West End heavyweight Andrew Lloyd Webber is teaming up with impresario Michael Harrison to create a new company.
Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals will be a new musical theatre partnership that sees the duo develop new musicals, and produce new productions from Lloyd Webber’s catalogue of shows and material.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed some of the world’s most successful musicals including The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, Aspects of Love – which is coming to the Lyric Theatre in May 2023 starring Michael Ball, Jesus Christ Superstar, Sunset Boulevard, Evita, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and more.
Michael Harrison is an acclaimed West End, UK and international producer whose productions include recent West End musical The Drifters Girl, forthcoming West End panto Jack and the Beanstalk at the London Palladium starring Dawn French, Oklahoma! coming to the Wyndham’s Theatre in February, and touring productions including Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Annie, Singin’ in the Rain and The Bodyguard.
Andrew Lloyd Webber said in a press statement: “I am excited to announce that I am entering into a production partnership with Michael Harrison. Michael is easily one of the world’s leading young theatre producers. Our partnership will build on our relationship which has already produced Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at The London Palladium. Michael has also brilliantly revived the annual Palladium pantomime. Julian Clary informs me that his Beanstalk will be the talk of London when Jack watches it grow in December. On a personal level, I am thrilled. I will now concentrate on composing knowing that I have a first-rate producer to collaborate with in the future.”
Michael Harrison said: “I am delighted to be joining forces with Andrew Lloyd Webber to create Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, which I hope will be a major force in producing musical theatre across the world. Andrew has written some of the greatest musicals of all time and I look forward to producing new interpretations of these shows as well as his new work and other musicals by writers Andrew and I both admire.”
The pair’s existing businesses – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group and Michael Harrison’s Michael Harrison Entertainment – will continue as normal.
Lloyd Webber recently celebrated 50 years in the West End, and back in March his Really Useful Group company announced a new push into film and TV with the hire of Charles Farmer.
