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| re: NJC: Andrew Lloyd Webber Talks of Wizard of Oz etc. | |
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rockfenris2005 07:47 am UTC 03/03/11 |
| In reply to: | NJC: Andrew Lloyd Webber Talks of Wizard of Oz etc. - rockfenris2005 07:41 am UTC 03/03/11 |
Yes, Love Never Dies has had a checkered history, hasn't it? You originally announced plans to open this sequel to The Phantom of the Opera on three continents simultaneously…. ALW: Thank goodness we didn't! So what happened? ALW: A couple of things went extremely wrong there, and I think one was that due to dates. [Director] Jack O'Brien got involved in the workshop of Catch Me If You Can so we got shunted around; and then of course I got cancer. At the time I thought I was going to be able to control the show far more than I did, but whatever anybody may say, you do take a while to recover from these things. And although I'm in the clear completely now… I was not on peak form throughout. That's probably the best thing to say about it; if I'd had Bill [Kenwright] there as a producer from the word go, he'd have said there are certain things we can't go ahead with. But we'd recorded the album, and it had been very well received; a lot of people thought it was right up there with the others. I think it was a combination of me not being very well, the team perhaps underestimating what it needed, and perhaps everybody thinking it was going to be far easier thing to do than in fact it was. But it has been overhauled now…. ALW: Yes, I said to Bill, "I knew the order's not quite right," so he went in and did this extraordinary work on it, with no pay. It's completely transformed, even though for me as a musician it wasn't a big job to do. Some of them are thoughts that were going to happen for Australia anyway, but Bill has given me the most fantastic blueprint for it now to be got right around the world. So what's happened to Jack O' Brien and Jerry Mitchell (who directed and choreographed the original West End premiere)? ALW: They're not involved in the next production planned in Australia, which Simon Phillips from Melbourne Theatre Company is directing. But Bill is a great friend of Jack O'Brien's and a great admirer of his, but it got to a point where everyone was very close to it, and an outside mind was a good idea. We'll have to wait and see what happens: if the Australian production is phenomenal and everyone is extremely pleased with it, then that might be the production that then goes to America. There will be a production that will go to America, it's just a question of what and when. I've obviously got to get Oz to America and Superstar to get up, so it might be that I get another producer to do it there. But it's a show I'm very confident about. I'm not remotely worried about it. Even though things have been slightly altered order-wise, I've always thought that the score to it will outlive me easily. That's all one can really think about. There are certain pieces of mine that might not: unless somebody can find a way of finding a better end to The Woman in White, for example, that piece ain't going anywhere! I did that [show] because I was bored, and the first act of it that we did at my festival worked an absolute treat, but we couldn't work out the second act. I realized when we were in rehearsal that there was nowhere for it to go from the moment that you discovered that the girls were switched. Until somebody can solve that, The Woman in White has a murky future! But The Woman in White does have some wonderful music… ALW: Well, thanks. I always remember Hal Prince saying something to me that has remained with me all my life. Long before I worked with him, he went to see Jeeves at Her Majesty's in 1975, and he wrote me a note, telling me to bank the score. Underneath it, he said, "P.S. You can't listen to music if you can't look at it." I have to say that's absolutely the case! Of course Jeeves suffered from its reception by the critics, but Love Never Dies has had to deal with something else: hostility in the blogosphere. ALW: That was quite extraordinary. Obviously, you can't stop people who've genuinely come to see a show and don't like it; that's fine. But, as it was discovered in the end, a lot of the stuff posted on the net was completely fake — three months after it opened, we discovered most of those reviews that were put up couldn't possibly have been written by anybody who had actually seen the show. But it duped enough journalists, including The Times, and it came down to a couple who lived in Toronto and were mental Phantom fans, and just did not want anything else to happen to the Phantom. But it took everyone in, and it is a bother, because it was a highly professional done operation. I gave the dossier to Daily Telegraph who found what happened and published an article exposing it all, but damage had been done by that time. But somebody said to me the other day what Love Never Dies is Madame Butterfly — Puccini thought it was going to be the big one, but opera claque booed it off the stage and it was taken off. He then re-wrote a bit of it, it was re-staged and brought back. And an organized opera claque is the 'Net — it's a modern day version of it. > 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 > | |
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