Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a sung-through musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the character of Joseph from the Bible's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly; their first collaboration, The Likes of Us, written in 1965, was not performed until 2005. Its family-friendly retelling of Joseph, familiar themes, and catchy music have resulted in numerous stagings. According to the owner of the copyright, the Really Useful Group, by 2008 more than 20,000 schools and amateur theatre groups had staged productions.[2]
Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat
Tim Rice
1972 Edinburgh International Festival[1]
1973 West End
1974 UK full-length production
1982 Broadway
1991 West End revival
1993 Broadway revival
2003 West End revival
2007 West End revival
2019 West End revival
2021 West End revival
2022 UK Tour
2022 Australian Tour
2023 Toronto Tour
2024 New Zealand Tour
2025 UK Tour
Joseph was first presented as a 15-minute "pop cantata" at Colet Court School in London in 1968, and was published by Novello and recorded in an expanded form by Decca Records in 1969. After the success of the next Lloyd Webber and Rice piece, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph received amateur stage productions in the US beginning in 1970, and the first American release of the album was in 1971. The musical had its professional premiere, as a 35-minute musical, at the Haymarket ice rink during the Edinburgh International Festival in 1972. It was Part Two of Bible One, a Young Vic Theatre Company production presented by the National Theatre of Great Britain.[1] While still undergoing various modifications and expansions, the musical was produced in the West End in 1973. In 1974, its full modern format was performed at the Haymarket Theatre in Leicester and was also recorded that year. The musical was mounted on Broadway in 1982. Several major revivals, national tours, and a 1999 direct-to-video film starring Donny Osmond followed.
Synopsis[edit]
Act I[edit]
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is based on the story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis.
A Narrator opens the show by introducing Joseph, the dreamer ("Prologue"). Joseph sings an inspiring, but seemingly meaningless song to the audience ("Any Dream Will Do"). The Narrator then draws the audience's attention to Joseph's father Jacob and his 12 sons ("Jacob and Sons"). Jacob favours Joseph over his other sons, and he gives Joseph a multicoloured coat to show his affection for him. Joseph is ecstatic about this gift ("Joseph's Coat"), while his brothers look on with jealousy.
The brothers’ jealousy is compounded by Joseph's dreams, which suggest that he is destined to rule over them ("Joseph's Dreams"). To stop this from happening, they try to kill him by throwing him down a pit, before changing their minds and selling him as a slave to some passing Ishmaelites. The Narrator comments on how powerless Joseph was to stop this ("Poor, Poor Joseph").
To hide what they have done, Joseph's brothers and their wives tell Jacob that his beloved son has been killed. As proof, they show him Joseph's coat, which they have torn to pieces and covered in goat's blood ("One More Angel in Heaven"). When the devastated Jacob exits, the brothers and wives cheerfully celebrate Joseph's departure ("Hoedown").
Meanwhile, Joseph is taken to Egypt, where he is bought as a slave by the wealthy Potiphar. He works hard and is promoted, eventually running the household. Joseph catches the eye of Mrs Potiphar and although he turns down her advances, Potiphar sees them together and jumps to the wrong conclusion ("Potiphar"). Enraged, he throws Joseph in jail.
A heartbroken Joseph laments his situation ("Close Every Door"). Two prisoners, both former servants of the Pharaoh, are put in his cell. Joseph interprets their strange dreams and predicts the Butler will return to Pharaoh's service, while the Baker will be executed. As Joseph questions his predictions, the other prisoners encourage Joseph to follow his own dreams ("Go, Go Joseph").
Act II[edit]
The Narrator opens the second act with news that the Egyptian populace has been plagued by dreams that no one can interpret ("Pharaoh Story"). The Butler, now freed and again serving Pharaoh, tells him of Joseph's skill at deciphering dreams ("Poor, Poor Pharaoh"). Pharaoh has Joseph brought to him and describes his dream involving seven fat cows, seven skinny cows, seven healthy ears of corn, and seven dead ears of corn ("Song of the King").
Joseph declares that Egypt will see seven years of plentiful harvests, followed by an equal period of famine ("Pharaoh's Dreams Explained"). Impressed with what he hears, Pharaoh pardons and frees Joseph, makes him his second-in-command, and puts him in charge of famine preparations ("Stone the Crows").
Meanwhile, Joseph's family back home is now starving and poor, having lost their farm and living off scraps in a brothel. Joseph's brothers regret what they did to him and how they lied to their father, thinking that things might have turned out differently if Joseph was still with them ("Those Canaan Days"). Hearing that Egypt still has food, they travel there to beg for supplies ("The Brothers Come to Egypt").
In Egypt, the brothers beg for food from Joseph, not realising who he is and Joseph realises that as the brothers bow before him this is the dream he had years ago coming true ("Grovel, Grovel"). Joseph gives them sacks of food, but plants a golden cup in the one belonging to Benjamin, his youngest brother. When the brothers attempt to depart, Joseph stops them, accusing them of theft. Each brother empties his sack ("Who's the Thief?"), and when the cup is found in Benjamin's sack Joseph accuses him of stealing. The other brothers beg Joseph to take them prisoner instead and let Benjamin go free ("Benjamin Calypso").
Joseph sees that his brothers have changed and reveals who he really is ("Joseph All the Time"), then sends for Jacob ("Jacob in Egypt"). Upon meeting Jacob for the first time in years, Joseph sings "Any Dream Will Do" again, and the lyrics are revealed to be a vague overview of the story. Jacob returns Joseph's coat to him, now fully repaired ("Give Me My Coloured Coat")
In some productions, the cast perform a medley of songs from the show as they take their bows ("Joseph Megamix").
Production[edit]
Development and early vocal performances, publication, and recordings 1968–1971[edit]
The 17-year-old budding musical-theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was contacted by the 20-year-old aspiring pop-songwriter Tim Rice in 1965, and they created their first musical, The Likes of Us.[3][4] They produced a demo tape of that work in 1966,[5] but the project failed to gain a backer.[4]
In the summer of 1967, Alan Doggett, a family friend of the Lloyd Webber family who had assisted on The Likes of Us and who was the music teacher at the Colet Court school in London, commissioned Lloyd Webber and Rice to write a piece for the school's choir.[5][3][6][7][4] Doggett requested a "pop cantata" along the lines of Herbert Chappell's The Daniel Jazz (1963) and Michael Hurd's Jonah-Man Jazz (1966), both of which had been published by Novello and were based on the Old Testament.[5] The request for the new piece came with a 100-guinea advance from Novello.[5] This resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph, in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiched a number of pop-music styles.
The piece was first presented as a 15-minute pop cantata at Colet Court School in London on 1 March 1968.[3][8][9] Lloyd Webber's composer father William arranged for a second performance at his church, Methodist Central Hall, with a revised and expanded 20-minute format; the boys of Colet Court and members of the band Mixed Bag sang at this performance in May 1968.[9][8][10][6] One of the children's parents in that audience was Derek Jewell, a Sunday Times music critic; he reviewed the piece in the newspaper, calling it a new pop oratorio and praising its innovation and exuberance.[4][11] By its third performance, at St Paul's Cathedral in November 1968, the musical had been expanded to 35 minutes.[12][6]
Novello published the lyrics and sheet music of the 20-minute version at the beginning of 1969, as the third of their Old Testament pop cantatas.[5][9] Decca Records, which had already recorded the St Paul's Cathedral version of the musical in the summer of 1968, released the recording in 1969, credited to the Joseph Consortium, following the Novello publication.[5][9][13][14][15] David Daltrey, front man of British psychedelic band Tales of Justine, played the role of Joseph and lead guitar, and Tim Rice was Pharaoh. Other vocalists included members of the Mixed Bag group, such as Terry Saunders and Malcolm Parry, and the choir of Colet Court School.[13][14][15]
A 32-minute recording of the musical with 19 tracks was issued in the US on Scepter Records in 1971.[16] It was a reissue of the 1969 Decca UK album, capitalising on the success of 1970's Jesus Christ Superstar in the US. It featured Daltrey as Joseph, Rice as Pharaoh, William S. Lloyd Webber on the Hammond organ, Alan Doggett conducting, and the Colet Court choir as the chorus.[17]