On this day in 1987, Starlight Express opened on Broadway.
The train-themed musical originally opened in 1984 in the West End, where it ran for over 7,000 performances. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Arlene Phillips, the show was nominated for seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and went on to play 22 previews and 761 performances at the Gershwin Theatre before closing January 8, 1989.
In the musical, as a child’s train set magically comes to life and the engines race to become the fastest in the world, Rusty the steam train has little hope of winning until he is inspired by the legend of the "Starlight Express." Featuring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and book by Richard Stilgoe, Starlight Express's initial Broadway bow featured Greg Mowry, Robert Torti, Ken Ard, Reva Rice, Andrea McArdle, and Jane Krakowski.
Starlight Express has its roots in three other Lloyd Webber projects: an animated television series based on The Railway Series (Thomas the Tank Engine), a novelty pop single, and an animated Cinderella film.
In 1974, Lloyd Webber collaborated with Reverend W. Awdry to adapt his Thomas the Tank Engine stories into an animated TV series. A longtime locomotive enthusiast, Lloyd Webber composed a pilot episode of the program for England's Granada TV before the project was cancelled due to a perceived lack of interest in the material outside of the U.K. Ironically, a different animated series based on the stories, Thomas & Friends, premiered seven months after Starlight Express debuted. The series is one of the most successful in children's television history.
The novelty pop single was "Engine of Love," which Lloyd Webber and Peter Reeves wrote for American soul singer Earl Jordan in 1977. While the song failed to chart for Jordan, it has since been incorporated into some productions of Starlight Express, while the melody was repurposed for "He'll Whistle At Me."
The third root is in an animated television film Lloyd Webber was asked to write in the late 1970s. Inspired by the Cinderella fairytale, the film was to center on an anthropomorphized Train Prince holding a competition to decide which train would be the one pull the Royal Train across the United States. Cinderella was to be a steam engine, and the ugly sisters were to be a diesel engine and an electric engine. The project was abandoned relatively quickly, with no full material written for it, but the idea of competing trains ending in romance never left Lloyd Webber's mind until the culmination of Starlight Express.
Considered by some to be a novelty of its time, due to the use of 1980s trends such as heavy synthesizers, roller skating, and more, the musical has experienced a renaissance in recent years. While the show has long been a runaway German success, running for nearly 20 years in a purpose-built venue in Bochum, Germany, a 2024 London revival has newly made the show a viral sensation.
Directed by Luke Sheppard (& Juliet), the revival of Starlight Express officially opened June 30, 2024, at the specially designed Starlight Auditorium at Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre. The song "Pumping Iron", as performed by Al Knott, went significantly viral on TikTok, has led to numerous extensions, most recently through March 1, 2026. Read reviews for the production by clicking here, and check out photos from the original Broadway engagement below.
