The Stage 100 2014: numbers 3 to 10

3. Andrew Lloyd Webber

Really Useful Group

Last year: 6th

Highest previous: 1st

Productions include: Stephen Ward, The Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, Jesus Christ Superstar

Turnover: £152m (Really Useful Group Holdings Ltd)

Coming up in 2014: School of Rock stage musical planned, film version of Joseph

After the disappointing performance of his last new musical, Love Never Dies, Lloyd Webber will be hoping that Stephen Ward proves to have more sticking power.

As a follow-up to his greatest-ever success Phantom, Love Never Dies sounded like it would be a sure-fire hit. Stephen Ward, on the other hand, sounds like a long shot, and advance sales have not been spectacular. Still, we’ve been wrong before. Reviews have been mixed, and time will tell whether it proves a popular success.

Elsewhere during 2013, some of the stars of Lloyd Webber’s glittering back catalogue enjoyed outings. Cats toured, Jesus Christ Superstar played arenas and Evita continues to be a stalwart of the touring circuit under the stewardship of Bill Kenwright.

Lloyd Webber also operates some of the West End’s most beautiful theatres – hosting some of London’s most successful shows – and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is as handsome as ever, following a £4 million restoration.

Perhaps his greatest impact on the theatre industry last year was through his eponymous foundation, which continues to be a hugely benevolent force. Paines Plough, ArtsEd Schools and Chickenshed are among many companies who benefited from grants in 2013. The £3.5 million given to create a new theatre at ArtsEd was particularly generous.

 

4. Cameron Mackintosh and Nick Allott

Cameron Mackintosh Ltd and Delfont Mackintosh

Last year: 4th

Highest previous: 1st

Productions include: Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Barnum

Turnover: £54m (Cameron Mackintosh Ltd); £32m (Delfont Mackintosh)

Coming up in 2014: Miss Saigon in the West End, Les Miserables on Broadway

 

The West End production of Les Miserables has continued to ride high on the waves of success created by its 2012 film adaptation, but elsewhere it wasn’t the busiest of years for Mackintosh.

Barnum had been earmarked for a West End berth post-Chichester, but failed to pass muster on the south coast. This forced him to go back to the drawing board with a rejigged tour planned for later this year. Meanwhile, Miss Saigon prepares to land at the Prince Edward, where advances suggest a big hit.

In the US, 2014 will see the return of Les Mis to the Great White Way. Mackintosh continues to be one of the West End’s key theatre owners, with the Noel Coward Theatre enjoying a particularly fine year as home to the Michael Grandage Company, while the Prince of Wales looks to have a new long-term tenant in the shape of The Book of Mormon.

Allott serves as Mackintosh’s managing director and is a key player elsewhere in his roles on various boards such as Soho Theatre and Theatres Trust.

 

5. Sonia Friedman

Sonia Friedman Productions

Last year: 11th

Highest previous: 7th

Productions include: The Book of Mormon, Mojo, Jerusalem, Old Times, The Sunshine Boys (on Broadway)

Turnover: £1.2m

Coming up in 2014: Shakespeare in Love, Ghosts (in the West End), Harry Potter on stage

 

It has been a remarkable year for Friedman, the highest riser in this year’s Stage 100. She is now firmly established as the West End’s – and, arguably, Broadway’s – key producer of ‘quality, serious theatre’. What made 2013 particularly special was that she also had her finger in the pie for the most successful new musical of the year, The Book of Mormon, and its most lauded – a revival of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. She was a co-producer on both.

Her play output hasn’t slackened either, with a high-class revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times, West End transfers of Almeida hits Chimerica and Ghosts, not to mention the US transfer of Mark Rylance’s Shakespeare double bill, which has been breaking house records on Broadway. This year will see her produce a stage adaptation of Tom Stoppard’s film Shakespeare in Love. It has the whiff of a sure-fire hit.

Sonia Friedman Productions is a subsidiary of the Ambassador Theatre Group – an arrangement that seems to be working well for both parties, as Friedman helps supply product for many of ATG’s venues.

 

6. Michael Grandage and James Bierman

Michael Grandage Company

Last year: 7th

Highest previous: 2nd (Grandage) 

Productions include: Henry V with Jude Law, A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Sheridan Smith and David Walliams, The Cripple of Inishmaan with Daniel Radcliffe

Turnover: n/a

Coming up in 2014: Grandage to begin work on his first feature film, Genius

 

Grandage’s eponymous commercial theatre company really made its mark in 2013 with a season that provided some of the year’s artistic highlights, but was also greater than the sum of its parts.

Kicking off with Privates on Parade, starring Simon Russell Beale, and rounding up with Jude Law as Henry V, it proved that an artistically led, commercial season could survive (and in fact thrive) in the West End, while also providing a connected programme of outreach work that one might expect from a subsidised organisation, not to mention a canny offering of £10 tickets for all the season’s shows.

If not all the productions hit the heights (Peter and Alice was a disappointment for many, despite fine performances from Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw) there was plenty to enjoy, especially Daniel Radcliffe’s turn as The Cripple of Inishmaan, which proved decisively that he has moved beyond his Harry Potter beginnings.

The expectation is that Grandage and his executive producer Bierman will now turn their attention to film – at least in the short term – but it must be hoped that they will return to the West End in the very near future with another bumper season of quality fare.

 

7. Bill Kenwright

Producer

Last year: 12th

Highest previous: 6th

Productions include: Twelve Angry Men, Cabaret, Evita, Dreamcoats and Petticoats

Turnover: £34m (Bill Kenwright Limited)

Coming up in 2014: Lots. Let the Right One In, Foxfinder, Chin Chin, Oleanna, Dangerous Corner. We could go on

 

With Blood Brothers having left its long-time home at the Phoenix Theatre in October 2012, Kenwright is no longer the literal West End ever-present that he once was, but he has still been prolific in 2013.

Cabaret, with Will Young as the Emcee, returned to town for a limited run and the year ended with a new staging of Twelve Angry Men at the Garrick.

It is outside London, though, where Kenwright’s influence has really been felt. He has been one of the few commercial producers not to cut back on their output in the regions, with Evita, Blood Brothers, Starlight Express and Cabaret all stalwarts of the circuit. Meanwhile, he helped reopen the beleaguered Broadway Theatre in Peterborough with a season of his shows.

There’s plenty on the roster for 2014 too – with productions ranging from French farce Chin Chin to a West End transfer for the stage adaptation of cult horror film Let the Right One In, all chomping at the bit in the Kenwright stable. His other love – Everton Football Club – hasn’t had a bad year either…

 

8. Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer

Nimax Theatres

Last year: 8th

Highest previous: 5th

Productions include: Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

Turnover: £13m (Nimax LLP)

Coming up in 2014: Transfer of Beckett trilogy from Royal Court to Duchess

 

It was a year that started well and ended badly for Nimax. Burns had picked up a well-deserved OBE in the New Year honours back in January 2013, but in December, an accident at the Apollo Theatre, which Nimax operates, saw part of the venue’s ceiling collapse and injure several audience members.

Prior to that, Burns and Weitzenhoffer (joint owners of Nimax) had been enjoying a productive 2013. Following their purchase of the Palace Theatre from Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2012, they did not add to their theatre stock (although with a 350-seat in-the-round space in the offing post-2017) but they have been busier on the production front.

Early in the year they picked up an Olivier award as co-producer on the superb Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which they have since followed up with more quality fare such as the West End transfer of Chichester’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and Sweet Bird of Youth at the Old Vic.

The Palace, meanwhile, saw its tenant change from Singin’ in the Rain to The Commitments, which Burns and Weitzenhoffer will be hoping is in for the long haul.

Their production year ended with new West End political satire The Duck House opening at the Vaudeville. This year, they will transfer three works by Beckett into the Duchess Theatre.

 

9. Gregory Doran and Catherine Mallyon

Royal Shakespeare Company

New entry (RSC was placed fifth last year)

Productions include: Matilda the Musical, Richard II starring David Tennant

Turnover: £61m

Coming up in 2014: Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies opens; Antony Sher as Falstaff

 

A transitional year for the RSC, but not without its successes. The company waved goodbye to Michael Boyd and Vikki Heywood and welcomed Doran and Mallyon to the Stratford-upon-Avon hot seats.

Matilda continues to do good business in the West End and has performed admirably, if not quite as spectacularly, on Broadway.

Back home, Doran has hit the ground running – as might be expected from someone with his long association with the company – and his staging of Richard II with David Tennant was one of the classical highlights of 2013. Its transfer to one-time RSC London home the Barbican also marked the start of a new relationship between the two venues – a development that could be the most significant of the year in terms of the RSC’s future.

Financial results also showed a dramatic upturn – buoyed by Matilda’s commercial success, the RSC posted record turnover of more than £60 million.

 

10. Dominic Dromgoole and Neil Constable

Shakespeare’s Globe

Last year: 14th

Highest previous: 14th

Productions include: Richard III, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Tempest, The Lightning Child, Blue Stockings

Turnover: £20m

Coming up in 2014: The opening of indoor theatre space the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse; The Duchess of Malfi starring Gemma Arterton; Hamlet world tour

 

Last year’s winner of The Stage’s London theatre of the year award, Shakespeare’s Globe continued to impress throughout 2013. It is one of the most significant not-for-profit arts organisations in the UK, an ever-expanding global brand.

Meanwhile, the quality of work on stage now consistently stands up to the venue’s popular appeal. Its productions of Richard III and Twelfth Night, starring Mark Rylance, transferred to Broadway, where they were big hits.

Back on home turf, the company’s summer season saw Eve Best make her directorial debut with Macbeth and Roger Allam appear as Prospero, while it continued to be a major presence across the UK through its touring work (Henry VI, King Lear and Taming of the Shrew).

Its first attempt at a musical – The Lightning Child – may not have quite hit the mark, but underlined the fact that Shakespeare’s Globe is now a progressive theatre, unconfined by the playwright in its title.