We thank Campaign member Diana Mae Ebersbacher for sharing the following with us.....

A New Twist on ALW

I was reading through the book "Riverdance - The Story," and found an interesting sentence in it about Andrew Lloyd Webber. This might add some insight as to why he doesn't seem to care about Michael Crawford being in his Phantom movie. In this passage, they were talking about the difficulties the producers were having with Michael Flatley because he wanted to have control over the show, and they were upset about this turn of events. We'll take up the story at that point: "John McColgan, who had always championed Michael Flatley's enormous talent, felt deeply disappointed. Bill Whelan admired his talent, but had had serious professional difficulties with him for months before." Indeed earlier that summer he had received an intriguing letter from fellow composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, telling him that the "show was the star rather than any individual performer." Given that statement from Andrew Lloyd Webber, is it any wonder that he doesn't have any loyalty to the man who breathed the life into his Phantom and made us all so loyal to Michael Crawford and the character he made us love?

Oh, and one more little quote from the "Riverdance" book you might find of interest: "The audience groaned in disappointment when it was announced that Jean Butler could not perform because of injury; no mention was made of Flatley's non-appearance. 'If you do Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford and you run it without him, you don't advertise it as Phantom of the Opera NOT starring Michael Crawford,' Julian Erskine told reporters."

Interesting... Diana