Webber’s musicals have reigned (uninterrupted) on Broadway since Evita opened in 1979. Many of his musicals have become smash hits, cementing the theater mogul as one of the greatest musical composers ever. Just some of the musicals in his catalog include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamCoat, Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Cats, and Jesus Christ Superstar. For those of you who weren’t theater kids in high school (I cannot say the same), Andrew Lloyd Webber is one the most well-renowned musical composers of all time. To be upfront, the musical has survived for as long as it has because of the Andrew Lloyd Webber name attached to the production. So, why is a musical that has been panned by both critics and fans being given a Broadway platform? Money, marketing, and the Webber name. The original production opened to negative reviews with Webber ultimately branding the musical a “costly mistake.” A few months after the West End production closed, Webber announced that a revised version of the West End flop was headed to Broadway. This musical originally opened on the West End during the pandemic and closed about one year later in June of 2022. Finally, a Cinderella for streetwalkers and gym rats!” The musical had the potential to tell a different Cinderella, offering a twenty-first century critique on the everso popular fairytale. The New York Times sums it up best: “That’s because “Bad Cinderella” is not the clever, high-spirited revamp you might have expected, casting contemporary fairy dust on the classic story of love and slippers… Instead, it’s surprisingly vulgar, sexed-up and dumbed-down: a parade of hustling women in bustiers and shirtless pec-rippling hunks. The direction and intent of the production is muddy and confusing. Despite Oscar winner Emerald Fennell (original story and book), Alexis Scheer (book adaptation), and Webber collaborating on this project, the book and lyrics are embarrassingly cringeworthy. The music is loud and unoriginal, consisting of undertones of Webber’s smash hits Evita and Phantom of the Opera.
Not the most flattering of review titles to have major publications write about a production’s opening night.īad Cinderella is a lazy, money-grabbing exploitation of the Cinderella story we all know and love. The New York Times goes as far as to title their review “‘Bad Cinderella’ Review: The Title Warned Us” while the New York Post labeled the musical: “‘Bad Cinderella’ review: A wacko storybook dumpster fire on Broadway”. The musical opened on Broadway on March 23rd and was welcomed by the most brutal reviews I have ever read. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical venture Bad Cinderella has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons: both critics and audiences agree that this is a blatantly bad musical.
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