About the Play:

The Phantom of the Opera – The Play is a full-length musical drama by John Kenley and Robert Thomas Noll. This love story thriller with music and dance tells the full story of the mysterious masked terror that inhabits the cellars of the Paris Opera House.

Phantom of the Opera reveals story of a man who was horribly disfigured at birth and banished to the cellars of the Paris Opera House by his bitter father. A brilliant musician, the masked Phantom falls in love with Christine, a chorus singer whose career is overshadowed by a temperamental diva. The Phantom adopts Christine as his musical protege, but she flees in terror after ripping off his mask and revealing the ugliness that makes him the object of disgust. Not to be confused with the Andrew Lloyd Webber production of "Phantom" on Broadway, this production clearly follows the original 1911 novel by Gaston Leroux and the famous 1925 silent film classic starring Lon Chaney. It will take audience members through the catacombs of the Paris Opera House with selections from the world's greatest operas to help advance to plot, combined with original music by David Gooding. The entire play is musically underscored. The singing is done live. The organ playing is recorded but can be done live, if the actor playing the Phantom is capable.

Legendary summer stock producer John Kenley, in collaboration with Emmy Award winner Robert Thomas Noll, devised this version of The Phantom of the Opera for the renowned Kenley Players company. It was first produced in 1988 at the Playhouse Square Center in downtown Cleveland, Ohio and then toured the U.S. in 1989-90,

Cast: 6 female, 9 male (doubling possible)

What people say:

"Contrary to the way it sometimes has seemed during the '90s, The Phantom of the Opera is not the exclusive domain of Andrew Lloyd Webber. It can, in fact, be staged without big-budget special effects, lush romantic duets and even without the climactic crash of a one-ton chandelier. Case in point is the melodrama The Phantom of the Opera – the Play ... by John Kenley and Robert Thomas Noll." — Los Angeles Times

"This is The Phantom of the Opera – the Play with music and dance, written by John Kenley and Robert Thomas Noll. The music is grand opera, the arias and choruses that reverberated through the Paris Opera House and soothed the phantom hiding in its catacombs ...a tribute to the classic Gaston Leroux novel and the original Lon Chaney movie about the disfigured Eric, his love for the gifted soprano, Christine, and the terror he releases when his love is not returned." — South Florida Sun-Sentinel

About the Playwright:

John Kenley (1906-2009) was an American theatrical producer who pioneered the use of television stars in large-scale regional and summer stock theatre in his adopted home state of Ohio and elsewhere. In 1950, he was the first producer to desegregate live theatre audiences in Washington, DC. In 2004 he was made an Honorary Life Member of Actors' Equity for his contributions to American theatre. His Kenley Players company, which presented hundreds of productions in Midwestern cities between 1940 and 1996, is credited with laying the groundwork for Broadway touring companies.

Robert Thomas Noll is a professor at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent many years in professional theatre, TV and film. He has won over 34 national and international awards including nine Emmys and a Silver Medal at the International Film and Television Festival of New York. His 37 produced plays have been performed throughout the U.S. (including seven off-off Broadway), Canada and Europe.