Andrew Lloyd Webber: An 'Odd Fish'

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the composer and producer behind singing cats, opera phantoms, and technicolor dreamcoats. He changed the shape and sound of the musical stage and was recently named a Kennedy Center Honoree.

Lloyd Webber's show "Phantom of the Opera" is the longest-running show in Broadway history, with worldwide ticket sales in the billions of dollars. But for Webber, that isn't a entirely good thing.

"Nobody could ever anticipate that 'Phantom' would do what it did," he told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen. "I'll never in my career ever have anything as big as that again, 'cause it's just un-toppable."

Lloyd Webber composed his first piece of music when he was only 6, but said he doesn't remember doing it. He does remember writing music as a child and said he had his own toy theater to stage "absolutely dreadful musicals" for his family to watch.

Within a couple of decades, Lloyd Webber began to create some of the most exciting and successful stage shows in history with lyricist Tim Rice. They drew inspiration from the some of the most unlikely sources — like Jesus Christ mixed with psychedelic rock. That became the ultra-successful musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." He has tackled everything from animals to politics to religion.

"My experience is, is that if you have a subject that is really off the wall, those tend to be the ones that are successful," he said. "And it's the ones that are the safe ones, and you sort of take Mark Twain or something and do it as a musical, well, curtains, you know. It just doesn't work. I like to make people sit up and think a bit. I like to think that musical theater can carry forward with new subjects which are a little bit dangerous."

For Lloyd Webber, it's about something even bigger than the imagination: collaboration. Stage musicals require many artists to work together and share their talents — unlike any other art form.

"I mean, you could so easily get them wrong," he said. "I don't write lyrics; somebody else has to do that. I can't. I think I'm all right on script construction, but I can't actually write dialogue — so other people have to come in to help. There has to be the director, the choreographer, the lighting. Everything has gotta be right and gel."

It's his unique sensibility that allows Webber to go from making a musical about trains, played by actors on roller skates, to one about Eva Perón, wife of former Argentine president Juan Perón. He calls himself an "odd fish," but his versatility is one of the reasons he was honored by the Kennedy Center.

"As a Brit, to get something like this from America is extraordinary," he said. "I mean, I never expected it. To get this when it is really from America means a lot."