Andrew Lloyd Webber Unveils New Musical ‘The Illusionist’

EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Lloyd Webber has unveiled his new West Finish and Broadway musical: a magical romance referred to as The Illusionist, directed by Sundown Boulevard’s Jamie Lloyd.

Throughout a non-public viewers at his penthouse workplace adjoining to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, one in every of six theatres managed via his LW Theatres group, the legendary composer of Phantom of the Opera and Evita gave Deadline an unique preview of three of the a number of numbers he has thus far scored.

The impresario says Oscar-winning screenwriter Chris Terrio (Argo) “has carried out the e-book very a lot with me, however he’s the scriptwriter.” British songwriter Bruno Main can also be hooked up.

Lloyd Webber carried out an early draft of his rating to Lloyd earlier this yr as they started making ready to open Sundown Boulevard, starring Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis, on Broadway. The present premiered on the St. James Theater on October 20 to ecstatic notices from the vast majority of critics.

Nonetheless, it’s solely just lately that each Lloyd Webber and Michael Harrison, his producing accomplice in Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, approached Lloyd to direct the brand new present, which, says the composer, will characteristic an “operatic” rating.

With director Lloyd, writers Terrio and Main on board, the subsequent essential step is to seek out somebody to create the illusions for The Illusionist. There’s an phantasm, Lloyd Webber divulges, “the place we are able to actually disappear any person in entrance of the viewers,” and there are a few different coup de théâtre magical moments that can have to be developed. ”They’re not an enormous a part of the present, however they’re an important a part of the present,” he explains, however they have to be designed on the “get-go.”

Harrison provides: “Whoever the magic particular person is, and we don’t know who it’s but, they’ll be closely concerned as a result of it’s crucial, clearly, in case you’re doing a present referred to as The Illusionist, that there be good illusions.”

Harrison calculates that the revelations damaged by Deadline at this time are “extra of an early announcement” slightly than “us launching the present, that can come later.”

Lloyd Webber provides: “I believe it’s completely truthful to say we haven’t a clue the place it’s going to open as a result of an terrible lot of it’s obtained to do with what theaters can be found on which aspect of the pond. I imply, it could possibly be New York, it could possibly be right here [in London]. I’d prefer it to be right here, however it could possibly be New York. It’s additionally essential to emphasise that it’s very, very early days.”

Harrison expresses a want for The Illusionist to open in London and observes that whereas it will likely be “spectacular,”  it doesn’t have to be in a “big” home. 

If the title sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of the manufacturing’s partially impressed by the 2006 film of the identical title written and directed by Neil Berger; which in flip was based mostly on a novella referred to as Eisenheim the Illusionist taken from The Barnum Museum, a e-book of fantasy-themed quick tales by Steven Millhauser, a Pulitzer Prize-winning quick story fiction author.

The film, set in Vienna in 1900, starred Edward Norton as Eduard, who makes use of the stage title Eisenheim, whose more and more elaborate illusions create an uproar within the imperial metropolis with questions raised concerning the boundaries between phantasm and actuality.

The movie launched a love story between Eisenheim and Sophie, a younger girl he falls in love with, performed by Jessica Biel, who occurs to be betrothed to a Crown Prince, a job taken by Rufus Sewell within the movie. 

Within the film, a police inspector performed by Paul Giamatti accuses Eisenheim’s act of “shaking the foundations of the universe.” That half is way lowered within the new present.

Lloyd Webber stresses that the musical shouldn’t be going to be a straight rehash of the movie. “We’re not vastly based mostly on the film,” he declares. “I believe what we’ve carried out is taken the concept of it and developed it into one other space fully.”

For example, he and Terrio have expanded the Sophie character. “We’ve made her, very a lot within the second act, the catalyst of the whole lot that occurs, which is sort of completely different from the film,” he states.

The present, he remarks, will conjure up an enchanting interval of historical past, the place the town was “this melting pot” the place “on the one hand you had Strauss’ waltz’s” whereas then again, he factors to the cultural, societal and psychological breakthroughs involving, for example, the likes of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytical theories and Arnold Schönberg’s revolutionary music strategies.

“So what we’ve written, which isn’t actually a part of the film, is one thing the place it’s a cauldron of those numerous concepts,” Lloyd Webber tells us.

What additionally fascinates him traditionally is that inside fourteen years “an empire was going to be dismantled” by a world struggle. “So, it’s a splendidly wealthy space for me,” he says, which is able to allow “my romantic aspect to fly” and his “type of extra mathematical aspect”  as a result of the plot is about in a metropolis the place the whole lot was altering, innovation, concepts, the whole lot.

“And so that you’ve obtained folks coming to Vienna and all of them for various causes. A few of them as a result of they need to hear a waltz,” the musical lord surmises. “Various them are coming as a result of they need to discover a answer to their issues, others as a result of they’re excited concerning the act that there’s new work happening there.” 

All of that, nevertheless, counts for naught if the rating doesn’t raise you, the viewers and the present.

Lloyd Weber and Harrison each ask David Andrew Wilson, the Actually Helpful Group’s director of music, to play me recordings of three piano demos with voice accompaniment. The primary, a robust ballad, Invincible, to be sung by Eisenheim after he’s been put down by his father for performing magic within the village sq..

That’s adopted by I Solely Got here To Say Goodbye, a sweeping love track with a haunting melody which, Lloyd Webber jokes, ”simply in case everyone thought that I’d gone again irrevocably to rock and roll, I’ve tried to do one thing just a little bit extra in my older mildew.”

However it’s the second act quantity At all times Every part To Me, a passionate love track that lingers most. “That’s a basic,” says Harrison, breaking the silence.

True. I can ceaselessly boast, I joke, that I heard it seated subsequent to the composer on an October afternoon. It took me again to an early night assembly with Lloyd Webber almost 4 many years in the past when he sat at his grand piano and performed me Music of the Evening from Phantom of the Opera. I felt the identical emotional jolt with At all times Every part To Me.

Now the massive take a look at for the creatives is how one can combine these songs right into a manufacturing that can dazzle and amaze.

It’s clear that Lloyd Webber, 76, needs youthful power to surge via The Illusionist which is why it was important to safe Lloyd, 43, who’s, definitely along with his electrifying Sundown Boulevard, introducing new methods to dream in musical theater. 

“And as an oldie now, to have any person’s who’s youthful, simply challenges me,” says Lloyd Webber. He notes how the pair developed a detailed friendship and dealing relationship on Sundown Boulevard the place they challenged one another. They managed to cut two numbers from Sundown Boulevard with out falling out.

And Lloyd Webber appears energized by Terrio and Main.

Terrio wrote the screenplay for Zack Snyder’s Justice League and co-wrote screenplays for Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker and Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice – and the newest script for the long-gestating film model of the Sundown Boulevard musical, whereas Main’s output consists of albums  A Tune for Each Moon and To Let A Good Factor Die.

 They have been launched to the ennobled tunesmith by unbiased music government Alistair Lloyd Webber, 32, the eldest of his three kids from his third and present marriage to Madeleine Gurdon, deputy chair of the Actually Helpful Group, equestrian and champion racehorse breeder.

Though all involved want to see The Illusionist able to enchant audiences someday in 2026, Harrison insists that there’s “genuinely no timeframe” for the manufacturing.

“It’s all the time obtained to be when the whole lot’s proper,” provides Lloyd Webber as he recites the “fantastic piece of recommendation” that Evita and Phantom of the Opera director Hal Prince gave him many years in the past: “You possibly can’t hearken to a musical in case you can’t take a look at it.”

We don’t converse of his final present Unhealthy Cinderella which wasn’t in any respect prepared for the highlight, though it did hold theater people employed throughout the pandemic. 

Lloyd Webber acknowledges that with The Illusionist “I’ve obtained this robust producer” in Harrison “who says, Andrew, it’s not ok.” Having Harrison as producer is “implausible” says Lloyd Webber “as a result of I can simply be a creator once more.”

Earlier this yr, Lloyd Webber and Harrison collaborated on a profitable reimagining of Starlight Specific, forty years after it first opened on the Apollo Victoria Theatre directed by Trevor Nunn, designed by John Napier and choreographed by Arlene Phillips. 

The brand new model directed by Luke Sheppard is on on the 1,000-seat Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre the place it has offered near $30M price of tickets. The present additionally ushered in a brand new star in Jeevan Braich who performs Rusty, the discarded steam engine. Final month Braich, a teenage newcomer, gained The Stage Debut Award for Finest Performer in a Musical honor collectively with Sundown Boulevard’s Grace Hodgett.[Disclosure: this writer was on the judging panel].

And, in fact, there’s Phantom of the Opera, produced by Cameron Waterproof coat, which has run at His Majesty’s Theatre, previously Her Majesty’s till the late Queen Elizabeth’s loss of life, for 35 years, and by all accounts, it’s been having a banner yr. 

Lloyd Webber will proceed writing with Terrio and Main, whereas Harrison prepares to mount the London Palladium’s raucous annual pantomime. This yr it’s Robin Hood with Jane McDonald and Julian Clary topping the invoice, and an organization that features Paul Zerdin, Nigel Havers, Marisha Wallace, Rob Madge, Tosh Wanogho-Maud, and Charlie Stemp.  

Lloyd’s additionally busy rehearsing Sigourney Weaver, making her London debut as Prospero in The Tempest, which previews on the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from December 7. Weaver is joined by Jude Akuwudike, Jason Barnett, Selina Cadwell, Matthew Horne, Mara Huf, Forbes Masson, Mason Alexander Park, James Phoon, Oliver Ryan and Tom Steed. 

Casting for The Illusionist will start as quickly as Lloyd Webber, Harrison, and Lloyd have assembled their inventive workforce. I collect there’s already a “want record.”