Cameron Mackintosh
Cameron Mackintosh has been producing shows since 1967 and remains the world’s most prolific producer of musicals in theatre history.
As well as producing three of the world’s longest running musicals – Les Misérables, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats – his legendary productions also include Miss Saigon, Oliver!, Mary Poppins (co-produced with Disney), Side By Side By Sondheim, Little Shop of Horrors, The Witches of Eastwick and Five Guys Named Moe. He has produced several hugely acclaimed revivals of My Fair Lady, Oklahoma! and Carousel as well as reinventing long running new productions of Les Misérables, Miss Saigon and The Phantom of the Opera.
Cameron’s new reimagined production of Oliver! opened to huge acclaim in Chichester this summer and will transfer to the West End later this year. Cameron recently presented the joyous Sondheim musical celebration Old Friends in the West End (with a terrific cast headed by legends Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga) that will arrive on Broadway in spring next year. Cameron is co-producer with Jeffrey Seller of Hamilton in London and on Tour in the UK.
In 2012, alongside Working Title Films and Universal, Cameron produced the hugely successful Oscar®, Golden Globe and BAFTA award-winning film adaptation of Les Misérables, which is one of the most successful movies ever of an original stage musical. To celebrate over 10 years since its release, the movie has been remixed and recently re-released in full Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision in selected cinemas around the world, as well as a new home vision 4K Blu-ray disc and iTunes download version of the film.
The staged concert version of Les Misérables has proved to be just as successful as the original musical and is returning this autumn to stadiums and stages around the world in a much-anticipated spectacular Arena Tour – which is already mostly sold out in the UK. The concert version of Les Misérables has been filmed three times – at the Royal Albert Hall, the O2 Arena and the Gielgud Theatre – and is continually rescreened on TV and in cinemas throughout the world and, alongside his spectacular Royal Albert Hall production of The Phantom of the Opera, regularly breaks attendance records for live recording performances of musical theatre.
Cameron owns and operates eight historic London theatres, which have all been spectacularly rebuilt and refurbished for the 21st century. They house many of London’s most successful hits. The Sondheim, formerly known as the Queen’s, now has a glorious auditorium and backstage and has been renamed in honour of Cameron’s great friend, theatrical legend Stephen Sondheim, who passed away in 2021. The last show he and Cameron were working on, Old Friends, had an all-star gala premiere at the Sondheim Theatre in 2022 and was later screened on BBC TV.
In 1990, Cameron inaugurated the Chair of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine’s College in Oxford University, with Stephen Sondheim as his visiting professor. The current Professor is world-renowned director, Gregory Doran. Music Theatre International, one of the world’s oldest and largest libraries of secondary rights of the greatest musicals ever written, is now one of Cameron’s companies.
Cameron was knighted in the 1996 New Year’s Honours for his services to British theatre and in June 2023, was awarded the Freedom of the City of London. He is the first British producer ever to be elected to Broadway’s Theater Hall of Fame.
