Masquerade, Phantom in town

Everyone has a different way of describing theatre, a spectacle, explosive and loud. Mariam Ndagire says her first time watching a play in theatre, she thought she was watching a movie, until she came out and noticed the people she had seen were now interacting with other show goers.

Yet, this kind of theatre, even when it is desirable, is very costly. “Theatre is known for the spectacle, but it is also very expensive to make and that’s why people have resorted to simplifying it with a minimalistic approach. What we are doing is offering the public that spectacle that made them fall in love with theatre in the first place,” says Karen Hasahya.

Hasahya is a co-founder of Timeless Arts, a production house that in the past has been responsible for theatre shows such as Merchant of Venice and My Fair Lady that were both staged at the Kampala Serena and the National Theatre in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

This year, Timeless Art will be bringing to Uganda and Africa, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, The Phantom of The Opera, for the first time. For her company Timeless Arts, this is the first time they will be staging a musical.

The Phantom of the Opera is the longest running show in Broadway history and celebrated 10,000 performances in February 2012, the first show to get to that milestone. It has a worldwide estimated gross of $6billion.

The Phantom of the Opera tells the tragic story of a beautiful soprano, Christine Daaé, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, masked musical genius living in the subterranean labyrinth beneath the Paris Opéra House.

The phenomenon

Over the years, The Phantom of the Opera has been staged in different countries such as US, UK, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and China among others. Generally, The Phantom of the Opera has been seen by over 140 million people in 183 cities across 41 countries.

Today, Uganda will become the 42nd country.

Hasahya says that initially, they thought they would stage Phantom of the Opera like in 2026; “we thought we wouldn’t be ready to put on such a show because it is really grand though we still applied for the licence for it and we somehow got it.”

Before Timeless Art produced Merchant of Venice, they were an events company producing concerts and award shows. That’s when they stumbled upon an opportunity to produce theatre through Justice Michael Chibita. Merchant of Venice was mainly staged as a project intended to shed light on mental health.

The story is that Joseph Atukunda, in the mid ‘80s at Buddo, embodied the role of Shylock and nailed it. After the performance, he started battling mental health issues but despite how traumatising this was, he never forgot the text from his Merchant of Venice script.Atukunda’s greatest desire was to always act as Shylock one more time. Through Justice Chibita, his dream was realised.

The plays

With My Fair Lady, they highlighted the girl child benchmarking Doolittle’s story, a girl who rose from the ashes. For The Phantom of the Opera, Timeless Art will be using theatre to serve the purpose of supporting Special Olympics Uganda.

Special Olympics is a global organisation that serves athletes with intellectual disabilities working with hundreds of thousands of volunteers and coaches each year.

They participate in games at the international level and have won medals though have not been celebrated the same way other athletes have been. To make matters worse, they are poorly funded.

Hasahya says, the reason for their premiere show at the Kampala Serena Hotel is to both raise awareness about Special Olympics Uganda and also raise funds.

She says the Special Olympics cause easily aligns with The Phantom of the Opera because just like the special olympians, the phantom is a deformed genius who was looking for love.

“Most people go into a dark place because they feel rejected,” she says.

This year, Timeless Arts, alongside their executive producers such as Kabito Karamaji, Nkizi Kaggwa and Moses Mwanje, among others, have teamed up with beer brand Guinness to create May’s experiential Bright House focused on theatre.

This means that through the shows at Serena Hotel and the National Theatre, Guinness will be a partner but like the other Bright Houses will give theatre goers a remarkable experience.

“Our goal for the Bright House has always been to create a platform that caters to all forms of creative expression so as to create a space for creatives to collaborate, interact and flourish and theatre is taking us a step further into realising that goal,” says Roy Tumwizere, Guinness, brand ambassador.

Bright house has in the past curated events of fashion, music, art and sports.

The directors

The Phantom of the Opera is directed by Pamela Keryeko, an actress, director and producer; she has previously directed and acted in Prestige, Popi, Damalie, as well as stage productions such as Black, Romeo and Juliet in Kampala, Better Than Yellow and Just Me You and the Silence among others.

For The Phantom of the Opera, Hasahya says that Keryeko contacted him asking to be part of the project as a director.

“I have been a fan of The Phantom of the Opera since I was a child and for me, being part of it is an honour,” Keryeko says.

This is however not the first time she is working with Timeless Arts, she was part of Merchant of Venice as an actress and has previously worked with Hasahya, directing her residence project with Tebere Arts Foundation.On the production, Keryeko is working with many people who have not been on stage before, she says with theatre, at times it is easier working with a receptive actor who is willing to learn, which makes first time actors amazing to deal with.

“However, for TV, where the deadlines and deliverables are tight, one is better off with experienced actors,” she says.