Norma's home at last! West End and Broadway director Jamie Lloyd (Cyrano de Bergerac, A Doll's House) reimagines one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best-loved musicals – based on the Billy Wilder film - for a whole new generation.
Famed movie star Norma Desmond has been cast out of the Hollywood limelight. Living in a suffocating world of dreams, memories and regrets, a chance encounter with screenwriter Joe Gillis may be her only hope — unless their volatile affair destroys them both
Before it was a musical, Sunset Boulevard was a 1950 film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. The film is led by Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws him into her deranged fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen.
The movie was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three. In 1989 it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry and in 1998, it was ranked number 12 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century.
A musical version of the beloved story was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton. The original 1993 West End production, directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Bob Avian, featured Patti LuPone as Norma Desmond, Kevin Anderson as Joe Gillis, Meredith Braun as Betty Schaefer, and Daniel Benzali as Norma's ex-husband, Max.
Soon after, it had its American premiere in Los Angeles, this time starring Glenn Close as Norma, Alan Campbell as Joe, George Hearn as Max, and Judy Kuhn as Betty. In 1994 it moved to Broadway, where it opened at the Minskoff Theatre on November 17. It was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won in seven categories, including Best Musical and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a musical for Close.
Since then, the musical has toured extensively, and enjoyed international productions in Canada, Germany, Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa and many more countries across the world.
In 2017, Glenn Close reprised her performance as Norma Desmond in a revival on Broadway at the Palace Theatre. Featuring a 40-piece onstage orchestra and a relatively minimalist set, it was directed by Lonny Price.
In early 2023, it was announced that Nicole Scherzinger would lead an all-new production at London's Savoy Theatre, directed by Lloyd. When it began performances in September, it immediately grabbed the attention of theatergoers worldwide as an extraordinary reimagination of Lloyd Webber’s iconic musical.
The Broadway cast is led again by Scherzinger, with her acclaimed London co-stars: Tom Francis as ‘Joe Gillis’, Grace Hodgett-Young as ‘Betty Schaefer,’ and Olivier Award winner David Thaxton as ‘Max Von Mayerling.’ Mandy Gonzalez is the Norma Alternate at certain performances.
Drenched in champagne and cynicism, Sunset Boulevard scrutinizes the ambitions and frustrations of its characters and their intoxicating need for fame and adoration.
Lloyd’s revival proves we don’t need a live rendering of Norma Desmond’s gaudy wardrobe, or a large spiral staircase for her to traipse down. He gives us all the pieces to make new meaning of Webber’s classic musical, and asks us to take up the challenge. As Sunset’s aspiring screenwriter Betty Schafer (Grace Hodgett Young) sings directly to the house, breaking the fourth wall, “Audiences are smarter, smarter than you think.”
All that luscious black-and-white video, the backstage winks, the fuck-you deadpan in fuck-me boots—it’s fun. I never expected to have fun at an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. (Even this summer’s queer ballroom makeover of Cats was, well, Cats.) Lloyd’s camp yet surgical staging fuses form and content: it’s the resurrection of a faded (kitsch) icon, a critique of the invasive camera, a cosplay of the BDSM rituals of celebrity and fandom. Just as Scherzinger inhabits Norma within giant neon quotation marks, the whole production seems to admit the overall musical is trash. What happens if you dress up trash as art and stick a camera in its face? Twenty feet high, those faces—coldly sensual graven images—demand your abject worship. It’s a thin line (movie-screen thin) between glamour and horror. “We gave the world new ways to dream,” an enraptured Norma sings. Lloyd finds new ways to give us nightmares; who wants to wake?
1993 | West End |
Original London Production West End |
1993 | Regional (US) |
Los Angeles Production Regional (US) |
1994 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
1995 | Canada |
Toronto Production Canada |
1996 | US Tour |
1st National Tour US Tour |
1998 | US Tour |
2nd National Tour US Tour |
2004 | London Fringe |
London Concert Revival London Fringe |
2016 | West End |
English National Opera West End Revival West End |
2017 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
2023 | West End |
West End |
2024 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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