Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed the scores of some of the world’s most famous musicals. His shows have run continuously in London’s West End for 50 years and ran for 43 uninterrupted years on Broadway.

When the original Sunset Boulevard joined School of Rock, CATS, and The Phantom of the Opera he equalled Rodgers & Hammerstein’s record of four shows running simultaneously on Broadway. He is one of the select group of artists with EGOT status, having received Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.

Lloyd Webber owns six London theatres including the iconic London Palladium and Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Reopened in July 2021, the latter was completely restored and renovated at a cost of over £60 million. This was one of the biggest projects ever undertaken by a private theatre owner in recent times. His mantra is that every penny of profit made from his theatres is ploughed back into the buildings for their conservation and development.

Lloyd Webber is passionate about the importance of musical education and diversity in the arts. Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation provides 30 performing arts scholarships every year for talented students with financial need, and supports a range of projects such as the Music In Secondary Schools Trust (MiSST).

In academic year September 2025 - 2026, 14,885 children are being given free musical tuition and instruments as part of MiSST's Andrew Lloyd Webber Programme. The Foundation also commissions research into diversity in theatre.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has composed music for globally significant moments. Most recently, he was asked to compose “Make a Joyful Noise”, the anthem for the Coronation of King Charles III.

Andrew Lloyd Webber was knighted in 1992, created an honorary life peer in 1997, and made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter by King Charles III in 2024. He is the only person in the arts ever granted this personal honour by a monarch.

Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri on 26 September 1888. He was educated at Harvard, at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England in 1915 and taught briefly at two schools before joining Lloyds Bank in the City of London in their foreign and colonial department. His first volume of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations, was published in 1917. The Waste Land, his most famous work, came out in 1922. In 1925 he left the bank to become a director of the publishing house of Faber. There have been several collected editions of his poetry and volumes of his literary and social criticism. T S Eliot also wrote a number of verse plays, the best-known of which, Murder in the Cathedral, was commissioned for the Canterbury Festival of 1935. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats appeared in October 1939. (Eliot had a great affection for cats and ‘Possum’ was his alias among his friends.)

Four Quartets, generally regarded as his masterpiece, was first published as a single work in 1943. T S Eliot became a British citizen in 1927. He received many honours and distinctions, among them the Order of Merit and the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was awarded posthumously the 1983 Tony Award for the book of Cats. He was also an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur. He died in London in 1965 and there is a memorial to him in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.

For Regent’s Park as Director/Choreographer: Brigadoon, On The Town (Director & Choreographer); Jesus Christ Superstar, Carousel (Choreographer).

For McOnie Company: The Artist (Theatre Royal Plymouth - UK Theatre Award Winner for Best Direction); Nutcracker (Southbank Centre - National Dance Award Winner for Best Independent Company); Jekyll and Hyde (Old Vic Theatre - Broadway World Award Winner for Outstanding Achievement in Dance); DRUNK (Bridewell Theatre); Making Midnight (Jermyn Street Theatre/Latitude Festival).

As Director/Choreographer: King Kong (Broadway Theatre - Broadway); Strictly Ballroom (Piccadilly Theatre - West End - What’s On Stage Award Nominee, Best Theatre Choreography); The Wild Party (The Other Palace); Torch Song Trilogy (Turbine Theatre).

As Choreographer: In the Heights (Southwark Playhouse/Kings Cross Theatre - Olivier Award and Offie Award Winner for Best Theatre Choreography); Hairspray (Broadway World Award Winner for Best Theatre Choreography); Oklahoma (UK National Tour); Bugsy Malone (Lyric Hammersmith/UK National Tour); The Lorax (Old Vic Theatre); Sound of Music, Chicago (Curve Leicester).

Film includes: Greatest Days - The Official Take That Movie (Choreographer).

Ballet includes: Merlin (Northern Ballet - National Tour); XYZ (Classical Creative Project); Little Red (NYB, Hackney Empire); Old Man of Lochnagar (NYB, Sadler’s Wells).

Drew McOnie became the Artistic Director and Joint Chief Executive of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in January 2024. He is also the Artistic Director of The McOnie Company and a proud Associate Artist of The Old Vic Theatre.