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Andrew Lloyd Webber

Modern musical maximalist--composer, businessman, showman; shows are often on a grand scale in terms of spectacle, size, sound, and subject matter; music is a heady mic of liftable tunes, power ballads, dramatic orchestrations done by himself, stylistic exploits, and classical applications/references; inspired by Richard Rogers

Evita, Phantom of the Opera

Shows directed by Hal Prince

Cats, Starlight Express, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Les Miserable

Shows directed by Trevor Nunn

Joseph, JC Superstar, Evita, The Wizard of Oz

Shows done with Tim Rice as the lyricist

Cats, Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard, Les Miserable, Miss Saigon

Shows designed by John Napier

Characteristics of John Napier

Song of the King, The Rum Tum Tugger

Examples of pastiche songs

School of Rock, Bad Cinderella

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s most recent shows

Homoeroticism, blasphemy, exploitation of sensitive material; seen through the eyes of Judas

Why JC Superstar was objectionable to some

Schonberg and Boublil

Open emotionalism--baring souls on stage; lacks the irony, cynicism, and comedy typical of American musicals; serious treatment overall; large spectacle and musical muscle to match the passion; sung-through score; crosses cultural, national, and historic boundaries and appeals to a worldwide demographic

$50 for Les Miserable

The older high for ticket prices

$100 for Miss Saigon

The newer high for ticket prices

Marguerite

Schonberg and Boublil’s most recent show

Cameron Mackintosh

Producer and marketing genius who made clear, simple logos

Cameron Mackintosh

Producer for Cats, Phantom, Les Miserable, and Miss Saigon

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Based on a story from the Bible with a score that is a mesh of popular music styles and genres, including country-western, rock n’ roll, calypso, French chanson, and doo-wop, including many pastiche numbers

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

The first notable work to introduce Webber and Rice’s “style” of through-composed shows with an electric mix of music paired with smart, modern, and pointed lyrics

JC Superstar

A controversial look at the last days of Jesus as seen through Judas, who didn’t believe Jesus was divine; labeled as a “rock opera”

Evita

The idea for this show came from a radio broadcast about the first lady of Argentina in the 1940s; starred Patti LuPone

Cats

A “song-cycle”--a group of works linked by a poetic or musical idea; based on children’s poems by T.S. Elliot

No plot, odd concept, based on works by a dead poet, Shakespearean director never did a musical before, England wasn’t known for dance shows

Obstacles working against Cats

Cats

First import to dominate US musical theatre; broke attendance records in London and US, and passed A Chorus Line

3 Broadway shows and 3 West End shows running simultaneously

The Triple Play Award

NY: Evita, Cats, Joseph; London: Evita, Cats, Song & Dance

The shows that Andrew Lloyd Webber was awarder the Triple Play Award for

Song and Dance

2 separate acts, one told through song and one through dance, about a woman and her many love affairs; featured Bernadette Peters

Starlight Express

A “gift” show written for the composer’s children, based loosely on Thomas the Tank Engine stories; told in a boy’s dream

The Phantom of the Opera

A melodramatic show focusing on a beautiful star who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured, maniacal genius; written for the composer’s wife and also starred Michael Crawford

Aspects of Love

A “bed-hopping soap opera” involving under-age and same-sex romance

Sunset Boulevard

A show about the fading and forgotten silent film actress Norma Desmond and her tragic attempt to make a comeback; a “flop-hit”; starred Patti LuPone then Glenn Close

Love Never Dies

The sequel to Phantom of the Opera set in Coney Island, NY in 1907, where the phantom is a mastermind of Phantasma, an amusement park

The Wizard of Oz

A new production based on a 1939 film and original 1900 novel; originally starred Michael Crawford and recently toured the US

School of Rock

Book by the Downtown Abbey creator; based on the 2003 film about an out-of-work rock singer who pretends to be a substitute teacher at a prep school; starred Alex Brightman and Sierra Boggess

Bad Cinderella

A show where the damsel is the distress

Les Miserable

Based on a novel by Victor Hugo and first had a concept album in French; ran 3 1/2 hours, completely sung-through; starred Colm Wilkinson, Patti LuPone, and Terrence Mann

Miss Saigon

Influenced by a magazine photo of a Vietnamese woman handing over her baby at an airport and the story of the opera Madame Butterfly by Puccini; concerned the doomed romance of an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover

The Pirate Queen

Schonberg and Boublil’s first show with American collaborators; about a 16th century Irish pirate who resisted British conquest; starred Stephanie Blovk

Marguerite

Set in WWII about the love affair between a member of the French resistance and the mistress of a Nazi officer