While the big-screen adaptation of his musical Cats may not quite have landed on all four feet, Andrew Lloyd Webber is moving on with his next major project.
The composer’s musical reinvention of Cinderella — first announced by The Hollywood Reporter in 2018 — is due to open at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End this summer, with previews beginning in September, it was announced Friday.
The contemporary take on the classic fairy tale is based on an original idea by Emerald Fennell, the Emmy-nominated lead scriptwriter on Killing Eve‘s second season, with a new score from Lloyd Webber and lyrics by David Zippel, whose work has included Broadway productions such as City of Angels, The Goodbye Girl, Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White and Disney animations Hercules and Mulan.
Cinderella will be directed by Laurence Connor, with choreography from JoAnn Hunter, who previously partnered on Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock at the Gillian Lynne Theatre and the recent, sold-out production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at The London Palladium.
“I have long wanted to write my own version of Cinderella but could never find a take on the classic story that really grabbed me,” said Lloyd Webber. “Emerald Fennell has written something truly exciting and original, and the moment I read her outline I knew I’d found my latest collaborator. I’m very pleased to be working with David Zippel, a hugely witty lyricist, once again.”
Fennell, meanwhile, will be in Sundance with her new film A Promising Young Woman, which she wrote and directed and stars Carey Mulligan, while as an actress she currently appears on Netflix’s The Crown, playing Camilla Parker Bowles.
