Doggett Performance Analysis

In 1967, Andrew Lloyd Webber was approached by family friend and recent collaborator, Alan Doggett to compose a new work for the Colet Court School in London. Doggett, who was the head music teacher for the school, had recently worked with Andrew and his new writing partner Tim Rice on their first collaboration The Likes of Us. Doggett requested a “pop-cantata” based on the Old Testament for the school choir to perform at the end-of-the-term Easter concert. After the development process, the first performance of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat took place on March 1, 1968, at the Old Assembly Hall, Colet Court. The first performance of Joseph was conducted by Alan Doggett, featuring the St. Paul’s School Orchestra and was only 20 minutes long. Due to its success, an encore performance was presented two months later at Central Hall, Westminster, where Andrew’s father was the organist. The encore performance played to a full house filled with members of the St. Paul’s School community and,

and North America in some capacity for almost 30 years. Most recently, the 2015 North American tour of Joseph, which was directed and choreographed by Hamilton’s Andy Blankenbuehler, starred “American Idol” alum Diana DeGarmo and Ace Young. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is one of the most performed musical in history with an estimated 30 million people having attended a production somewhere around the world. Today there are nearly 600 school or amateur productions in North America, 300 in the U.K., with other productions being produced in Australia, Europe and South Africa. Renewed by another generation of children, parents and communities every single year, the popularity of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat lives on today. You now get to carry on the show’s impressive 50-year history with your performance or by attending an upcoming