Aspects of Love, one of Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber's rare Broadway flops, will briefly return to the American stage in a revised version performed by The Palo Alto Players, April 26-May 12 in Palo Alto, CA.

The through-composed musical, first seen in London prior to its 1990 Broadway bow, features the popular song, "Love Changes Everything," and is often referred to as a soap opera set to music, but is thought by some to be Lloyd Webber's most complex, intimate and human work. Others regard it a delicious guilty pleasure. Charles Hart and Don Black penned lyrics.

True to its soap opera form, Aspects of Love presents a dizzying array of relationships and relations in a tale of love lost and found. Alex, a soon-to-be solider, meets the actress Rose and falls in love with her. He brings her back to his Uncle George's villa where she meets the older man and falls in love with him. George's mistress, Giulietta, isn't too upset about losing her man — she's taken with Rose herself. Their emotions only grow more entangled when Rose and George's daughter Jenny falls in love with Alex.

Despite a short run on Broadway, Aspects of Love produced one of Lloyd Webber's best known songs — "Love Changes Everything." Other numbers include "Seeing Is Believing," "Chanson d'Enfance," "Other Pleasures," "The First Man You Remember," "Hand Me the Wine and the Dice" and "Anything but Lonely."

Palo Alto Players is mounting a newly-licensed and edited version of Aspects of Love. Among the cuts from the show are a hayloft scene in which Jenny spies on Alex and Guilietta and the brief "Wall Song." San Francisco cabaret star and recent Dean Goodman Choice Award winner Alison Bloomfield is Rose with Joe Hudelson as Alex. Also in the cast are Sara Betts of Crowded Fire and Dan Adamson (George).

Mike Ward, founding artistic director of Isis Arts Collective (Counting the Ways, Hotel Bethlehem), directs and choreographs, while tackling the role of Marcel. The musical director is Matthew Stenquist Mattei.

Tickets are $26-$18. The Lucie Stern Theater is located at 1305 Middlefield Road. For reservations, call (650) 329-0891.

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The Palo Alto Players is a 71-year-old theatre company based in California's Bay Area. The 2001-02 "season of love" also included the musical revue Personals, The Herbal Bed and Sylvia. Filmdom's Jack Palance and Danny Glover both appeared in productions with the Players — Palance in The Philadelphia Story in 1946 and Glover in Of Mice and Men in 1976.

— By Christine Ehren
and Kenneth Jones