a swing, a bit like a substitute on a sports team: if someone gets injured or goes on vacation, you step in.

When Broadway puts on a show, the swings are cast first, then the rest of the company. I was chosen as a swing for The Phantom of the Opera, covering two roles, the “Phantom” and “Raoul.” Then, very luckily, the man playing the “Phantom” left for the show's national tour and I took his place. I played the “Phantom” on Broadway for 8 months. Then the man playing Raoul on Broadway went to Toronto to play the “Phantom,” and I switched to Raoul. That's how it went. Eventually there were only 3 roles in the whole show I hadn't played, because the show had established itself on Broadway.

And you've kept performing ever since?

Yes. For the next two years I played Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and in 1996 I joined the show's national tour to play the “Phantom.” After three and a half years of that, I took a year off, went back to Broadway to play the “Phantom,” and then started touring Europe and Asia.

Little (far left) with the cast at an awards ceremony

Where did you go on your first Asian tour, and what was it like?

The musical theater market in Asia was only just getting started then. We went to places like Seoul and Shanghai. It was the first time anyone brought the original English-language production to South Korea. South Korea had actually staged a local version of The Phantom of the Opera in 2001, which followed the original's design in nearly everything and only switched the language to Korean. After they saw our show, they said, wow, we should have brought in the original first; the gap between the two is just too big.

I came to Shanghai for the first time in 2004, and my main impression was of buildings going up and roads being dug everywhere. It looks much more settled now. The audience was also very different when I came back the second time, last year.

Different how?

Ten years ago, I felt the Chinese audiences who came to see The Phantom of the Opera didn't really treat it as art and didn't much care about the story onstage. They just wanted to be seen at the theater, and wanted their friends to know they had gotten tickets to the most famous musical there is. From what I could see onstage, about 10% of the audience had really come to enjoy the show.

The second time, in 2014, I felt only about 30% to 40% of the audience had come to show off, and more than half had come for The Phantom of the Opera itself. When I'm onstage, I notice that when some people take photos on their phones, send text messages or talk to the person next to them, other audience members get angry. Ten years ago nobody minded at all; the whole place buzzed with chatter.

That was a new discovery for me: Chinese audiences have shown real interest in musical theater as an art form, and that makes me very happy. Once there is a large enough audience, more musical theater venues will follow, and more companies will develop local productions. I think that will happen soon.

And most of this audience is young, which is quite different from Broadway's audience in New York today, isn't it?

Yes, very different. I don't know where these young people get the money, but they seem able to afford tickets. That's another distinctive thing about the Asian musical theater market: the audience is very young, with an average age of 20 to 35, while the average Broadway audience member is 45 to 70.

Here, musical theater has become pop culture. In South Korea, for example, a good musical theater actor is a big star with a fan club, which rarely happens in the United States.

When the musical Wicked opened in South Korea, for instance, its lead, Park Hye Na, was simply a good musical theater actress. But when the film Frozen came out, its producers liked her singing voice in Wicked, so they asked her to record the Korean version of the theme song, and now she is one of the most famous actresses in South Korea.

So I'd guess you're more popular with young people in Asia?

Yes, and sometimes it startles me a little. In the United States, the people who like me are women in their 40s and 50s. Here, lots of young girls are eager to talk with me. They treat a musical theater actor like a star, which is a remarkable thing.

In the United States, musical theater actors may not be big stars, but quite a few film stars now perform in musicals on Broadway. Why do you think that is?

Yes, it's interesting. Doing a musical on Broadway won't make these stars any richer, but it brings you “respect.” Here you are a real artist. Film and television make you famous, but they don't win you recognition as an artist, so many stars hope to prove themselves in musicals.

So we often say: if you want to make money, go to Hollywood; if you want respect, come to Broadway.

(Bryan Cranston, who played Walter White in Breaking Bad*, is a Broadway regular)*

But I've heard Broadway actors make quite a lot of money too.

Ha, that's right. But it still can't compare with what film stars earn. A big share of their income comes from endorsements and advertising, which Broadway stars don't get.

Still, it's true that Broadway actors don't have to worry about making a living; they sit at the top of the musical theater pyramid. I can tell you that an ordinary musical theater actor in New York may make only $2,000 a month, but once you get to Broadway, to take myself as the example, my income after I started in The Phantom of the Opera was a thousand times what it was before.

A thousand times?

Yes, a thousand times. Of course, that's because it's The Phantom of the Opera, but even in other musicals the money would be completely different.

So more than 2,000 performances of The Phantom of the Opera adds up to a lot of income.

That's right. As for the number of performances, a colleague at my production company counted, and the record so far is 2,544. I don't know my exact number, but I celebrated my 2,000th performance in 2009, and I think I've done more than 500 in the past five years, so I should be close to the record.

We may come to China for another run at the end of next year. Since that guy has retired, I think it's only a matter of time before I pass him. If I could break the record in China, that would be rather nice.

Don't you get tired of doing one thing more than 2,000 times?

Of course I do. I'd say there are two or three days a month when performing is really, really hard, and I think, here we go again! But most of the time I feel that, over a year, the job brings more joy than frustration. The Phantom of the Opera is, for me, like a happy marriage. A happy marriage is never perfect and you are not always happy, but the good times always outnumber the bad.

Being tired doesn't mean you don't like your job. I love my job, I love performing, and although it's sometimes hard, if you asked me to do another 2,500 performances, I reckon I could get through them.

You said earlier that running into The Phantom of the Opera was a stroke of luck. I'd add that the 1990s, when you entered the business, were also a boom time for Broadway.

Broadway's golden age was the 1950s and early 1960s. When I was young, I remember we were all worried Broadway would die in the 1980s. But it pulled through, and in the 1990s it was reborn.

Why did it pull through, and how was it reborn?

Under Reagan and the elder Bush, many theaters went under and closed. We truly thought Broadway was finished. Then Clinton became president, and he got government arts funding flowing back to Broadway: new venues were built, new productions got support, and Broadway came back to life. That was the main reason.

On top of that, the Mega Musicals, The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Les Misérables, drew audiences back into the theaters.

Speaking of Broadway and Hollywood, did the earlier film version of The Phantom of the Opera help the musical?

In my view it was a terrible film, but it did an enormous amount for the Broadway musical's commercial promotion.

I've heard many stories like this: a kid sees the film version of The Phantom of the Opera, and one day his parents tell him they're going to see the musical on Broadway, and he thinks, wow, Mom and Dad are pretty cool. Curious, he goes along with them, and some kids like him fall in love with musicals and later go with their friends to see Cats and Chicago.

Do you think The Lion King has played the same role?

Commercially, I respect what The Lion King, and Disney behind it, have done. As a musical it may please audiences, but on the whole it just moves the film onto the stage. In artistic value, I don't think it can rival a musical like The Phantom of the Opera.

Disney's other box-office hit, Frozen, is also being turned into a musical.

Yes, they will certainly do a Frozen musical. It won't match the film's influence, but it will certainly make a lot of money. In the long run it may even outdo The Lion King. Disney planned this long ago. When I sat in the movie theater and watched the princess sing “Let It Go,” I could already picture it onstage, pulling in audiences with special effects.

What role has progress in special effects technology played in Broadway's development?

The Phantom of the Opera was one of the first musicals to be run by computer. When it opened in 1987, there was no Windows yet; it ran on DOS. Even after Windows came along, people kept using DOS for a while, because no one could immediately work out how to carry the old settings over to the new system, and everyone was already used to DOS.

Of course, it was gradually upgraded, to Windows and then Mac, and more lighting and stage effects were added. Today's The Phantom of the Opera could never be made with the technology of 30 years ago. So musical theater is actually a little slow to respond to new technology; it brings it in and upgrades gradually, which I find interesting.