Tim Rice Reveals Why He'll Never Work with Andrew Lloyd Webber Again

Though their musical mega-hits Jesus Christ Superstar (1971) and Evita (1979) are both enjoying high profile Broadway revivals this spring, lyricist Tim Rice and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber won’t be writing another show together any time soon.

“No,” Rice recently told The Telegraph, when asked about the possibility of another Lloyd Webber/Rice musical. “I don’t think it would be any good. You’ve got to have a young element in a show. Any project needs youth and dynamism as well old codgerdom and experience. The two of us trying to write something wouldn’t work. We’re not relevant as a team any more.”

While they won’t be working as a team anymore, both men are both busy working on new projects—Lloyd Webber on a musical about a 1960s British sex scandal and Rice on an adaptation of classic romance From Here to Eternity. Rice and Lloyd Webber recently publicly butted heads over Superstar, a reality TV show in which Lloyd Webber is planning to cast the next Jesus in a West End production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Rice called the endeavor “tacky.”

Despite their current differences of opinion, Rice isn’t disparaging the massive successes of their youthful collaboration, which also includes Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. “We had a great 10 years. Very few artistic partnerships last more than 10 years, and if they do they tend to go down the tubes,” Rice said, though he wouldn’t elaborate on their rumored tiffs. “We have a few ups and downs, like any marriage.”