JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT
1/27/1982
Royale Theatre
747 performances
Musical inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places and in the case of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT this axiom proves doubly true. In the summer of 1967, Andrew Lloyd Webber, who would become the most successful British composer in the modern musical theatre, was approached by Music Department head (and teacher of Andrew’s younger brother, Julian) Alan Doggett, to write a “pop cantata” for the school choir of St. Paul’s Junior School to sing at their Easter end of term concert. Andrew immediately approached his friend and fellow Oxford student Tim Rice to ask if he would write lyrics for the project. This first amateur performance of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT took place on a cold winter afternoon on March 1st, 1968. Accompanied by the school orchestra, and conducted by Alan Doggett, the performance was only twenty minutes long. But it was such a success that a second and third performance was arranged where Joseph was expanded to include songs such as “Potiphar” for the first time.
The project was then put away and forgotten as both Webber and Rice went on to develop another idea about the story of Jesus Christ. It was the success of this new project entitled JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR that allowed JOSEPH to develop and grow. The album of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR was a massive success in America and when JOSEPH was released there, with a marketing campaign implying that it was the follow-up to SUPERSTAR, the JOSEPH album stayed in the charts for 3 months. In September of 1972, the Young Vic performed a JOSEPH based on the Decca album version at the Edinburgh Festival. This professional production later transferred to the Albery Theatre in London’s West End on February 17th 1973. Paired with a piece called JACOB’S JOURNEY, which told the story of the early life of Jacob, this production was not a success. With JACOB’S JOURNEY phased out, the first major production of JOSEPH in its present form happened at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester.
The history of JOSEPH in America is not dissimilar. The 1st professional production opened at the Ford Theatre in Washington on April 13th 1980 where it ran for 7 months. This production transferred to the Entermedia Theatre in New York on in 1981 and was so successful that on January 27th 1982 it moved to the Royale Theatre on Broadway. Since then, national tours and international revivals of JOSEPH have been frequent occurrences in the world of entertainment. Not unlike the tale of its title character, this little musical entertainment has seen itself grow from humble beginnings to a reigning position in the Andrew Lloyd Webber canon. Now over three decades after its original incarnation, JOSEPH is still a staple performed by both professional and amateur companies all over the world.
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