Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is an
Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
musicalMusical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
with lyrics by
Tim RiceSir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...
. The story is based on the "
coat of many colorsIn the Hebrew Bible, the coat of many colours is the name for the garment that Joseph owned. It may be a mistranslation, and the actual nature of the garment is subject to dispute...
" story of
JosephJoseph is an important character in the Hebrew bible, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt....
from the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
's Book of Genesis. This was the first Lloyd Webber and Rice musical to be performed publicly. Their first musical,
The Likes of UsThe Likes of Us is a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The original book was by Leslie Thomas. It is based on the true story of Thomas John Barnardo, a philanthropist who founded homes for destitute children...
, written in 1965, was not performed until 2005.
Joseph was first presented as a 15-minute pop
cantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
at
Colet CourtColet Court is a preparatory school for boys aged 7 to 13 in Barnes, London. It forms the preparatory department of St Paul's School, to which most Colet Court pupils go at the age of 13.-History:...
School in London in 1968 and was recorded as a
concept albumIn music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
in 1969.
