SCREAMING.

All final Broadway Phantoms, the kiss.

The Golden Girls – 5.26: The Presidents Coming! The Presidents Coming!

From “Cinéastes de notre temps” Robert Bresson, 1965.

A Sentimental Soapbox Essay on Fandoms and Archives and Why Your Hyperfixation Matters

Offline, I'm a grad student/historian in training who studies a community that is systemically under-archived. A significant part of my day job involves helping that community craft the archive from what's "left" while coming to terms with what they've already lost. In the meantime, I'm also navigating how to write the dissertation I want to write without the sources I want/need.

Aside from providing the fodder for my gothic romance hyperfixation, fandoms are a breath of fresh air because they remind me that it only takes a few passionate people to build an archive and, eventually, a preservation ecosystem. It all starts with someone who records things, collects stuff, and accumulates niche knowledge--and then shares it with others--just for the joy of it.

Two episodes of a (now obscure) Jane Eyre BBC adaptation have been missing for years, and today an anonymous superfan/de facto JE adaptation archivist who never gave up announced that they've been found after all this time. Masters take the time to make elitist or ephemeral artforms like musicals more accessible for present and future generations' enjoyment and now several Phantoms who performed the role before I was even born are among my favorites. Stuff like this warms my heart as a fan, historian, and a human.

Don't take for granted that some institution is studying and stewarding that "thing" you care about. Universities, museums, and the internet are flawed systems and, yes, instruments of power and capitalism. They also just can't (and shouldn't) do it all. Preservation runs on informal archivists and spaceholders like @glassprism and @wheel-of-fish and @behindthemirrorofmusic and trading economies (in the case of POTO) and so many other people/spaces. It thrives on us investing in the things that bring us joy. And that investment doesn't have to be financial; it often just looks like collaborating with others for free and finding time to channel our intellects and energies toward what we love.

The things that matter to you...matter lol. Don't let *gestures wildly* all the stuff going in the world convince you otherwise. Now or somewhere down the road someone's going to be glad you cared this much.

If this is the level of character analysis Jordan Donica put into his performance as freaking LANCELOT DU LAC then I CAN ONLY IMAGINE WTF HE WOULD COME UP WITH FOR THE TITLE CHARACTER IN PHANTOM OF THE OPERA AND IF THERE IS A GOD PLEASE ANSWER MY PRAYER AND MAKE THIS CASTING HAPPEN I AM BEGGING YOU.

I'm banging my head on the walls of my enclosure don't text DON'T CALL!!!!!!!!

Earl Carpenter

Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you

@whynotraisealittlehell

This is ungodly 😭🤪🤤

john cudia supremacy🗣️‼️

obligatory gifs pulled from the dregs of my hard drive!!

Also here he is making out with Marie Danvers:

And shoving the phantom:

It’s Monday and I’m still thinking about that Cudia boot.

What I love about theatre is that no matter how many times you’ve seen a show or even a particular actor’s performances, there’s always room for surprise. I always liked John Cudia, but that boot was distinct from all his other performances. He just walked into work that day and said “I feel like being more feral than usual.”

Again: Marie Danvers stood on business when it came to laying smooches on her costars. And her roster was impeccable.

-Gregory Orr, “When Eurydice saw him” from Orpheus & Eurydice