History
During the 1970s, Lloyd Webber planned a musical adaptation of Rev W. Awdry's Railway Series books, featuring Thomas the Tank Engine. However, Awdry refused to give Lloyd Webber permission to use his characters as he felt that Lloyd Webber wanted 'too much freedom' with Thomas, the other engines, and characters. Following this, Lloyd Webber re-conceived the idea as "a Cinderella story" in which Rusty stands for Cinderella; Greaseball and Electra become the stepsisters; and the Starlight Express is the fairy godmother.
The music is mostly in the realm of disco and pop with a few pastiche songs such as the Country and Western styled "U.N.C.O.U.P.L.E.D.", love duet "Only You" and the title song, "Starlight Express". In some ways this musical could be seen as more of a return to the style of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, although the latter was more varied in its use of musical styles and influences.
Starlight has seen many stars in its cast, notably Jane Krakowski, Jeffrey Daniel (of the R&B/disco group Shalamar), Andrea McArdle, Ray Shell, Stephanie Lawrence, Frances Ruffelle, John Partridge, Rachel Wooding, Greg Ellis, Martyn Andrews, Reva Rice, Oliver Thornton, Jo Gibb, James Gillan Danny John Jules, PP Arnold, Lon Satton, Shezwae Powell and Greg Mowry. The show is a spectacle, featuring live stunts by professional skaters and a large racetrack built around the audience.
Read more about this topic: Starlight Express
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)