Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group Rebrands as LW Entertainment
The group manages the EOGT winner’s body of work, including The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita.
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Heather Gershonowitz
Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Really Useful Group, which manages and develops his entire body of work, is rebranding, and will now be known as LW Entertainment. The London-based group is led by CEO James McKnight.
The company manages Lloyd Webber’s expansive entertainment portfolio, which includes such musicals as The Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Sunset Boulevard, and Starlight Express, among others. The rebrand brings the group more in line with Lloyd Webber’s theatre management firm, LW Theatres.
The move comes in a moment of resurgence for Lloyd Webber’s work. Sunset Blvd. just closed a high-grossing, Tony-winning revival at Broadway’s St. James, a repeat of similar success in London’s West End. Press notes announcing the re-brand also confirm that the forthcoming news of a return for Cats: “The Jellicle Ball” will indeed be on Broadway, and a Jamie Lloyd-directed revival of Evita is currently in London’s West End and eyeing a Broadway transfer as well. Beyond traditional stages, an immersive Sleep No More-esque version of his long-running The Phantom of the Opera, titled Masquerade, is currently in previews Off-Broadway.
“It is a privilege to be part of the next chapter of the Lloyd Webber family business,” says McKnight in a statement. “For nearly 50 years, this company has worked with the best in the industry to deliver transformational entertainment. LW Entertainment is about doing more of the same. We want to spread our impact across the world, taking the magic of Andrew’s work into more formats. I firmly believe that great business strategy is led by creativity, passion, and partnership. Looking around us, I am not sure we could ask for much more.”
“‘The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation,’ a quote from Bob Iger which perfectly reflects LW Entertainment,” adds Madeleine Lloyd Webber, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wife and group president of LW Entertainment and LW Theatres. “This is a very exciting new chapter for our family business, while respecting and building upon RUG’s extraordinary legacy. The Lloyd Webber family are aligned and share the vision of LW Entertainment: to create, entertain, excite, challenge, disrupt, and inspire audiences across many art forms for generations to come. The brilliant team led by James McKnight, ably supported by our chairman David Chance and the rest of our Board, have already delivered innovation, and I’m excited and optimistic about the ambitious plans they have for the future.”
“I am thrilled that the final piece of the reorganization of the Lloyd Webber companies is complete,” concludes Lloyd Webber. “Our CEO James McKnight, together with Madeleine Lloyd Webber and our chairman, David Chance, has restructured the entire senior management team to reflect the business’ commitment to exploiting its copyrights in the most innovative way.
“To mark this sea change in The Really Useful Group’s story, the company is to be renamed LW Entertainment to represent the broadening of its work across different entertainment fields, whilst bringing it into line with LW Theatres which has just completed its most successful trading year ever. As usual, every penny of LW Theatres’ profit will be ploughed back into the buildings.
“LW Entertainment will focus solely on copyright exploitation, with theatrical production handled by Michael Harrison for Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals, building on the success of the acclaimed productions of Starlight Express, Sunset Boulevard, and now Evita at The London Palladium. The next major productions will be the Broadway transfer of Cats: The Jellicle Ball and my new musical, The Illusionist.
“In addition, LW Entertainment has licensed the immersive production Masquerade, based on The Phantom of the Opera, currently in early previews in New York. This is part of significant, global plans for The Phantom of the Opera over the coming years across live theatre, film, publishing, music, and many other areas.
“LW Entertainment is a family company, and I am blessed that all four of my children are major contributors to the board. My wife, Madeleine Lloyd Webber, is group president of LW Entertainment and LW Theatres. The recorded music exploitation, guided by Alastair and Billy Lloyd Webber, has already resulted in successful albums for Starlight Express and Sunset Boulevard, the latter reaching number one. With the strongest team I could possibly hope for in place, I will focus on what I have always loved most—music.”
Visit AndrewLloydWebber.com.
Jesus Christ Superstar Playbill – Oct 1971
Jeff Fenholt and cast
Friedman-Abeles/©NYPL for the Performing Arts
Evita Playbill – Opening Night, Sept 1979
Patti LuPone
Martha Swope/©NYPL for the Performing Arts
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Laurie Beechman and Bill Hutton
Cats Playbill – Opening Night, Oct 1982
Cast
Martha Swope/©NYPL for the Performing Arts
Song and Dance Playbill – Oct 1985
Bernadette Peters and Christopher D’Amboise
Robert Torti and company in the original Broadway production of Starlight Express.
Martha Swope / The New York Public Library
Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman in The Phantom of the Opera.
Aspects of Love Playbill – June 1990
Ann Crumb and Michael Ball in Aspects of Love.
Sunset Boulevard Playbill – Opening Night, Nov 1994
Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard
Craig Schwartz
By Jeeves Playbill – Opening Night, Oct 2001
Martin Jarvis (left) is Jeeves and John Scherer is Bertie Wooster in By Jeeves.
Maria Friedman in the The Woman in White.
Alex Brightman and the kid band from School of Rock—the Musical (2015).
Matthew Murphy
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source playbill.com ’
