Masquerade

Masquerade turns Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera into an immersive experience that fills not a theater but an entire historic building on West 57th Street. Instead of watching from a seat, you walk through the opera house with the cast: from a parlor to backstage corridors, down to the Phantom's lair and even up onto the roof. Its producers market it as a first: a musical that is immersive from start to finish.

Diane Paulus directs, and she created the piece together with Lloyd Webber. It began performances on July 31, 2025, opened on September 29, 2025, and was first announced for about six weeks. Repeated extensions followed. As of October 2026 the official booking calendar runs to May 30, 2027, and no closing date has been announced.

The plot follows the familiar tale, based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel. Beneath the Paris Opera House lives a masked musician with a disfigured face. He secretly trains a young soprano, Christine Daaé, and becomes obsessed with her, while Raoul, the opera's patron and her childhood friend, falls in love with her too.

Masquerade tells that story in a new way. The evening starts in the middle, with the ball number "Masquerade," which opens the second act in the original. Madame Giry, who serves as the guests' guide through the building, then takes everyone back to the beginning. From there, most of the original first act follows in its usual order.

Much of the story is now seen through the Phantom's eyes. New scenes show him as a child, kept in a cage as a carnival sideshow attraction, until Madame Giry rescues him and brings him to the opera house, where he receives his mask. For the first time in the stage musical he is called by his name, Erik. Several changes make him more sympathetic, and he and Christine share more intimate moments, including a dream sequence after "The Music of the Night." The chandelier crash is moved to follow "Point of No Return," as in the 2004 film.

The score is Lloyd Webber's, with lyrics by Charles Hart and additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, and the book by Stilgoe and Lloyd Webber is largely kept. Lloyd Webber wrote new orchestrations and interludes for this version, plus a new song, "Come and Marvel at the Freak," for the carnival scene. "Learn to Be Lonely," first written for the 2004 film, is sung by Madame Giry to the young Erik.

To keep the focus on the Phantom and Christine, many numbers are shortened or dropped, including most of the backstage opera material and much of the comedy. Songs you will hear include "The Phantom of the Opera," "The Music of the Night," "All I Ask of You," "Wandering Child" and "Point of No Return." The music plays through the sound system in each room. The only live instrument is a violin, heard in the opening parlor scene.

The building runs six staggered performances a night, called "pulses." Groups of about 60 guests enter 15 minutes apart, so roughly 360 people see the show each evening. Every pulse is played by a different Phantom and Christine, and the pair you see depends on your entry time. Many guests come back to see other casts.

The route is guided, not free-roaming: staff and actors lead each group, sometimes split it for a scene and bring it back together. You stand for most of the evening, with seats or stools in a few scenes. Performers may take a guest by the hand, ask someone to dance or hand over a letter to read. Guests get roses to throw to Christine and candles for the lair. Classic images return in new form: the gondola gliding through smoke, the monkey music box, the graveyard and a chandelier with more than 30,000 crystals. The Phantom's lair is full of giant music boxes and life-size automata.

As of October 2026, the company has 60 performers. The Phantoms are Nick Cartell, Quentin Earl Darrington, Derrick Davis, Nicholas Edwards, Ryan Vona and Kyle Scatliffe, who has played the role since opening. The Christines are Claire Leyden, Haile Ferrier, Francesca Mehrotra, Riley Noland, Addie Morales and Kaley Ann Voorhees, and Raouls include Travis Keith Battle and Dan Hoy.

The Phantom of the Opera opened in London in 1986 and on Broadway in 1988, where it became the longest-running show in Broadway history before closing on April 16, 2023. Lloyd Webber first spoke about this new production in 2024. Before the announcement, a teaser campaign included a scavenger hunt and red letters from the "Opera Ghost," and a masked Phantom appeared at the 2025 Tony Awards. When tickets went on sale, the first six weeks sold out in three hours.

The setting is itself a landmark. The American Society of Civil Engineers put up the four-story building in 1897 as its home. It later housed a Schrafft's restaurant and, from 1975 to 2016, Lee's Art Shop, whose painted sign is still on the east wall. It became a city landmark in 2008.