All tagged Andrew Lloyd Webber
Reviews for the film adaptation of the long-running West End and Broadway musical Cats have been brutal, even blistering. From the creepiness of the CGI effects to the ridiculously choppy editing and camera work that detracted from the choreography, Cats on the big screen has proven to be... well... a “cat” astrophe, bringing-in well under its projected box office receipts during its premiere weekend. Sure, the film was up against one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated films The Rise of Skywalker, but Cats failed on its own terms, and the force just wasn’t with it. That is not to say that there aren’t some things it got right. A few of them splendidly so.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black created a heartfelt, funny, touching and palpably heartbreaking musical when they wrote Tell Me On A Sunday. Written as a one-woman show for British actress-singer Marti Webb, Tell Me On A Sunday was presented at the Sydmonton Festival in 1979. Telling the story of an English woman who has just moved to the United States, the musical follows her as she navigates her new home (first NYC, then Los Angeles) and explores the possibilities of love and career, writing letters to her mother back in England detailing her experiences. This is the basic premise for the first act of a musical that would come to London’s West End in 1982 under the title Song & Dance.
Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber often gravitates toward writing musicals that are both family friendly and that will ignite the curiosity of the kid in us all. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Cats continue to be revived, again and again, particularly for their universal appeal. And yet, perhaps the most family-friendly and imaginative of all of Webber’s musicals to date is one about anthropomorphized racing trains. I am, of course, referring to Starlight Express, which opened in London’s West End on March 27, 1984 where it ran for 7,409 performances. The musical came to Broadway’s Gershwin Theatre in 1987, and despite having the London creative team in tow, it made the journey with major revisions from its London incarnation. Starlight Express ran on Broadway for 761 performances and won a singular Tony Award for John Napier’s costume design.
Chita Rivera is not the only person getting a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Tonys. Andrew Lloyd Webber, a Broadway composer who has certainly had his share of megahits over the years, was single-handedly the force that introduced the pop opera to Broadway and also utilized rock and roll for many of his scores. Inspired by classical sounds bought into the pop world, Webber is the musical voice behind such scores as Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Cats, Song & Dance, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, and School of Rock (that’s just to name a few). In celebration of the composer’s big night at the Tonys, here is a compilation of some of Broadway’s best singing some of his greatest hits.
