Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a sung-through musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, based on the character 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 in public 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 productions had been staged by schools and amateur theatre groups."Joseph benefits BBC Children in Need" , The Really Useful Group, 29 June 2007.
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 version, 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. 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 Act I 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 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, Go Joseph").
Act II 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 dreams, one involving seven fat cows, being devoured by seven skinny cows, and another about seven healthy ears of corn, similarly being devoured by seven withered ears of corn ("Song of the King").
Joseph declares that Egypt will see seven years of plentiful harvests, followed by an equal period of severe famine, and that Pharaoh must select a man to help Egypt prepare for the 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. As the seven plentiful years end, and the seven years of famine begins, Egypt, under Joseph's leadership, manages to persevere ("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 recognizing him, and Joseph realizes that as the brothers bow before him this is the dream he had years ago coming true. He initially suggests the brothers might be spies, but they sincerely insist they're struggling ("Grovel, Grovel"). Joseph gives them sacks of food, but in an act of revenge for their attempted fratricide, 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 Development and early vocal performances, publication, and recordings 1968–1971 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. They produced a demo tape of that work in 1966, but the project failed to gain a backer.Ellis, Samantha. "Joseph, London, February 1973". The Guardian. 24 September 2003.
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. 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. The request for the new piece came with a 100-guinea advance from Novello. 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. 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. 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.Jewell, Derek. "Pop Goes Joseph" . Sunday Times. 19 May 1968. Retrieved from TheMusicalCompany.com on 15 August 2017. By its third performance, at St Paul's Cathedral in November 1968, the musical had been expanded to 35 minutes.
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. 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. (vocalists)1969 Decca Concept Album – Credits 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.
The album was later issued in the US on Scepter Records in 1971, to capitalise on the success of 1970's Jesus Christ Superstar in the US.
Early stage performances
First American amateur productions 1970–1973 Lloyd Webber and Rice used the popularity of their subsequent musical, the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, to promote Joseph, which was advertised in America as a "follow-up" to Superstar. The rock opera's title song "Superstar" had been an international hit single released in late 1969, and "I Don't Know How To Love Him", another hit from Jesus Christ Superstar, was released 1 May 1970. The first American production of Joseph was an amateur stage production in May 1970, at Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, Queens, New York City. Following this, other schools and colleges sought to produce the piece.. London Palladium production programme, 1993. ReallyUseful.com.
Young Vic UK production and move to West End and Leicester 1972–1974 In late August and September 1972, Joseph was presented at the Edinburgh International Festival by the Young Vic Theatre Company, directed by Frank Dunlop. It starred Gary Bond in the title role, Peter Reeves as the narrator, and Gordon Waller as Pharaoh; Alan Doggett was the music director. In October the production played at London's Young Vic Theatre, and in November at the Roundhouse. The production was part of a double bill called Bible One: Two Looks at the Book of Genesis. Part I was Dunlop's reworking of the first six of the medieval Wakefield Mystery Plays, with music by Alan Doggett. Part II was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This production of Joseph, still a 35-minute musical, was also broadcast in the UK by Granada Television in 1972.