Andrew Lloyd Webber attends the 78th annual Tony Awards. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s forthcoming musical The Illusionist has been shelved following creative differences with director Jamie Lloyd, according to sources close to the production, with the composer instead turning his attention to a new musical about the 1911 theft of Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.
London-based theater blogger Carl Woodward first reported the news on X. Representatives for Lloyd Webber and Lloyd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lloyd Webber announced The Illusionist in October 2024, with Lloyd — the hot director behind recent radical re-stagings of Webber classics like Evita and Sunset Boulevard — attached to direct.
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Loosely based on Steven Millhauser’s short story Eisenheim the Illusionist — which also inspired the 2006 film The Illusionist starring Edward Norton — the adaptation promised to “transport audiences into a world of mystery, romance and breathtaking stage magic,” according to Webber’s website.
The musical has a book by Chris Terrio and songs by Bruno Major, and was expected to open in the West End, with Lloyd Webber more recently targeting a 2027 premiere.
Cracks in the collaboration became public when Lloyd Webber told Variety in 2025 that it was “much too early” to confirm a director for the project, adding that, for a new work, “it needs to be someone I’m comfortable with.”
Sources now say the project has been shelved outright rather than simply awaiting a new director — a characterization that has not yet been confirmed by either camp.
The shift comes as Lloyd Webber has been devoting his energy to a different project: a musical dramatizing the true story of the Mona Lisa‘s 1911 disappearance from the Louvre, when Italian glazier Vincenzo Peruggia removed the painting from the wall and kept it hidden for two years before attempting to ransom it.
Lloyd Webber confirmed the project earlier this year, saying only, “More than that I cannot really tell you, for the simple reason that I’m going away next week to write it.”
Lloyd Webber’s production company is currently backing Cats: The Jellicle Ball, a reimagining of his 1981 musical, which opened on Broadway on April 7. He is Broadway’s most commercially successful composer, best known for The Phantom of the Opera, which closed in 2023 after a 35-year run — the longest in Broadway history.
A well-reviewed touring version of Phantom is currently encamped in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
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