The past few years has seen the demise of several productions of Phantom. The Australia, Raoul Tour, San Francisco, and now the Toronto companies have all been closed in the past two years.

Why are these companies closing? Could it be that Phantom's reign as the biggest musical is coming to an end? The United States is now being served by a single touring company. In a time when there is an ever-expanding list of cities capable to host the production, it only makes sense to have more tours than before. But that is not the case, what cities two tours once served, there is now only one tour. Add to that list the cities that are now able to have the show (Buffalo, NY renovated all of its Shea's theatre in hopes of being able to have Phantom), and what do you get? A longer wait to see the show in Wisconsin.

Now Toronto has closed. Phantom of the Opera is the longest running musical in all of Canada and was still drawing in crowds - unfortunately, not enough crowds to make the "Powers That Be" happy. The people who live in the area surrounding Toronto have either had their fill of the show or never saw it because "it will always be there."

Her Majesty's Theatre in London still packs the house every night. Why? What does London know that Toronto didn't? Yes, the theatre is smaller in London. And yes, London is the site of the original show. Why is London still going strong when cities like San Francisco (which had a resident company for years) are closing up?

It should be noted that for the three productions which have closed, two have opened up in Antwerp and Mexico. Both of these productions are in languages that Phantom had not previously reached (Flemish and Spanish). New languages help bring the show to people who could not understand it in other languages.

But as for the shows closing, maybe the theatre world is moving on to new shows. The normal theatre-goer who sees a show once or twice then moves on has finished with Phantom. Those are the people that help fill the seats. Sad as it is to say, there are not enough "phans" in the world to keep the show turning a large enough profit. Whatever happens to the current companies, one thing is certain. We will always have our memories of standing by a stage door in the middle of a blizzard, watching the chandelier catch on fire, or even the time our favourite actor winked at us.

At least we think it was at us.