I had the privilege of sitting down with Tahnys, Khae, and Quinn to get a peek behind the scenes on the production of The Phantom of the Opera. You can watch the full interview here, or read the interview below. If you love The Phantom of the Opera then I promise you've never seen it quite like how it is performed in the online game The Lord Of The Rings Online. But not to worry, you don't actually have to own the game or be on the server, you can watch it streamed live on the BTC YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/@LOTROBTC
The show will be on 15 and 16 Nov 2024, starting at 8pm eastern. More details about the show, the cast, and a special trailer video can be found at https://tinyurl.com/brandywinetheatre
The Interview
Miloa: G'day friends, Maloah here. We are back today with the Brandywine Theatre Company, who will be producing Phantom of the Opera this coming weekend. Welcome everybody, how are you guys doing today?
Tahnys: Good, thanks. Thank you. I'm Tahnys, I am playing the role of Raoul in this show. I'm also a producer for BTC. For Phantom, I co-wrote the adaptation and I am also the director, the stage manager, and the music director.
Khae: Hi, I'm Khae, I'm a producer in the BTC and for this show I play Christine. I also co-wrote the adaptation with Tahnys and I'm the assistant director.
Quinn: Hello, I'm Quinn and I'll be playing the role of the Phantom. I also helped arrange some of the music.
Tahnys: This season we decided to go back and do a show that we actually started. Our very first show that we ever tried to do in the game was Phantom back in 2021. We're very excited to bring a new adaptation of it with all of the things that we've learned along the way doing a number of shows between the very first time and this being our 13th show with BTC.
Khae: Phantom of the Opera will be performed at the BTC Theatre on Friday, November 15th and Saturday, November 16th at 8 p.m. server time. It will take place at the BTC Theatre, which is in the Erebor Homesteads, Songskali neighborhood 4 Oakshield Way.
Miloa: What inspired you to bring Phantom of the Opera into the world of Lord of the Rings Online?
Tahnys: So originally, it goes back to the very first show we did.Originally it was done by Goblinfyre, which is the band for Goblins For Hire decided to try and do a full musical performance in the game and just because a lot of people were a fan of Phantom of the Opera, that was the show they decided to do. They were already working on the music and decided to stage it as a full production. There was a lot of support behind it just because it's a very popular show. Everybody is a big fan of the music and a fan of the story. So it's just a show that everybody fell in love with and we decided to come back and revisit it and try to just make it as good as we could possibly do it, especially with all the new experience and little things that we can add to it now that we've learned over the last few shows.
Miloa: How have you adapted the story and the characters of Phantom of the Opera to the Lord of the Rings setting?
Tahnys: A lot of that we have to give credit to the costuming team. We have some very talented individuals, Thando, Mally and Rosie, who have been doing a couple of the other shows and one of them, Rosie, actually has costumed Phantom of the Opera in real life. That is a huge plus to our costuming team, but the credit goes to them for finding the right outfits that still look period to the time setting of the show and they really did a great job. We try to keep everything looking period for the time that the show takes place.Now, obviously, we're still performing the show with elves and men and dwarves, so a little bit of a flavor of Lord of the Rings online in the show, but we've adapted those races and characters to fit what would be appropriate for their characters. So you'll see a little bit of a mix, but we really tried to keep it as true to the show as we could.
Miloa: Were there any particular challenges in recreating the Phantom set within the game's environment?
Khae: Creating a set for Phantom was a huge challenge. We have walls and catwalks, a lot of set pieces that we interact with, set pieces that change from scene to scene, lighting that changes from scene to scene, and I want to give a shout out to our stage and lighting techs. This is a new position that we haven't done very much before, but we have three people working very hard between the scenes and sometimes during a scene to alter either the setting or the lighting to create a different mood or to bring us into a different area of the play, like a different room in the play. Also, Phantom has a play with three plays within it, so we had a lot of fun recreating the settings for these different plays that are part and parcel of the play itself.
Miloa: How do you approach the musical elements of Phantom of the Opera and bring it into LOTRO?
Tahnys: Well, we're very fortunate to have some talented arrangers who have experience arranging music in the LOTRO environment for their own bands or for any of the stuff that they're involved with other than BTC. I'm very proud of the music we put together. Actually, many of the songs that we are performing were custom midis that were commissioned specifically for this production, and we actually adapted them to use in this show, and I really think that it's a main focus that we put on is to make sure that the music tells a lot of the story and brings out the emotions. So we did a very good job. I think the arrangers did an outstanding job of paying very close attention to the detail in the music, and aside from all of the other things, the visual aspects, I think the music alone is one big reason why you would want to come to see this show, hear the music. It's fantastic, and I'm really proud of the music that we're putting out for this show.
Miloa: Now, Quinn, you said that you were involved with the music. How did that go?
Quinn: That was a really awesome experience. We were working collaboratively, and that was something where we could listen to the songs together and look at different parts of the song where we really wanted to bring out different motifs that are related throughout different songs to connect them to each other, where we want to put the focal point on the characters. And by the end of the process, we had a song that I'm really proud of and that I can't wait to get to share with the world.
Miloa: Can you guys share any behind-the-scenes stories of a memorable moment during rehearsals?
Quinn: I got to be a part of a Halloween prank against Tannis and Kay, where during one of the songs, we all were scheming in the background to have some pet toads appear so that when our lovely couple turned around, they had a little bit of a trick to go trick-or-treating with.
Tahnys: Yeah, I was definitely caught by surprise. I was not expecting a chorus of toads on a set of elven stairs for Masquerade, that's for sure.
Khae: I get to do a lot of walking along the tops of walls and catwalks while I'm singing, and it has happened more than once that I have fallen off of the wall while I'm supposed to be walking on it. I really hope that doesn't happen during the show.
Miloa: How do you convey the emotional depth of Phantom of the Opera through using the online characters and text chat, as opposed to compared to, say, traditional stage acting?
Khae: One of the big challenges in creating a script for a musical in Lotro is working within the very limited set of emotes that we have in the game. And we have at times combined emotes or very carefully chosen emotes so that we are attempting to recreate that emotional intensity. The pain that the Phantom feels when he realizes that Christine doesn't love him, or the terror that Christine feels when she's afraid that the Phantom will capture her and never let her go, these are difficult to portray with only a small number of emotes. But I think we've done a fairly good job, and I think that the audience will be swept up in the emotion that we're creating on the stage.
Tahnys: And I would just like to add to that. The cast and crew that we have have done an excellent job of using all the tools that we've prepared in the script to actually try to portray that emotion. It's a combination of a lot of things coming together. It is the emotes, but it's also there's a lot of blocking cues where somebody might turn away from somebody, or turn towards somebody, or move away. So the emotes in combination of the blocking that we have set. Also, the lighting is going to play a big part in the emotion that you see. The set pieces, the characters interact with different set pieces that portray the emotion. And then of course, like I already mentioned, the music really helps drive that emotion and kind of gives you those cues as to what is happening emotionally with the character. So really the combination of all those things that we try to use the best way we can. And when you see it all together, and the cast and crew just do an outstanding job of making all of that happen the way that we kind of envisioned it. And it really is magical when you see that. And even though all of those things separately might not portray the emotion we're looking for, when it's all combined, it really is something to watch. And hopefully we'll be moving for you when you watch.
Miloa: What do you hope the audience will take away from this performance? We really hope that everybody's entertained by this. It is a moving story. The story and the music are fantastic. And we really hope that the way that we perform it reaches out and connects with people emotionally.
Khae: One of the best compliments we've ever received was when someone said they thought they would be bored after five minutes, and that yet their eyes were glued to the screen for the next two hours. We hope that that's what we bring. We want this to be so enticing that you literally can't take your eyes off the screen until it's over.
Tahnys: Something that's new to this production is we've never had a stage crew this large in a show before doing so many things all at once. So we actually have two stage techs, a lighting tech, three special effects crew members, and an 11-piece band, along with myself as the stage manager, doing a lot of things throughout the show and sometimes all at the same time. So it's pretty complex. There are actually 87 individual set and lighting cues, and that's not counting any of the cues that I would be giving to cast members on the stage. So it's the most complex technical show we've ever attempted. In some ways, it's a little bit scary because this is new territory for us, and it's going very well. But I also hope that everybody can appreciate what it brings to the shows where we haven't really had that much detail before. But we're very excited to bring that to you and hope that you enjoy it.
Khae: I'm excited about this show because I helped write and produce the very first Phantom that we did back in 2021. And to see how far we've come, to see how much the entire cast of the Brandywine Theatre Company has put into this show, the work that they've done, the creativity that they've brought, it's extremely gratifying to me. And I feel like the audience is going to have an experience like they've never seen before.
Miloa: Brandywine Theatre Company will be producing Phantom of the Opera November 15th and 16th at 8pm each night. You can go to the description below for more information as well as a guide on how to actually get to the theatre.We hope to see you guys there, and as always, happy hunting!
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