You might think the story of a disfigured musical genius living in the sewers beneath the Paris Opera House might be a hard sell for contemporary audiences. You’d be wrong.
Andrew Lloyd Weber’s renowned musical The Phantom of the Opera is a bonafide smash. Its 1988 production holds the record longest-running Broadway show, having been performed more than 13,000 times at New York’s Majestic Theater. Thirty-one years later, audiences’ embrace of Phantom shows no signs of flagging.
Now it’s easier than ever for theatergoers to land tickets to the show, with The Phantom of the Opera Broadway Skill available on Alexa-powered devices.
The skill provides users with the simplest way to search for and purchase tickets to Phantom using only their voice, while also offering helpful information about the production (including theater address, start time, etc.). To get started, all you have to do is say
“Alexa, open The Phantom of the Opera Broadway”
Integrated with Telecharge and Amazon Pay, the skill also allows purchasers to save time by using the payment information already stored in their Amazon accounts. There’s no setup required, and you don’t even need to enter your credit card information.
And for Phantom’s biggest phans, the Alexa skill also features the ability to learn fun facts, and even play a trivia game, about the Broadway production.
Developed by Broadw.ai, the Alexa skill is designed to let users feel like they’re speaking to someone at the box office. “Imagine someone is watching TV and The Phantom of the Opera commercial comes on,” Broadw.ai CEO Micah Hollingworth said. “A message says, ‘If you’re interested in tickets for this special offer, ask Alexa.’ You could talk to your Alexa-powered device, complete the purchase, and ask any remaining questions without ever opening a web browser.”
While the Phantom himself might prefer “The Music of the Night,” for the rest of us theatergoers, this kind of simplicity is music to our ears.