Andrew Lloyd Webber by no means thought he’d get Nicole Scherzinger to Broadway.
“I always remember when she did ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ on a TV show some years ago,” Lloyd Webber informed me throughout an hour-long sit-down.
After her efficiency on that 2013 ITV particular, “Cats” director Trevor Nunn excitedly rang him up and mentioned, “That’s the best it’s ever been.”
“He was right,” Lloyd Webber mentioned. “And that was the moment where I thought we’ve got to get her into the theater.”
A 12 months later, the previous Pussycat Doll was belting out “Memory” on the London Palladium as Grizabella in “Cats.” However her Broadway contract didn’t work out. She was all the time being booked as a choose on TV singing contests.
9 lives, er, years, glided by, after which the outre director Jamie Lloyd (recognized for Ibsen — not singin’ or dancin’) approached the composer with an odd concept — Scherzinger ought to play Norma Desmond, the has-been Hollywood star, in “Sunset Boulevard.”
“And I said, ‘Well, good luck!’,” Lloyd Webber, 77, remembered. “‘If you get her to the altar, I’m going to be the happiest person in history.’ And he did.”
She’s unforgettable within the present on the St. James — daring, stunning, petrifying and revelatory.
Every week in the past, the starkly reimagined manufacturing deservedly scored seven Tony Award nominations, together with for Finest Revival, the indomitable Scherzinger, her thrilling main man Tom Francis and director Lloyd.
“It is darker and, I think, it’s also deeper,” Lloyd Webber mentioned of his completely totally different 1994 musical.
The composer of “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “The Phantom of the Opera” is collaborating with Lloyd once more this summer time on a manufacturing of “Evita” in London on the Palladium starring Rachel Zegler.
The director, who efficiently makes use of stay cameras and screens in “Sunset,” desires to tug an identical trick with “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.” However to date, he’s confronted backlash from native politicians.
“Do you know what Jamie wants to do with ‘Evita’? And the council won’t let us,” Lloyd Webber tantalizingly dangled.
“With ‘Evita’ in London, when he does it this time — the Palladium has a balcony outside,” he went on, suggesting Zegler might sing on it.
“It might mean crowds will gather on the street.”
Uh oh — the Brits can’t have that.
Right here in carefree New York, his pleasant “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” which I adored final summer time downtown, has not but secured a Broadway home for a deliberate switch. Nonetheless, Lloyd Webber is assured it’ll discover a house quickly.
“I think it will come in next season,” he mentioned. “Everybody seems to want it. The Nederlanders have got nothing for it, but, you know, the other two, [the Shuberts and ATG].”
After which there’s “Masquerade,” the immersive (and shorter) model of “Phantom of the Opera” coming to West 57th Road. A number of small teams of about 60, a supply mentioned, shall be taken into the bespoke venue per day — a la “Sleep No More.” There have been building delays, however don’t be shocked should you see one of many longest-running Phantoms again within the masks.
Nonetheless, Lloyd Webber’s not content material with merely carting out the outdated hits.
He not too long ago created a brand new firm with producer Michael Harrison referred to as Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals to free himself up from the enterprise facet and make extra music of the evening.
“I came to the conclusion at my age now that I’ve got to only do composing,” he mentioned.
So, Lloyd Webber is difficult at work on a brand new musical (his twenty second) of the 2006 movie “The Illusionist,” which starred Edward Norton as a Vienna magician. He’s accomplished a draft of what he calls “an opera.”
“[We’ve] done a reading, sing-through as it were, with just us and a couple of singers around a piano of the whole thing. And now it’s at the point where one, I think, starts to deconstruct it,” Lloyd Webber mentioned of the present which may also be directed by — who else? — Jamie Lloyd.
“If there was a theater available, and if Jamie wasn’t doing anything else, and I haven’t got the other bits and pieces, I mean we could go into rehearsal this coming September or October. But we won’t.”
Lloyd Webber mentioned one maintain up is a giant phantasm within the present “that we’ve got to get right,” so it’ll require six weeks of rehearsal as a substitute of the same old 4.
“I think we could be up and going by next September,” he mentioned of a 2026 West Finish run earlier than hopefully Broadway.
Two years in the past, when Lloyd Webber’s “Bad Cinderella” closed, it ended an unmatched streak: For 43 years, he all the time had a present working on Broadway.
Loads of folks counted him out. However now, to cite probably the most well-known tune from “Sunset,” “everything’s as if we never said goodbye.”
