Ryan's Reviews

The tunes Andrew has recycled from himself over the years. Here are all the ones that I know about, in chronological order. "The Likes of Us" (first performed in 2005) with lyrics by Tim Rice: Parts of 'I'm a Very Busy Man' reappear in 'I Hope You like It Here' from "The Woman in White" (2004). 'Love Is Here' becomes 'Travel Hopefully' in both "Jeeves" (1975) and the revised version "By Jeeves" (1996). 'The Likes of Us' becomes 'Variation 18' from "Variations" (1978) which is performed as the dance half of "Song and Dance" (1982). 'We'll Get Him' verses become the music for the Ishmaelites in 'Poor, Poor Joseph' from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" (1968). 'A Man on His Own' comes from Andrew's 1963 song 'Make Believe Love' recorded by Wes Sands. This song is included on Disc 5 of the ALW set "Now & For

There was a very exciting release in the Jim Steinman community recently: the 1988 demos of Jim's score for a stage musical of "The Graduate" from the book by Charles Webb, upon which the movie from 1967 was based. Here is a quote from the New York Times, by the way, to give you a bit of an idea: https://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/18/theater/on-stage.html So, what happened? This story in Variety from November 3, 1997 may shed some light: "...In the late ‘80s, the Nederlanders brought him in to work on a planned musical of "The Graduate" for which Robert Merrill ("Funny Girl") had already written a score. "Bob was under the impression that I was hired as 'youth consultant,' and I was 39 years old at the time. He was horrified and rightfully so, and it just fell apart..." One thing for certain is that there was a stage version written and directed by Terry Johnson. This was first mounted on April 5, 2000 at the Gielgud Theatre in Lond

"But then he made two albums without Steinman—Welcome to the Neighborhood in 1996 and the current Couldn't Have Said It Better, which failed to achieve Bat heights. Obviously he needed Steinman musically. Steinman's career was also having its ups and downs—he wrote Bonnie Tyler's hit single 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and the lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down the Wind, but his own show Dance of the Vampires flopped spectacularly on Broadway. So the other day he rang Meat Loaf and told him he was busy writing Bat 3—he claims to have written eight songs already..." That comes from a piece by Lynn Barber in The Observer Sunday 7 December 2003. Let's say things had progressed from there. Let's say that, somehow, Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman committed to making an album called "Bat out of Hell III: The Final at Bat" and went into the studio. A lot of things needed to work out here. Meat needed to be happy. Jim needed to be happy

This, to the best of my knowledge, is all of the musicals composed by Frank Wildhorn: "Jekyll & Hyde" with book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse conceived for the stage by Steve Cuden and Frank Wildhorn based on the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was first produced at the Alley Theatre in Houston, May 1990. The Broadway production opened at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (formerly the Plymouth) in April 1997. Check out "The Complete Work" album with Linda Eder and Australia's Anthony Warlow. This is followed by "Svengali" with lyrics by John Bettis, Gregory Boyd and Frank Wildhorn, book by Gregory Boyd based on "Trilby" by George du Maurier. It was produced at the Alley Theatre in April 1991 and the Asolo Theatre in Florida the same year. No recording has been made, but a few of the demos are on Linda Eder's 2003 compilation "Storybook". Listen to "Vole Mon Ange", Trilby's aria in the second act. Frank compl

When Thomas Stearns Eliot died on 4 January, 1965, he had left behind a body of work that included poetry: Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), Poems (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ariel Poems (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), Four Quartets (1945), and more. Plays: Sweeney Agonistes (1926), The Rock (1934), Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), The Cocktail Party (1949), The Confidential Clerk (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958). Non-fiction: Tradition and the Individual Talent (1920), Selected Essay, 1917-1932 (1932), A Choice of Kipling’s Verse (1941), The Frontiers of Criticism (1956), and more. Thank you, Baron Wikipedia. By May 1981, composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber had written scores for musicals including: The Likes of Us (1965, unproduced until 2005), Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1970), Jeeves (1975), and Evita (1976). Three of them

With the help of the local second hand stores and other stores, I was able to complete the remainder (or at least most) of my Disney Feature Animation collection. That includes *breathe, we’re going to do this now* Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, and I will resist mentioning Dad's joke about Winnie the Pooh), The Rescuers (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Oliver & Company (1988), The Little Mermaid (1