- Opening date
- November 9, 1968
- Cast album
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Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
- Comments
- Musical or operetta with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Bible's book of Genesis. In 1967, Alan Doggett, a music teacher at Colet Court school in Hammersmith, London, UK, was planning an Easter end of term concert. One of his pupils was Julian Lloyd Webber. Mr Doggett approached Julian’s older brother, Andrew, and asked him if he could write a pop cantata suitable for a school choir. Andrew asked his friend Tim Rice to write lyrics for the project. Tim suggested the story of Joseph. The first performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” was on 1 March 1968 at the Old Assembly Hall of the school. Accompanied by the school orchestra and conducted by Alan Doggett the performance was only 15 minutes long, but it was such a success that a second performance (extended to 20 minutes) was arranged on 12 May 1968 at Central Hall, Westminster, where Andrew’s father was the organist. A third performance took place on 9 November 1968 at St Paul’s Cathedral, where Joseph was expanded to include songs such as ‘Potiphar’ for the first time. In January 1969 Decca released an album of the St Paul’s Cathedral version of Joseph credited to The Joseph Consortium