Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) took roughly four hours per performance to put the prosthetics on in the original London productions. On Broadway, it was cut to roughly three, and over the years has been reduced to 45 minutes. More than one Phantom has described make-up disasters onstage. Michael Crawford recounts a story where he pulled away from the kiss at the end only to see that "[his] lower lip was now hanging off Sarah [Brightman]'s face!". To cover the flub, he pulled her back for another kiss and "took back the lips" and kept that side of his head turned away from the audience.
The Bat (play) and hole-proof". With a multi-year Broadway run, over nine months on the West End and several road companies touring concurrently, "The Bat" was a financial success. In his 1946 profile of Rinehart, "Life" magazine writer Geoffrey T. Hellman estimated that the play had earned over nine million dollars. It was the most successful play for both its writers and its producers, and was the second-longest-running Broadway production in history at the end of its initial stint. The original Broadway production of "The Bat" received positive reviews praising its writing and performances. In his "New York Times" review, Alexander Woollcott described