IT'S BEEN MORE than four years in the making, is said to be the most expensive theatrical presentation ever and its producer likens the process to climbing Everest. From the mixed reaction of the critics, there's a way to climb yet.
But then staging a musical version of The Lord of the Rings was never going to be easy. Producer Kevin Wallace started work on the US$25 million show in November 2001, before the first of Peter Jackson's trilogy hit the big screen. The 48-year-old and his team - writer/director Matthew Warchus, co-writer Shaun McKenna, and set and costume designer Rob Howell - spent 18 months in discussions and negotiations before the deal to produce the show was signed.
At its core, the J.R.R. Tolkien epic is a tale of good versus evil. But its scope is enormous, and Wallace wondered at first whether it could be successfully brought to the stage. But as he read on, he became more convinced that it could.
Wallace was in-house producer for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group (Whistle Down the Wind and The Beautiful Game) for almost seven years, which involved working on the likes of Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
He credits Webber's influence in guiding him in his new venture. 'I think that in terms of production values, he was a huge influence. [His shows] all had very high quality production values.'
The biggest hurdle was to balance the grandeur of the production with the more intimate stories of its characters. The Lord of the Rings tells of the adventure of Frodo, a hobbit who must destroy the Ring before it destroys all that is good in the world.
