Anita Creamer: No masking her love for all things 'Phantom'

Tedi Graves is so taken with "The Phantom of the Opera" that she's already seen the musical 20 times. She's seeing it again next week – of course! – when the touring company returns to the Community Center Theater with the Broadway Sacramento series.

In 2002, she says, the show transformed her life.

"I'd built up a protective wall around my heart," says Graves, 66, a retired bookkeeper who lives in Carmichael and was divorced almost 20 years ago.

"I was really closed off to relationships with men. I was really bitter. But when I saw 'Phantom' in 2002, the power of the music melted my heart. That wall was gone. I could feel again. It was painful to feel, but it was good."

An Oprah moment, if you will.

Under her maiden name, Theodora Bruns, she's written a series of novels to fill in the Phantom's back story – his mistreated early years, for example, and other events that helped create the man behind the mask, whom she believes was a real person.

The first book, "Through Phantom Eyes: A Child's Guidance," was published last year. (See www.throughphantomeyes. com for more information.)

"I was moved to give him a happily-ever-after story," she says.

Let's consider the fine line separating passion from obsession.

An earlier performance of "Phantom" in San Francisco in the 1990s failed to move Graves quite so intensely. But the 2002 touring company – featuring Brad Little as Erik, the brilliant, furious Phantom – made such an impression that Graves saw the show another six times before its Sacramento run ended.

"He reeked so much energy and passion that it melted my heart," she says. "There was something so powerful. It was like a volcano erupting. Everything just hit at the same time.

"Quit shaking your head."

She's talking to Tara Graves, 32, one of her five daughters, who's sitting next to her on her living-room couch. Cats are draped here and there in the room. A baby grand piano is in the far corner.

Tara, who's in charge of marketing her mother's books, simply rolls her eyes. Two of her sisters – Kelli Graves and Debbi Preston – are their mother's fellow "Phantom" fans.

"And in 2003," says Tedi, "the same show came to San Francisco, and we saw it eight times there. And a couple of months later, Brad was in L.A. with it, and we saw it three times there.

"My kids teased me as we were following him up and down California that he'd get a restraining order. I just couldn't get enough of him and 'Phantom.' It was filling me up so much."

Uh-huh. For the record, I saw "Phantom" once, years ago, and that was enough to last a lifetime. But to each her own.

When the movie version came out in 2004, Graves and her daughters spent the entire day at the theater, watching it over and over again, a fact that makes them perhaps the world's only known fans of the film. They purchased the DVD the day it was released.

"Oh, yeah," Tara says wearily.

Her mother shoots her a look.

"I'm sorry," Tara says. "I have a little bit of …"

"An issue?" Tedi says.

"No," says Tara. "I love the fact that my mother's happy. It's just that I'm not into 'Phantom,' and it's around constantly."

Personally, she prefers country music to Broadway musicals. And you just know she's had it up to here with Brad Little and Erik, the Phantom.

I mean, imagine.

But she says she enjoys her mother's first book, and not just because she's in charge of marketing it to a public that's not quite as enthralled with "Phantom" as her mom.

"I made myself read it," Tara says.

"By that time, she was so fed up with 'Phantom,' " Tedi says.

"But Mom, it's a wonderful book," Tara says. "Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down."

Maybe "Phantom" has changed another reluctant life after all.

"For her to say that, it really touches me," says her mother.

About the writer:

• Anita Creamer's column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays in Scene. Call her, (916) 321-1136. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/creamer.