<P> In some productions, the finale is followed by a rock / disco medley of most of the musical's major numbers ("Joseph Megamix"). </P> <P> The 17 - year - old budding musical - theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was introduced to the 20 - year - old aspiring pop - song writer Tim Rice in 1965, and they created their first musical, The Likes of Us . They produced a demo tape of that work in 1966, but the project failed to gain a backer . </P> <P> In the summer of 1967 Alan Doggett, a family friend of the Lloyd Webbers who had assisted on The Likes of Us and who was the music teacher at the Colet Court school in London, commissioned Lloyd Webber and Rice to write a piece for the school's choir . Doggett requested a "pop cantata" along the lines of Herbert Chappell's The Daniel Jazz (1963) and Michael Hurd's Jonah - Man Jazz (1966), both of which had been published by Novello and were based on the Old Testament . The request for the new piece came with a 100 - guinea advance from Novello . This resulted in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a retelling of the biblical story of Joseph, in which Lloyd Webber and Rice humorously pastiched a number of pop - music styles . </P> <P> The piece was first presented as a 20 - minute pop cantata at Colet Court School in London on 1 March 1968 . Lloyd Webber's composer father William arranged for a second performance at his church, Westminster Central Hall, with a revised and expanded format; the boys of Colet Court and members of the band Mixed Bag sang at this performance in May 1968 . One of the children's parents in that audience was the Sunday Times music critic; he reviewed the piece in the newspaper, calling it a new pop oratorio and praising its innovation and exuberance . By its third performance, at St Paul's Cathedral in November 1968, the musical had been expanded to 35 minutes . </P>

When was joseph and the technicolor dreamcoat written