Gillian Lynne

Gillian Lynne was the original creator and collaborator on many of the world’s most iconic musicals. As choreographer of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, The Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love, she combined her unique dance styles with her directorial and staging brilliance to create unforgettable theatrical moments.Her long and distinguished career embraced many disciplines: ballerina, dancer, performer, choreographer, director. Whilst best known for some of the longest-running and most popular theatre successes of all time, her work across many other art forms has also been groundbreaking: The Muppet Show Series (TV), Yentl and Half A Sixpence (Film), 60 plus shows on Broadway and the West End, Operas, Ballets, productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Royal Opera House and TV.She received numerous accolades: two Olivier Awards (Cats 1981) and The Special Award for Lifetime Achievement (2013), Austria’s Silver Order of Merit, Golden Rose of Montreux, Engel Television Award (USA) , BAFTA for her TV Direction of A Simple Man and the Moliere Award (Paris 1989). Gillian was honoured with CBE (1997) and DBE in the 2014 New Years Honours List for her services to Dance and Musical Theatre. In June 2018 Andrew Lloyd Webber officially renamed the New London Theatre after her, the first non-royal woman to be honoured in this way in the West End: the Gillian Lynne Theatre.July 2019 saw the official launch of the Foundation that Gillian and her husband created, The Dame Gillian Lynne and Peter Land Foundation, which provides funding for aspiring young students of the performing arts and benefits the institutions she was closely affiliated to. www.lynneandlandfoundation.co.ukGillian’s work continues to support an Industry she loved through the grace, energy and spirituality of her artistry which plays somewhere in the world tonight.