Andrew Lloyd Webber Ditches ‘The Illusionist’ for Mona Lisa Musical

Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s forthcoming musical The Illusionist has been shelved following creative differences with director Jamie Lloyd, according to sources close to the production, with the composer instead turning his attention to a new musical about the 1911 theft of Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.

London-based theater blogger Carl Woodward first reported the news on X. Representatives for Lloyd Webber and Lloyd didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. A supply inside the Webber camp pushed again on Illusionist being lifeless endlessly, nonetheless, calling it a “huge musical which takes a lot of time.”

Lloyd Webber introduced The Illusionist in October 2024, with Lloyd — the new director behind latest radical re-stagings of Webber classics like Evita and Sunset Boulevard — hooked up to direct.

Loosely based mostly on Steven Millhauser’s brief story Eisenheim the Illusionist — which additionally impressed the 2006 movie The Illusionist starring Edward Norton — the difference promised to “transport audiences into a world of mystery, romance and breathtaking stage magic,” according to Webber’s website.

The musical has a ebook by Chris Terrio and songs by Bruno Major, and was anticipated to open within the West End, with Lloyd Webber extra not too long ago concentrating on a 2027 premiere.

Cracks within the collaboration grew to become public when Lloyd Webber told Variety in 2025 that it was “much too early” to verify a director for the undertaking, including that, for a brand new work, “it needs to be someone I’m comfortable with.”

Sources now say the undertaking has been shelved outright quite than merely awaiting a brand new director — a characterization that has not but been confirmed by both camp.

The shift comes as Lloyd Webber has been devoting his vitality to a unique undertaking: a musical dramatizing the true story of the Mona Lisa‘s 1911 disappearance from the Louvre, when Italian glazier Vincenzo Peruggia eliminated the portray from the wall and stored it hidden for 2 years earlier than making an attempt to ransom it.

Lloyd Webber confirmed the undertaking earlier this 12 months, saying solely, “More than that I cannot really tell you, for the simple reason that I’m going away next week to write it.”

Lloyd Webber’s manufacturing firm is at present backing Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a reimagining of his 1981 musical, which opened on Broadway on April 7. He is Broadway’s most commercially profitable composer, greatest identified for The Phantom of the Opera, which closed in 2023 after a 35-year run — the longest in Broadway historical past.

A well-reviewed touring model of Phantom is at present encamped in Los Angeles on the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.