Webber Signs with WMA; Aims for American TV Casting Search

Broadway World - New York, NY, USA - Variety reports that Tony Award-winning composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber is going Hollywood, with plans for a new star-making TV reality talent search.

"The composer has signed with WMA, taking his first Hollywood agent ever because he wants to make a network deal for an American reality show that he'll topline, searching for a young unknown to star in one of his stage musical productions. WMA will not handle his stage business, which continues to go through his Really Useful Group," according to the article.

Webber may follow his UK success with "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" and "Any Dream Will Do" - the respective reality series that cast his West End productions of The Sound of Music and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - with a new show that will find a star for an American production of Joseph, for which he wrote the music to Tim Rice's lyrics. "He feels that with more than 250 productions performed last year in schools, it's a familiar subject matter for reality-rabid young viewers."  Lee Mead, who was in the title role of Joseph through "Any Dream Will Do," has already aquired a wide UK fanbase.