All composer wants for his birthday is a new show

NEW YORK— Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 70th birthday is coming up and it turns out there’s something the composer really wants. More work.

The man behind blockbuster shows Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and School of Rock has shows in London’s West End, Broadway and on tour, but he’d like to be composing another one.

“The biggest birthday present to me would be to know that I’ve found another subject. Genuinely, that’s what I would most want for my 70th birthday: to know I’m writing,” he said.

Lloyd Webber may actually be close to another musical subject but doesn’t want to jinx it by revealing details. “Knowing me, I’ll find some speed bump along the line,” he said.

His autobiography, Unmasked, is being released this month, along with a massive, four-CD collection of his songs, performed by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Lana Del Rey and Madonna.

The book covers the years from his birth to the birth of The Phantom of the Opera. Readers will learn how close he was to being cast as Mozart in Amadeus, the time he scribbled the title song in Jesus Christ Superstar on a paper napkin, how Judy Garland inspired “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” and the moment he accidentally exploded a bottle of Champagne all over Barbra Streisand’s hors d’oeuvres.

His 480-page autobiography ends in 1986 with Phantom: “I resembled a jelly about to enter a pizza oven.” But he doubts he’ll write a second volume. By the end of the first, several key relationships have frayed. “On the way down sometimes is when you see people’s true colours. I don’t want to write about that. I never want to write about the bad side of people or things,” he said.