I've seen it in the US, Canada, and England.
I've seen it in Detroit (3 1/2X), Chicago, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Kalamazoo, Cleveland (2X), East Lansing (2X),
Buffalo (2X), Los Angeles (2X), Salt Lake City (4X), Toronto (12X), NYC (4X), and London (19X)
I've seen 22 different actors as the Phantom.
I've seen the K/Y musical twice.
Surely this doesn't say much for my sanity.....
As soon as I got the tapes, I popped them in the player in my moms car. Somehow, one of them hadn't been set to the correct place, and I started listening half way through act one, which was a source of some confusion until I had figured out what had happened. Still, it was too late - it was as if I had been put under some magic spell that compelled me to listen to the recording every free hour of the day. My sister, Sarah, is 2 and 1/2 years younger than myself, and was also bitten by the bug. The first weekend we owned the recording, we were taking a ski trip up north with our neighbors to their cabin. We spent the entire time either sharing a walkman between us (a difficult task - we each got one earpiece) or singing what music we could remember from ski lifts. Frighteningly, the ski lift incident was not an isolated one, and it became a tradition for us to sing the POTO score every time we travelled up the side of a mountain. Keep in mind, my mother and father loved the mountains (they have since moved to Park City, Utah) and so we took ski trips at least once a winter until my last year of high school, when I opted for a trip to NYC. Needless to say, there are a countless number of skiers who have heard POTO as interpreted by my sister and I, as my parents informed us they could hear our voices echoing down the ski slopes.
The ski lift wasn't the only place we sang POTO, and the word at the dinner table became 'can't we get through one meal without singing?' We sang on car trips (even short trips to the mall), and often in our own home. It wasn't uncommon when my parents went out for the evening for us to turn the lights down and the stereo volume up as we would attempt to perform the show in our living room or basement. I was always Christine, Carlotta, and M. Firmin, with my sister as the Phantom, Raoul, Meg, and M. Andre. Other roles were divided as necessary. It wasn't long before we wrote our own Phantom musical, borrowing songs from different versions of the story, sometimes rewriting the lyrics for our own purposes. We did an entire production in our basement with every main character and scene, props, costumes, even a falling chandelier - performed and crewed by the two of us. My parents sometimes asked if we ever wanted another sibling, and we would answer 'we could've used another actor for our shows....'. We did other performances as well - sometimes Phantom themed - sometimes not. I imagine we drove my parents insane. We were even both the Phantom for Halloween one year, and were often stopped by neighbors wanting to tell us the stories of their trips to NYC or Toronto. Our friends found it a bit irritating, as it did interfere with their collecting of candy.
I was fortunate that the year after I became a phan, the touring company happened to be passing through the nearest major city. So, my family got tickets to see the show at the Masonic Temple Theatre in Detroit on December 13th, 1992 - my very first time seeing POTO! I was so excited! By this time, I was obviously far beyond help. My room had already begun it's transformation into a large shrine to Phantom, with t-shirts, newspaper clippings, etc. lining the walls and shelves.. I'd read the Leroux and Kay novels several times - this being back when the Kay novel was brand new, and there were waiting lists at the library. My sister and I shared a hard cover version that we'd bought and took turns reading it repeatedly.
As soon as our tickets arrived in the mail, I began crossing the days off on the calendar religiously. Keep in mind, the tickets arrived in the spring, and the show wasn't until December. Still, every day without fail I'd make a check mark and count how many days left at the end of each month, even sometimes adding the numbers in the corners of my schoolwork. I was also fortunate that fall to see the Music of ALW starring Michael Crawford - from center of the 2nd row! - which was a great help in making the wait to December less tedious.
Finally, the day arrived. We'd gone to my grandparents house for the weekend, and my sister and I were sharing a bunk bed in the spare room. My mother came in that morning and awoke us by saying 'it's Phantom day!' as if it were Christmas. I could barely concentrate that day, despite the fact that I had some school work to do, but somehow I made it through til evening. I still remember the thrill of walking into the auditorium and seeing the fog billowing from the stage, and the set pieces shrouded in gray covers. I don't think any phan can ever forget the feeling of their first show. I saw Kevin Gray, Sarah Pfisterer (then the alternate), and Nat Chandler that evening. I didn't cry at the end of the show - I was far too overwhelmed, and could barely even speak. I was in a sort of daze for some time after that, and also saddened, as I thought I would never be able to see the show again. Thankfully, I turned out to be wrong....