CMU School of Drama


Friday, October 17, 2008

Lloyd Webber in bid to expand musical empire

ThisIsLondon: "The writer of hit shows such as Cats and Phantom Of The Opera is preparing an offer for the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organisation.
The group owns the rights to 100 songwriters including Irving Berlin, who wrote White Christmas as well as hit musicals such as Oklahoma and South Pacific of Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dont particularly like the idea of one person owning the rights to such a huge repetoir of music, of classic old school broadway music. it makes me even more nervous that that person should be none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber. i guess its better than disney but i just pray he doesnt webbter-ify it all. what a huge shame that would be.

Kelli Sinclair said...

In reality Webber isn't really expanding the musical empire; just making it smaller. If he gets the rights to all these songs then there are going to be fewer people in the business. Sure there are other names out there, but as for the classics there Webber and Rodgers and Hammerstein. And classics are all regional and high school theatres do. This is just going to make it harder and more centralized.

Josh Smith said...

Little do people know, but ALW already has a monopoly on theatre - at least in the west end. ALW and Cameron Macintosh together own a sorry percentage of theaters in the London Theatre District. In fact - if a production wants to get a theatre - it better hope that an ALW or CMcintosh show doesn't need a theatre.