If you want specific names from specific productions, have a look at the credits in either programme/Playbill or the souvenir brochure. Or here, for Tomas Ambt Kofod and John Martin Bengtsson in Copenhagen, done by Thomas Foldberg at TFMUFX (who also did the masks): With a cast in place, the mask (and if needed, the deformity) can be custom made to that specific actor, like here for Mathias Edenborn in Hamburg: Here done by Chris Tucker, UK legend:Īnd here by Bob McCarron, special effects makeup who’s done a lot of the deformities for the World Tour: Their heads are literally covered in plaster, which has to dry as they sit there with only a small hole for the nostrils. The deformity and then the mask are made based on a mould of the actor’s face. The local specialists often do special makeup for movies and TV, and you can usually find them credited at the back of the programmes/Playbills and souvenir brochures. Internationally, productions has collaborated with either “the motherships” in West End or on Broadway, or went for local specialists. In West End they’ve kept custom making individual masks for their Phantom, which accounts for a bit more variety, while Broadway has choosen 3-4 main models, where the actor wears the one that fits the best. But overall they stay the same from Phantom to Phantom. They’ve slowly been updated to feature new details - for example a more “angry” eyebrown, or different shading, or a less curved forehead.

The West End and Broadway productions has had its own, permanent mask makers.

When the designer herself was around, she probably also had the liberty to veto or advice. I guess a mixture of what the head of makeup and/or costume wants, what the supervisor approves, and how much liberty the mask maker is given. (from left: Ethan Freeman in Essen, Michael Crawford in West End and Yuichiro Yamaguchi (?) in Tokyo) But as you point out, there’s been a great variety through the decades and from production to production. I mean, the main design is as always by Maria Bjørnson.

Phantom of the opera mask image