NEW YORK - Andrew Lloyd Webber’s unbroken streak on Broadway – at least one of his musicals has been onstage since 1979 – will not end with the closing of The Phantom Of The Opera next year.

The famed 74-year-old composer announced on Monday that his next musical, Bad Cinderella, will begin performances on Feb 17, one night before the scheduled closing of the long-running Phantom.

Bad Cinderella, which had a previous run with a sparer title, Cinderella, in London, is a contemporary adaptation of the classic fairy tale, now with a consideration of beauty standards and body-shaming, plus bawdy language and same-sex relationships.

“It adds up to not so much a ball as a blast,” The Guardian’s Stage editor Chris Wiegand wrote in a five-star review, adding that it was “silly but warm and inclusive, with relatable, down-to-earth heroes and pertinent points about our quest for perfection and our expectations of each other and ourselves”.

The New York production is to star Linedy Genao, in her first leading role on Broadway.

Genao, who described herself in a news release as “a proud Dominican American”, was in the ensemble of the Broadway production of On Your Feet! and an understudy in the Broadway production of Dear Evan Hansen, and this autumn she is to star in a production of On Your Feet! at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey.

Bad Cinderella features music by Lloyd Webber (his many credits include Evita, Cats and Phantom), lyrics by David Zippel (City Of Angels), and a book by Emerald Fennell (she won an Academy Award for the screenplay of Promising Young Woman, 2020).

The director is Laurence Connor and the choreographer is JoAnn M. Hunter; they previously collaborated on Lloyd Webber’s School Of Rock.

The musical, produced by Mrs Christine Schwarzman’s company, No Guarantees, alongside Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group, will run at the Imperial Theatre, with a scheduled opening night of March 23.

The run in London was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic. When it finally opened last year, Mr Matt Wolf, a critic for The New York Times, declared it “worth the wait” and said it “looks set for a sturdy West End run”.

But that turned out not to be the case: It closed in June, after a run of less than a year.

Lloyd Webber said in a news release that the creative team has been developing “a few new songs” for the Broadway production. A spokesman said the show has also been redesigned. NYTIMES