R&I – FS
Paul Stanley has been performing with Kiss for nearly 50 years, but their music will never get old. Stanley and the rest of the band will never tire of singing songs like “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “I Was Made For Lovin’ You.” But rock ‘n’ roll isn’t all Stanley is interested in. He deeply loves Phantom of the Opera, but not because he can relate to covering his face.
“I had this momentary revelation, an epiphany where I went, ‘Wow, I can do that,’” Stanley said. “And it was the same thing I did when I saw the Beatles. I was a fat little kid who couldn’t play an instrument but I looked at them and said, ‘I can do that.’” He had no background in musical theater to actually star in Phantom of the Opera, just like he had no experience performing an instrument in front of a live audience when he was young, after watching The Beatles.
Yet, more than 10 years later, Stanley’s agent called him asking if he’d consider auditioning for the part of the Phantom himself. Stanley agreed to take it on regardless of his background.
Stanley has opened up about his connection to Phantom of the Opera. In 1999, Stanely joined the cast as the Phantom in a Toronto production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. He swapped out his Starchild persona for another masked character from May until August and then from September to October. But Stanley had covered himself up like the Phantom years before he entered Kiss
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