Josh Piterman has new music with his ‘Loving You’ E.P. now released and Australia will get to see Josh as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera when the new production comes for Sydney and then Melbourne from August.
Josh as the Phantom is a big deal for Australian theatre goers as it will give us a taste of the London production pre-Covid. Prior to Covid and the lockdowns, Josh Piterman was starring as the Phantom in the London production.
The London Theatre is still the same theatre the Michael Crawford production was in.
“I just popped past the theatre the other day, with the production at the Sydney Opera House beckoning,” Josh tells Noise11.com. “I just stood there and looked at it, recalling all sorts of on-stage, off-stage memories and conversations with people. The thing about that production is that it had people in it, both onstage and off stage, who had been there since the 1990s. People who have done the show literally tens of thousands of times. You are walking into a Guinness Book of Records version of Phantom of the Opera. It felt fresh every night. It felt so ground and so stooped in very special music theatre history”.
Josh recalls the spectre of Crawford is still strong in the room. “The dressing room I was in was not only the dressing room Michael Crawford spent all those years in. There are three portrait paintings of him that look at you while you are waiting to go on, like the spirit of Michael lives on,” he says.
At one time, Josh’s dressing room was also the home of another famous English actor. “It was also Lawrence Olivier’s apartment for a period of time. You are touching the carpet “give me a bit of Olivier”, touching the paint “give me a bit of Crawford” before you go on. It is so etched in great history. I always felt that and felt like I was surrounded in something very special. To go out there and play Phantom? I want to the cheesy thing about being on that stage and being at that place but once I was in there it could have been anywhere. It was such a transcending experience. Once you are on that stage and in that mask and in that world it is a very transcending experience. I got every lost in the character. I had to check out to remember where I am. It is the character that for me has felt most like home over my career. It closed. My journey in London finished early because of Covid so I didn’t balk at the chance to play it at the Opera House for a while and back home in Melbourne. It is the biggest gift ever.
Last week Josh released the four track E.P. ‘Loving You’.
The E.P. features ‘Caruso’ written for Lucio Dalla, Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’, Ennio Morricone’s ‘Cinema Paradiso’ and ‘I Want To Spend My Lifetime Loving You from ‘The Mask of Zorro’.
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