BBC News reports that the title player in an upcoming West End revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat will be found through a television reality show. Graham Norton, who hosted “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?,” will host the upcoming program as well, which is titled “Any Dream Will Do,” a song title from Joseph.
Composer Lloyd Webber as well as a panel of experts — and television viewers — will help cast Joseph as well as an actress to play the Narrator and an actor to play Pharaoh/Elvis.
Lloyd Webber told BBC News, “The success of ‘How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?’ this summer was a real boost for musical theatre in Britain and I was particularly thrilled with the reaction from schoolchildren up and down the country. I cannot wait to get them involved in ‘Any Dream Will Do’ and to get back into the studio with Graham. Joseph started in schools and I am looking for a great school choir - to play in the West End, we need a smashing girl, a great boy and of course a Pharaoh/Elvis."
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which features music by Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, concerns the titular Biblical boy who is sold into slavery by his brothers, who envy their father's favor toward him. Joseph then embarks on a journey which leads him to Egypt where — because of his portending dreams — he saves the country from famine and eventually his brothers from death.
Joseph has played Broadway twice: in 1982 at the Royale Theatre with a cast led by Bill Hutton (Joseph) and Laurie Beechman (Narrator) and in 1993 at the Minskoff with Michael Damian (Joseph) and Kelli Rabke (Narrator). *
The forthcoming Broadway revival of Grease will cast its leads via the reality TV program "You're The One That I Want,” which debuts on NBC Jan. 7, 2007.