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Buy Tickets Online | Did You Know?
did-you-knowJoseph and the Technicolor Amazing Dreamcoat

Did You Know?

  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with lyrics by Tim Rice.
  • The story is based on the "coat of many colors" story of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible's Book of Genesis.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was the first Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical to be performed publicly. Their first musical, The Likes of Us, written in 1965, was not performed until 2005.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was first presented as a 15-minute pop cantata at Colet Court School in London in 1968 and was recorded as a concept album in 1969. After the success of the next Lloyd Webber and Rice piece, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat received stage productions beginning in 1970 and expanded recordings in 1971 and 1972.
  • The musical was produced in the West End in 1973 and opened on Broadway in 1982. Several major revivals followed, including a 1999 straight-to-video film starring Donny Osmond.
  • The show has very little spoken dialogue; it is almost completely sung-through.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was first created for and performed at Colet Court, the preparatory school for St Paul's School in London. Alan Doggett, head of the school's music department, commissioned the 15-minute piece from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice as a "pop cantata" for the school choir to sing at their Easter concert.
  • Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was initially advertised in America as a "follow-up" to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar, which had been at the top of the charts for months.
  • The first American production of Joseph was in May 1970, at Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Douglaston, New York.
  • The show was nominated for six Tony Awards in 1982, including Best Musical
  • 1992, the show won an Olivier Award and was nominated for five others, including Best Revival of a Musical.
  • The show has also proved popular in other languages. The world premiere of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in Spanish was presented in Venezuela in 1982, translated by Edwin Munoz and directed by Emilio de Soto, with 151 actors, singers and dancers, accompanied by an orchestra of 35 musicians and a rock group.