not logged in
| NJC: Andrew Lloyd Webber Talks of Wizard of Oz etc. | |
Posted by:  |
rockfenris2005 07:41 am UTC 03/03/11 |
| Andrew Lloyd Webber Talks of Wizard of Oz, Evita, Love Never Dies, His Health, His Next Show and More By Mark Shenton 01 Mar 2011 Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber talks to Playbill.com's London correspondent Mark Shenton about his latest show, The Wizard of Oz, as well as current and future projects. * Last year composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim, of course, celebrated his 80th birthday with multiple celebrations of his work, around the world; but composer Andrew Lloyd Webber — born coincidentally on the same day, but 18 years later — has also been constantly in the news. In the last 12 months, the wizard behind the curtain of such international smashes as Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Phantom of the Opera and its sequel has appeared on the fourth series of a weekly BBC reality TV casting show that he has been lead judge on, to find an actress to play Dorothy in his new stage production of The Wizard of Oz, inspired by the M-G-M film, opening March 1 at the London Palladium (following previews from Feb. 7). For the new production, he has reunited with lyricist Tim Rice (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph…) to write new songs to augment the existing film score of Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg. Lloyd Webber is also now deep in discussion to launch a reality TV casting to bring The Wizard of Oz to the U.S. He has also seen Love Never Dies, a long-planned sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, open in the West End to a mostly hostile press. But he and his collaborators substantially revised and re-launched it, far more successfully. Another production is planned for Australia, beginning performances at Melbourne's Regent Theatre May 22, with an American premiere to follow on a date to be announced. Next year, Michael Grandage's 2006 West End revival of Lloyd Webber's Evita will play Broadway, bringing the title back to New York City for the first time since 1983, when its original run (which began in 1979) ended. And an all-star arena stage concert tour of Jesus Christ Superstar is due to hit the U.S. road in Easter 2012. The composer recently sat down with Playbill.com to talk about these and other matters, after first proudly showing off the extensive front-of-house refurbishment of the London Palladium, which is under his company's ownership. Let's begin with "The Wizard of Oz." Is it something you've loved for a long time and have always wanted to bring to the stage? Andrew Lloyd Webber: Funnily enough, I wasn't brought up on "The Wizard of Oz" in the sort of way that a lot of people were. I was brought up with Rodgers and Hammerstein, and my interest was really pretty much with the theatre from the word go. It was only three or four years ago, when we were thinking of ideas for TV casting, that it was my wife, actually, who said, "But of course, the biggest one of the lot is Dorothy." And I said, "Yes, but the difficulty is that it hasn't worked in the theatre, and there's a good reason for that." But I thought I'd try to get my head around it and see if it could be done, and as I dissected it, I found that there was so much more music in the film that I'd either forgotten or was in fragments, either in underscoring or that was slightly thrown away. And looking at what its history had been in the theatre, I don't think anybody had really ever taken it apart and said to themselves, "Now look, what do we actually need for the theatre as opposed to trying to just take the film and putting it onstage?" The first thing that occurred to me in all the productions that I'd seen is that the act closes in the wrong place. Previously, productions have always had the interval with Dorothy at the gates of the Emerald City. That didn't seem to me right at all — it seemed to me that it had to end with the Wizard saying bring me the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the west. That's real tension — whether they're going to get to Emerald City or not isn't particularly. I then got hold of [director] Jeremy Sams, because we'd worked on The Sound of Music together, and he deconstructed it with me. That's when we realized that there's a problem with it in the theatre as it stood — in that there are no songs for either of the witches, there's nothing at all for the Wizard, there's nothing for Glinda and Dorothy to close the thing up, and there's obviously a massive cut in the movie where there used to be the jitterbug. So I suddenly thought, hold on a moment, if it is going to work for the theatre it has got to have that material for it; so I went to Warner Brothers who own it with EMI and I asked if I could have permission to come in and write the new songs. They said yes; and the deal is that if this works, this will be theatre version of The Wizard of Oz. If it doesn't work, nobody is any the worse off. More at the link | |
| URL: | Link |
| reply | | |
| Previous: | re: My work and Jimmy's music..... - The_wolf_with_the_red_roses 01:29 am UTC 03/06/11 |
| Next: | re: NJC: Andrew Lloyd Webber Talks of Wizard of Oz etc. - rockfenris2005 07:47 am UTC 03/03/11 |
| Thread: |
|