There's a changing of the guard this week in the dark, musty lower depths of the Paris Opera House. Ted Keegan, who's been playing the title role in the national touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera," now at the Capitol Theatre, is leaving Salt Lake City to return to the Broadway cast. He'll be replaced, starting with the Wednesday night performance, by Brad Little, who's been touring with the company for the past two and one-half years.
Little, who was playing the role of Raoul in the Broadway production at the time he was promoted to Phantom in the touring company, was nearing the end of a three-month vacation and busy packing for a benefit concert in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he was interviewed by phone from his apartment in New York City.(Two years ago, playing the Phantom in Cincinnati, he befriended an ailing cheetah named Maya at the city's zoo. He has since become involved in efforts to preserve the African cheetah, which was the reason for the benefit concert.)
Little notes that he can identify and sympathize with the feared Phantom's intense, internal anguish. The singer/performer has dyslexia, a medical glitch that he struggled with while growing up in Redlands, Calif.
"I like to visit with school children when I'm on the road, doing seminars with teachers and helping dyslexic children cope with self-esteem," he said. "It's amazing the number of friends I've made -- from elementary to high school kids. I really try to help them just as much as I possibly can, just getting through life.
"One of the stories I tell the kids is about how I coped in class; like when the teacher would go up and down the rows and each pupil would take turns reading one paragraph out of a storybook. I would count the paragraphs and then I'd count the number of kids that would get to me, and then I'd memorize that one paragraph. I learned a lot of memorizing skills that way.
"But, of course, the teacher would always stop and tell the girl sitting in front of me 'Go ahead and read the next paragraph' -- and then I'd have to memorize the next paragraph even quicker! By then, I'd have no idea of what the story was even about, but I sure had my paragraph memorized," he said.
The skills he picked up learning how to memorize have suited him well in his theater career.
"Now, the most nightmarish time for me is the very first day of rehearsal, because they usually do what is called a 'table reading.' Everybody sits around a big table and we read through the entire show.
"As far as auditions go, though, I always tell them I'm dyslexic and ask if it's OK if I take some time to study the lines. That's generally just a page or two," he said. "Once my lines are memorized, I'm just fine. It's simply an eye-to-brain miscommunication. My brain is perfectly normal and my eyes are perfectly normal, it's just whatever transfers the picture to the brain seems to be distorted a bit."
Both Keegan and Little have performed the roles of Phantom in both of the major musical versions of the legendary story -- Andrew Lloyd Webber's global hit and Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit's "Phantom," which has been performed locally by Rodgers Memorial Theatre and Salt Lake Community College's Grand Theatre. The latter has been popular with regional and dinner theaters across the country.
"The only similarity (in the two shows) is that you're dealing with one man's struggle with love and passion, knowing that he is being shunned because of his physical disability, but the music is not even close to the same and the whole process of the Phantom earning Christine Daae's love is different.
"But the Phantom's inner struggle is the same, especially at the end. That's when I feel the inner pain I went through as a child and it tears me apart. I may sound absolutely nuts, but I'm up there on stage feeling sorry for the Phantom, thinking 'I know what this is like. I know the pain you're going through.' It doesn't happen every night, but there are times when it just lands that way. It's devastating, absolutely devastating. I'll come off the stage in tears and nobody will come up to me and I end up being very isolated, just like the character in the show."
Little is just completing three months of vacation. He requested the time off "so I could get to know my wife again." While he was on the road with "Phantom of the Opera," his wife, Barbara McCulloh, was performing in "The King and I" and she's currently playing Mrs. Darling in the Broadway company of "Peter Pan."
While the Phantom turns Christine into his "angel of music," Little says his wife is his "angel of books." She helps him learn his roles.
Little's trip to Salt Lake City is not his first. When he was a student at Redlands High School (he wouldn't divulge how many years ago), his school choir came to Utah as part of a concert swing through Colorado and Arizona.
At one time, Little considered attending Brigham Young University.
"My girlfriend at the time was going there," he said. He was aware that BYU had an excellent theater department, but he ended up going elsewhere.
Little said he probably began his stage career "well beyond my memory."
His father was professor of theater at the University of Redlands and put him on stage when he was an infant.
One of his father's former students, Jerry A. Wolf, is now wardrobe supervisor for the "Phantom of the Opera" touring company.
"He knows me as the son of Paul and Joann Little," he said.
-- DEBUT CD: Little recently released a new CD, "Brad Little Unmasked," showcasing a medley of Broadway and off Broadway hits. For information regarding the recording, call 1-888-320-9123 or check out his Web site at www.bradlittle.com.