New documentary to highlight efforts to stage musicals across the world during the pandemic

A new documentary will follow efforts to stage musicals across the globe during the pandemic.

The documentary will focus on two Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals – The Phantom of the Opera and Cats (the latter of which ran in South Korea). Broadway producer Dori Berinstein (who oversaw The Prom) co-directs the documentary and today said: "I felt we had to document it…it was history and it would give hope to all of us in the theatre community to not give up."

Co-director Sammi Cannold saying: "Korea had musicals running for much of the pandemic, with theatres operating many times at full capacity, and yet there were zero cases of audience-to-audience transmission."

Simultaneously, the documentary will follow Lloyd Webber as one of a plethora of venue owners and creatives attempting to open shows in the UK. A number of venues and companies managed to stage productions across 2020, often in the face of great adversity and novel logistical hoops, with many having to close within days due to fluctuating lockdown conditions.

Titled The Show Must Go On, the documentary will: "chronicles the survival of the performing arts and the worldwide resuscitation of an artform with the fate of a global industry at stake. But more importantly, the film tells a human story – one of the resilience of storytellers and their determination to come together to heal, create, and inspire."

The documentary is currently in post-production, and was filmed in South Korea, the UK and the US.

Lloyd Webber's Cinderella is due to open this summer at the Gillian Lynne Theatre.

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