Voorhees native rides 'Phantom' on a cross-country tour

IT WASN'T that long ago that

Julia Udine

was performing in shows produced by the likes of Haddonfield Plays & Players and Voorhees Theatre Company.

But those South Jersey community-theater days are well behind her.

Tuesday at the Academy of Music, the 20-year-old singing actress opens a 30-performance run (concluding April 12) in the lead female role of Christine Daae in Andrew Lloyd Webber's revered "sung-through" musical, "The Phantom of the Opera."

Getting the role of the young woman who becomes the romantic obsession of a facially disfigured man living in the warrens beneath the Paris Opera House was, to say the least, something of a surprise for the Voorhees native.

"I actually was driving down the Shore with my mom, and I got a call from my agent," recalled the Eastern High School grad during a recent phone call.

"She said, 'Are you driving?'

"I said, 'No, my mom's driving.'

"She said, 'OK, you might want to hold onto the steering wheel tight.'

"And she told me and we both kind of screamed.

"I think I was in shock about it up until my opening night [last November] in Providence [R.I.]. That's when it seemed real to me."

It wasn't just landing such a plum role - arguably the most famous and iconic female musical-theater character of the past 25 years - that threw Udine (pronounced you-DEEN) for such a loop. It was also the scope of the gig.

"Every time I've been in a show, it's been two weekends or a month at the most," she offered. "We started rehearsing in September and it's going all the way through November. That's the longest I've ever been in something."

Logically, playing such a familiar character should be fairly simple for Udine. But imitation was not part of the job description. Instead, she explained, she was offered the opportunity to look at Christine from a different perspective.

"This production is new," she said. "We have a completely new creative team, new staging, new choreography, and we've really gotten a chance to re-imagine these characters [and to] dive into their psyches and see why they make the decisions they make. We see them in their most vulnerable moments.

"For me, it wasn't really about imitating any past Christine's performance. It's more about taking the . . . score and the script and examining it for the first time and seeing who Christine is to me."

She added that despite the updating, the show's most famous visual remains intact.

"The chandelier remains," she said. "It shoots things out. It does really amazing tricks. I don't think anyone will be less than satisfied."

Udine noted that part of the cast's game plan was to analyze and digest the various characters' motivations.

"All throughout the rehearsal process, we discovered why the Phantom loves Christine, why Christine is torn between the Phantom and Raoul, and how Christine is grieving the loss of her father, and what she sees in both of them and what it is about her that drives her through the show, which is that she is yearning for love.

"Which is why I think the show is so successful. People really relate to that. And they relate to the Phantom, who feels that he doesn't deserve love, or is unlovable. I think everyone in their own way can kind of relate to that.

"We were able to discover that during rehearsal without having to come to a past production or past director's vision. It's our new, fresh take on it."

That accounts for the psychological aspect of the show. There is also a physical element that Udine has had to consider.

"It's a very physical show," she said. "It's an opera and we're singing the entire show. I have one break during [the song] 'Primadonna.' But the rest of the show, I'm onstage and singing.

"It's physical not only vocally. We're dancing the whole show. It's very hard on our bodies. You have to lead a healthy lifestyle - eat healthy, work out, those kinds of things."

Not that she's complaining about the choreography. "What I love about it is that I grew up dancing, and Christine is a ballerina. It brings all my training together and I get to do pointe in the first number, which is really awesome, because a lot of roles don't have that."

What's even more awesome for Udine is the opportunity to play to the hometown crowd.

"I know I haven't been to all [the stops on the tour], but I keep saying to people I'm most excited about playing in my hometown. I think it'll be the most supportive audience because it's all people I know and it's people who've been supportive my whole life.

"I'm really, really excited."