Andrew Lloyd Webber Puts the ‘Bad’ in Bad Cinderella: Why is this Musical Selling on Broadway?

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s latest musical venture Bad Cinderella has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons: both critics and audiences agree that this is a blatantly bad musical. That’s not even my lone opinion. The musical opened on Broadway on March 23rd and was welcomed by the most brutal reviews I have ever read. The New York Times goes as far as to title their review “‘Bad Cinderella’ Review: The Title Warned Us” while the New York Post labeled the musical: “‘Bad Cinderella’ review: A wacko storybook dumpster fire on Broadway”. Not the most flattering of review titles to have major publications write about a production’s opening night. 

Bad Cinderella is a lazy, money-grabbing exploitation of the Cinderella story we all know and love. The music is loud and unoriginal, consisting of undertones of Webber’s smash hits Evita and Phantom of the Opera. Despite Oscar winner Emerald Fennell (original story and book), Alexis Scheer (book adaptation), and Webber collaborating on this project, the book and lyrics are embarrassingly cringeworthy. The direction and intent of the production is muddy and confusing. The New York Times sums it up best: “That’s because “Bad Cinderella” is not the clever, high-spirited revamp you might have expected, casting contemporary fairy dust on the classic story of love and slippers… Instead, it’s surprisingly vulgar, sexed-up and dumbed-down: a parade of hustling women in bustiers and shirtless pec-rippling hunks. Finally, a Cinderella for streetwalkers and gym rats!” The musical had the potential to tell a different Cinderella, offering a twenty-first century critique on the everso popular fairytale. Instead, it failed in every way.

This musical originally opened on the West End during the pandemic and closed about one year later in June of 2022. The original production opened to negative reviews with Webber ultimately branding the musical a “costly mistake.” A few months after the West End production closed, Webber announced that a revised version of the West End flop was headed to Broadway. So, why is a musical that has been panned by both critics and fans being given a Broadway platform? Money, marketing, and the Webber name. 

To be upfront, the musical has survived for as long as it has because of the Andrew Lloyd Webber name attached to the production. For those of you who weren’t theater kids in high school (I cannot say the same), Andrew Lloyd Webber is one the most well-renowned musical composers of all time. Just some of the musicals in his catalog include Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor DreamCoat, Phantom of the Opera, Evita, Cats, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Many of his musicals have become smash hits, cementing the theater mogul as one of the greatest musical composers ever. Webber’s musicals have reigned (uninterrupted) on Broadway since Evita opened in 1979. Well… that was until Phantom of the Opera, the longest running Broadway musical of all time, announced that it would be playing its final performance on Broadway on April 16th, 2023. Despite the negative reviews Bad Cinderella received in London, many thespians speculate that the composer insisted on bringing the musical to Broadway in an attempt to extend Webber's reign on The Great White Way. Webber has a history of co-producing some of his musicals and clearly has the status and connections to lure producers to his projects. Since the billionaire has, well, billions at his disposal, the composer clearly had the funds and fame to campaign to bring his newest musical to an American audience. 

Was Andrew Lloyd Webber, a 74 year-old cisgender white man, the right individual to bring a 21st century, Gen-Z, feminist retelling of Cinderella to Broadway? To be blunt, absolutely not. But at this point in Webber’s career, he can create whatever he wants, no matter the quality, and people will flock to see it. With such critically-acclaimed successes under his belt, Webber has the ability to fill theaters just by attaching his name to a production. 

I actually ventured to the Imperial Theater to experience Bad Cinderella for myself and see if the production was really as bad as people said. It was. In fact, it was worse than I expected. I did not enjoy more than five minutes of this production. While the production has an incredibly hardworking, talented cast, their talent is wasted on blatantly lazy, cringeworthy, overlysexualized material. If I knew the show was going to be as bad (or worse) than I expected, why exactly did I go? Bad Cinderella’s marketing strategy. 

Bad Cinderella being, well, bad is part of the lure of the production. That’s why I stomached the production. And apparently I was not the only one to see Bad Cinderella on Broadway. Playbill records that people are paying up to $297.00 to watch Bad Cinderella with the show’s capacity being just over 91% for its first week out of preview performances. Bad Cinderella has harnessed all of its poor press surrounding the production, in turn, branding the production ‘rebellious’. Utilizing graffiti fonts, fake paparazzi shots, and pop culture trends, Bad Cinderella places a different kind of emphasis on the ‘Bad’ in Bad Cinderella than their press. 

The Broadway show also utilizes social media platforms such as Tik Tok to their advantage, applying trends and the show’s Broadway stars to content to create buzz for the show. From riffing off of The Real Housewives to utilizing audios from Keeping up with the Kardashians in videos, it appears as if the content produced by the Bad Cinderella team appears to be intently cringeworthy. On a personal note, my Tik Tok ‘For You Page’ has been bombarded with Bad Cinderella content for the past couple of months, not only increasing my awareness about the production, but ultimately inspiring me to take a trip to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s kingdom of Belleville. 

Bad Cinderella is quite a terrible show. This is not a positive review and I am not pushing anyone to spend their money on the production. This saddens me to say as the source material and creative team have seen incredible success in the past. However, there is no denying the genius of the musical’s marketing techniques. Bad Cinderella will not be seeing any semblance of the success Webber’s Phantom of the Opera has seen. And yet, it is truly remarkable that, despite the most brutally awful reviews this production has received, people are still filling seats with some paying top dollar. Hey, at least the musical is appropriately named!