Watch Clip of Norm Lewis as Broadway’s 1st-ever African-American ‘Phantom of the Opera’Posted by Wilson Morales
August 20, 2014
Source: EW
EW has posted an exclusive clip of Norm Lewis as Broadway’s first-ever African-American ‘Phantom of the Opera.’
Although Robert Guillaume became the first-ever actor to do it regionally in 1990, Lewis is the first to do so on the Great White Way.
Best known to a mass audience for his role as Scandal‘s Senator Edison Davis, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington)’s ex, Lewis is a stage veteran, having played Audra McDonald’s crook-walked would-be suitor in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. He also played John in Broadway’s Miss Saigon, Javert in Les Miserables on Broadway in 2006, and was in the shows Side Show, The Little Mermaid, Chicago, and Sondheim on Sondheim.
Lewis will join a list of Phantoms since the show opened in 1988 that includes: Michael Crawford, Steve Barton, John Cudia, Kevin Gray, Mark Jacoby, Marcus Lovett, Brad Little, Howard McGillin, and Hugh Panaro.
Based on a novel by Gaston Leroux, Phantom tells the story of a deformed composer who haunts the Paris Opera House and falls madly in love with an innocent young soprano, Christine Daae (played by Sierra Boggess). Andrew Lloyd Webber’s songs include “Masquerade,” “Angel of Music,” “All I Ask of You,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” and “The Music of the Night.”
In the clip below, Boggess’s Christine falls under the spell of Lewis’s masked man to the signature solo “The Music of the Night” and slowly, gently, “Night” unfurls its splendor. (That falsetto, who knew?) Lewis’s inimitable vocal prowess on this Andrew Lloyd Webber tune is one of several reasons that Phantom remains a $6 billion enterprise that has run for over 26 years.
The Phantom of the Opera is currently running at the Majestic Theatre in New York. For tickets and additional information, visit the show’s official website.
