Big Hollywood - In Defense of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
My post on Big Hollywood In Defense of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber - Originally titled: "Music of the Knight"
In Defense of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webberby Stage Right
While we’re in the business of revealing secrets from the entertainment industry, let me add a whopper for you all to chew on: Most people who work on Broadway hate Andrew Lloyd Webber.
That’s right. Despite creating more employment and wealth than any single person over the past three decades, the genius behind Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom of the Opera is secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) reviled.
When I first experienced the anti-ALW bias, it was all about his music. Just like being a PC person or a Mac person, or a Beatles person or a Stones person, you were either an Andrew Lloyd Webber person or a Sondheim person. Within the snobby theatre parties his shows were labeled as too commercial or his songs too repetitive. While ALW wrote a show about Jesus and Joseph and an adaptation of T.S. Eliot poems, Sondheim wrote about Georges Seraut, Sweeney Todd and presidential assassins.
ALW was too simple and accessible, Sondheim was challenging and esoteric. While ALW was temperamental and demanding, Sondheim was friendly and engaging. And, not coincidentally, while ALW’s shows ran for years and years and made fortunes and sold-out, Sondheim’s shows rarely recouped investment.
It was the age-old commercial theatre debate: Selling tickets vs. ART (please pronounce that with a faux British accent).
This was how I viewed the debate from the outside looking in. Then, I had the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream and actually got to work on an ALW project. Then I saw a different side of the anti-ALW bias. Most of the people who worked for this man, who gladly took his paycheck and lived off the fat of his successes, also reviled him… and it was clear one of the reasons why:
He’s a conservative.
I’m not outing anyone here. He came out as a conservative during the Thatcher era. He allowed his songs to be used in Tory Party campaign advertisements. He’s been quite out-spoken against the confiscatory tax policies of the Labour Party. His most honored guest at the American Premier of Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles was not Billy Wilder, it was former-president Ronald Reagan.
He’d pop into a meeting and lend his advice about how best to maximize the front-of-house merchandise sales or give an idea for marketing to specific tour groups and when he left his employees would roll their eyes and say things like, “What, like he doesn’t have enough money yet?” or, “Sometimes I feel like I work for the devil when I think about what he does with his money.” (Meaning, his political donations).
The ingratitude always struck me as incredibly classless and despicable.
Is ALW difficult to work with? Yes. He knows what he wants and he expects the people he employs to step up and produce. Is he temperamental? Well, if raising your voice at people when they don’t meet your expectations is temperamental, then yes, he is. But look at the man’s track record. What more does he have to do to inspire people to put their best efforts into his projects? But you will still hear the constant criticisms of the man’s shows, his temperament, his success, and his politics. It always seems to creep its way into the dialogue.
Now, don’t get me wrong… I am a HUGE fan of Sondheim’s work. But let’s be honest: He is far from a commercial success. And on Broadway, I think it’s instructive to look at a person’s contribution not only in artistic achievement, but also in some pretty important aspects like: Number of tickets sold, number of actors and crew employed, number of children exposed to live theatre for the first time… You know, the tangible, objective criteria we in the business of SELLING theatre as a product look to. By those measures, ALW is the greatest success our business has ever seen.
But Mr. Sondheim travels in the right artistic and political circles. He famously turned down the 1992 National Medal of Arts from the NEA, saying the agency, “is being rapidly transformed into a conduit and a symbol of censorship and repression.” Sondheim also enjoyed a string of positive reviews from the New York Times that often left theatre insiders scratching their heads. His string of love letters from the Times was penned by none other than Frank Rich.
Meanwhile, Rich saved most of his vitriol and venom for Sir Andrew. He famously slammed Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom in succession, and then slammed them all over again when reviewing Aspects of Love, along with a jab at ALW’s politics:
Yet he continues to write and produce and employ and yes, spread the wealth! Because when a show is a hit in New York, the money {gasp} trickles down! Ask the restaurant employees and hotel employees and cabbies and bartenders all around the theatre district. They will give you a perfect lesson in market economics that can be boiled down to one statement: Andrew Lloyd Webber keeps them humming and that keeps me working!
So, from THIS musical theatre fan, and a man who has been lucky enough to live off the success of your efforts, I’d like to say “Thank You, Sir Andrew. Broadway wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Stage Right is on Facebook.
In Defense of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webberby Stage Right
While we’re in the business of revealing secrets from the entertainment industry, let me add a whopper for you all to chew on: Most people who work on Broadway hate Andrew Lloyd Webber.
That’s right. Despite creating more employment and wealth than any single person over the past three decades, the genius behind Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom of the Opera is secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) reviled.
When I first experienced the anti-ALW bias, it was all about his music. Just like being a PC person or a Mac person, or a Beatles person or a Stones person, you were either an Andrew Lloyd Webber person or a Sondheim person. Within the snobby theatre parties his shows were labeled as too commercial or his songs too repetitive. While ALW wrote a show about Jesus and Joseph and an adaptation of T.S. Eliot poems, Sondheim wrote about Georges Seraut, Sweeney Todd and presidential assassins.
ALW was too simple and accessible, Sondheim was challenging and esoteric. While ALW was temperamental and demanding, Sondheim was friendly and engaging. And, not coincidentally, while ALW’s shows ran for years and years and made fortunes and sold-out, Sondheim’s shows rarely recouped investment.
It was the age-old commercial theatre debate: Selling tickets vs. ART (please pronounce that with a faux British accent).
This was how I viewed the debate from the outside looking in. Then, I had the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream and actually got to work on an ALW project. Then I saw a different side of the anti-ALW bias. Most of the people who worked for this man, who gladly took his paycheck and lived off the fat of his successes, also reviled him… and it was clear one of the reasons why:
He’s a conservative.
I’m not outing anyone here. He came out as a conservative during the Thatcher era. He allowed his songs to be used in Tory Party campaign advertisements. He’s been quite out-spoken against the confiscatory tax policies of the Labour Party. His most honored guest at the American Premier of Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles was not Billy Wilder, it was former-president Ronald Reagan.
He’d pop into a meeting and lend his advice about how best to maximize the front-of-house merchandise sales or give an idea for marketing to specific tour groups and when he left his employees would roll their eyes and say things like, “What, like he doesn’t have enough money yet?” or, “Sometimes I feel like I work for the devil when I think about what he does with his money.” (Meaning, his political donations).
The ingratitude always struck me as incredibly classless and despicable.
Is ALW difficult to work with? Yes. He knows what he wants and he expects the people he employs to step up and produce. Is he temperamental? Well, if raising your voice at people when they don’t meet your expectations is temperamental, then yes, he is. But look at the man’s track record. What more does he have to do to inspire people to put their best efforts into his projects? But you will still hear the constant criticisms of the man’s shows, his temperament, his success, and his politics. It always seems to creep its way into the dialogue.
Now, don’t get me wrong… I am a HUGE fan of Sondheim’s work. But let’s be honest: He is far from a commercial success. And on Broadway, I think it’s instructive to look at a person’s contribution not only in artistic achievement, but also in some pretty important aspects like: Number of tickets sold, number of actors and crew employed, number of children exposed to live theatre for the first time… You know, the tangible, objective criteria we in the business of SELLING theatre as a product look to. By those measures, ALW is the greatest success our business has ever seen.
But Mr. Sondheim travels in the right artistic and political circles. He famously turned down the 1992 National Medal of Arts from the NEA, saying the agency, “is being rapidly transformed into a conduit and a symbol of censorship and repression.” Sondheim also enjoyed a string of positive reviews from the New York Times that often left theatre insiders scratching their heads. His string of love letters from the Times was penned by none other than Frank Rich.
Meanwhile, Rich saved most of his vitriol and venom for Sir Andrew. He famously slammed Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom in succession, and then slammed them all over again when reviewing Aspects of Love, along with a jab at ALW’s politics:
Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer who is second to none when writingNo need to read between the lines here…
musicals about cats, roller-skating trains and falling chandeliers, has made an
earnest but bizarre career decision in “Aspects of Love”….He has written a
musical about people.
Whether “Aspects of Love” is a musical for people is another matter. Mr.
Lloyd Webber continues to compose in the official style that has made him an
international favorite, sacrificing any personality of his own to the
merchandisable common denominator of easy-listening pop music. [The
musical]…generates about as much heated passion as a visit to the bank. Even
when women strip to lacy undergarments, the lingerie doesn’t suggest the erotic
fantasies of Frederick’s of Hollywood so much as the no-nonsense austerity of
Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.
Yet he continues to write and produce and employ and yes, spread the wealth! Because when a show is a hit in New York, the money {gasp} trickles down! Ask the restaurant employees and hotel employees and cabbies and bartenders all around the theatre district. They will give you a perfect lesson in market economics that can be boiled down to one statement: Andrew Lloyd Webber keeps them humming and that keeps me working!
So, from THIS musical theatre fan, and a man who has been lucky enough to live off the success of your efforts, I’d like to say “Thank You, Sir Andrew. Broadway wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Stage Right is on Facebook.
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