When Kopit saw the Lloyd Webber version of "The Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway, he realized that the approach he and Yeston had taken was fundamentally different and that it could still work on the musical stage. A few years later, Kopit wrote the NBC miniseries "Hands of a Stranger", which was successful enough that NBC approached Kopit again. Kopit rewrote the script outline of his unproduced musical "Phantom" into a teleplay for a four-hour two-part miniseries entitled "The Phantom of the Opera" and sold it to NBC, with Yeston's blessing. It was filmed at the "Opera Garnier", and the only music used was opera music. It starred Charles Dance, Teri Polo and Burt Lancaster and premiered on television in 1990. Kopit said, "I told Maury to hold on. Maybe someone would see the miniseries, think it would make a good musical we'd be ready." The Yeston/Kopit musical was finally produced by Theater Under the Stars in 1991 under the official title "Phantom". The piece has since received over 1,000 productions around the world. Yeston refers to "Phantom" as "the greatest hit never to be produced on Broadway." Yeston and Kopit's "Phantom" is more operetta-like in style than Lloyd Webber's, seeking to reflect the 1890s period, and seeks to project a French atmosphere to reflect its Parisian setting. Its story hews more closely to the Leroux novel and offers a deeper exploration of the phantom's past and his relationship with Gérard Carrière, the head of the Opera House. The character Raoul does not feature at all in the story. In January 1991, Houston Texas's Theater Under the Stars presented the premiere of the Yeston/Kopit musical, renamed simply "Phantom" to separate it further from Lloyd Webber's and other productions of "Phantom of the Opera". Richard White starred in the title role. Members of the Houston cast recorded a cast album released by RCA records. That summer of 1991, Yeston and Kopit made a few cuts and changes to the musical. In the fall, the revised version was presented in Seattle and at the California Theatre of Performing Arts in San Bernardino California and was received warmly. In Chicago, Bill Pullinsi, Artistic Director of the Candlelight Playhouse staged the production, receiving rave reviews in publications including "Variety" and the "Wall Street Journal".