Lloyd Webber Honoured
Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals include Evita, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats, is among the select group who will receive the Kennedy Center Honors of 2006.
Two Tony Award winners and two actresses currently enjoying the roles of their careers will be part of the tribute to Lloyd Webber at the Dec. 3 event. It has been learned that Betty Buckley, who won a Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella in Lloyd Webber’s Cats, will join Sarah Brightman for a rendition of the Cats anthem “Memory.” Brightman created the role of Christine Daae in another Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera, and was also married to the composer for several years.
Elena Roger, the Argentine actress who is currently wowing London audiences in the acclaimed West End revival of Evita, will make her first U.S. stage appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors, performing a song from the Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical that charts the rise and fall of Eva Peron. And, the New York Post reports that Christine Ebersole, who opened to raves in the new Broadway musical Grey Gardens, will perform “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” the second-act showstopper from Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard.
Joining Lloyd Webber for the 29th Annual Kennedy Center Honors are conductor Zubin Mehta, country singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson and film director Steven Spielberg.
Source: www.playbill.com, photo by Associated Press.