

Years later, my interest would never wane. It was in that moment that I became obsessed with it (the chandelier), and remain so to this day. In what is now musical theater legend, a grand and ominous chandelier rose from the floor of the theater stage to the top of the ceiling. When I finally sat down in those balcony seats with my grandmother, little would I have guessed what would happen next. The music had cast a spell over me long before I had ever seen the show. The lobby was crowded with people all dressed up to see the most spectacular show in town. I remember being dropped off by my father at Roosevelt’s Auditorium Theater, in the South Loop of downtown Chicago. My grandmother took me to see Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece, The Phantom of the Opera.

My very first experience with musical theater happened in1990.
