Andrew Lloyd Webber Would Love to Collaborate with Stephen Sondheim

According to a feature about the new UK arena touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar in the Sydney Morning Herald, Andrew Lloyd Webber reveals he would like to collaborate with Stephen Sondheim.

"I can't write lyrics," Lloyd Webber told the Herald. "I would love to have some lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, you know, but he thinks of everything, it is too connected for him."

Read the full report here.

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the composer of The Likes of Us, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Variations and Tell Me on a Sunday later combined as Song & Dance, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game, The Woman in White and Love Never Dies. He composed the film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File and a setting of the Latin Requiem mass. Recent producer credits include A R Rahman's Bombay Dreams, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz and films of The Phantom of the Opera and the acclaimed Australian production of Love Never Dies.

He pioneered television casting for musical theatre with the Emmy Award-winning "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" and this year ITV1's search for a "Superstar", which he used to cast Ben Forster as 'Jesus' in the UK arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, which opened last night, September 21, 2012, at London's O2 Arena.

Lloyd Webber's awards include seven Tonys, three Grammys, seven Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar, the Praemium Imperiale, the Richard Rodgers and the Kennedy Center Honor. He currently owns seven London theatres, including the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and the London Palladium. He was knighted in 1992 and created an honorary life peer in 1997.

Stephen Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for Bounce (2003), Passion (1994), Assassins (1991), Into the Woods (1987), SUNDAY IN THE Park with George (1984), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sweeney Todd (1979), Pacific Overtures (1976), The Frogs (1974), A Little Night Music (1973), Follies (1971, revised in London, 1987), Company (1970), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965), and additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1981), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983), and Putting It Together (1992) are anthologies of this work as a composer and lyricist.

For films, he composed the scores of Stavisky (1974) and Reds (1981) and songs for Dick Tracy (1990), for which he won an Academy Award. He also wrote songs for the television production "Evening Primrose" (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973) and the play Getting Away With Murder (1996), and provided incidental music for the plays The Girls of Summer (1956), Invitation to a March (1961), and Twigs (1971).

He won Tony Awards for Best Score for a Musical for Passion, Into the Woods, Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, Follies, and Company. All of these shows won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, as did Pacific Overtures and SUNDAY IN THE Park with George, the latter also receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1985).

Sondheim was born in 1930 and raised in New York City. He graduated from Williams College, winning the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition, after which he studied theory and composition with Milton Babbitt. He is on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers, and lyricists, having served as its president from 1973 to 1981, and in 1983 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and in 1993 was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors. (Sondheim bio courtesy The Sondheim Review.)

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