Video: Meet the Mastermind Behind MASQUERADE, Diane Paulus
Paulus is the director of Masquerade, the immersive off Broadway take on The Phantom of the Opera.
Totally reinventing one of the most beloved musicals of all time is no small feat and Diane Paulus is very aware. As the architect of the most inventive, immersive musical of the season, she knows that spectacular results only come after months, and in this case, years of preparation.
From the revels of the masked ball, into dressing rooms a breath away from the cast, and even down through mirrors into the deepest corners of the Phantom’s lair, Masquerade invites you to experience the iconic story and score, even stranger (and more phantastically) than you’ve dreamt it.
The show features staggered audience arrival times, giving each group of guests a unique Marquerade experience.
"After two years of experiments, I kid you not... we landed on this version, which is 60 people moving through the whole show, then 15 minutes later, another 60 go in, then another 60," Paulus to BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge. "The art of it is that no one knows that six shows are going on [at the same time]. So when you're there, you think this whole thing is for you! You have no idea that on your tail is another group coming."
Precision makes the process work. "Everything is on a timecode, so when a show starts, we call in 'blast off'," she continued. "One button is pressed and the whole score is played over six floors. It's all remote control microphones, original arrangements, and everything moves like clockwork because it's all timed."
Watch in this video as she explains more about how she conceptualized the experience and learn more about the immersive nature of the show with Hugh Panaro and Francesca Mehrotra.
