Cameron Mackintosh

Cameron Mackintosh (1946- ), leading British commercial theatre producer, whose successful productions since the late 1970s have led a renaissance in the British musical, both in the West End and on Broadway. His hit shows include Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, and Mary Poppins.

Mackintosh was born in Enfield, London, on October 17, 1946. He decided at the age of eight that he would like to be a theatre producer, after being taken to see the musical Salad Days. He enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama but left to take up a job as a stagehand at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane before completing his studies. At Drury Lane he began to learn the business of producing from the impresarios Emile Littler and Robin Alexander, and in 1969 produced his first musical as an independent producer, a revival of Anything Goes. This, along with other early Mackintosh productions including Trelawney (1972) and The Card (1973), was not a commercial success.

In 1976 he scored his first significant success with Side By Side by Sondheim, a compilation of songs by the American musical theatre composer Stephen Sondheim, who was at that time little known in Britain. Popular revivals of Oliver! (1977), My Fair Lady (1979), and Oklahoma! (1980) followed. Jeeves Takes Charge (1981), his first venture into co-production with the composer and producer Andrew Lloyd Webber, was a critical failure, but their next venture established both Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber as the two major forces in British commercial theatre. Cats (1981), based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by the poet T. S. Eliot and directed by Trevor Nunn, was an unlikely hit, making stars overnight of little-known performers such as Elaine Paige. It opened at the New London Theatre in 1981 and subsequently transferred to Broadway and other major cities worldwide, returning rich dividends to its investors. It heralded a new era for the British musical and set a new style, with its large ensemble cast and unusual subject-matter.

Mackintosh’s next major project was equally bold. Working again with Nunn and a Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) cast, he produced Les Misérables (1985), an adaptation of the classic 19th-century humanitarian novel by Victor Hugo. Disliked by the critics, Les Misérables was immediately embraced by audiences and transferred from its RSC home in the Barbican Theatre to the West End. In 2002 it became the first major Western musical to be staged in China, and in 2006 it superseded Cats as the longest-running musical in history. Mackintosh’s partnership with Lloyd Webber continued with the production of The Phantom of the Opera (1986), another of the 1980s West End “mega-musicals”. In 1989 he produced Miss Saigon, a modern Madam Butterfly, set during the fall of Saigon. In 1994 he revived Oliver! at the Palladium, and in 1996 premiered, less successfully, Martin Guerre at the Prince Edward. He then opened a new musical comedy The Witches of Eastwick, based on the novel by John Updike, in 2000 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. A long-cherished project, the stage musical of Mary Poppins based on the book by P. L. Travers and the 1964 Disney film, opened in London in 2004 and on Broadway in 2006. He also brought the Broadway show Avenue Q to London in 2006.

His financial contributions have enabled the Royal National Theatre to mount revivals of Carousel (1993), directed by Nicholas Hytner, and Oklahoma! (1998) and My Fair Lady (2001), both directed by Trevor Nunn. He has contributed to small-scale musical productions at some of London’s smaller theatres, including the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park (which revived The Card with his help in 1995) and the Theatre Royal Stratford East, helping its home-grown production of Five Guys Named Moe (1991) to transfer to the West End.

Mackintosh is the operator of seven West End theatres: the Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Novello, Gielgud, Queen's, Wyndham's, and Noel Coward. He also announced plans in 2003 to build a new venue on Shaftesbury Avenue, The Sondheim, to house transfers from innovative smaller theatres such as the Donmar Warehouse and Almeida.

Through the Mackintosh Foundation he is a supporter of theatrical charities and special projects, especially those involved in developing young composers and new musical theatre works. In 1991 he endowed the Chair of Musical Theatre at Oxford University, with Stephen Sondheim the first visiting professor. He was knighted for services to British theatre in 1996.