Joanna Riding, (born Joanne Riding 9 November 1967) is an English actress. For her work in West End musicals, she has won two Laurence Olivier Awards, and has been nominated for two others.

Riding was born in Lancashire, England, growing up on a farm, where her father ran a successful cheese-making business. She received theatre training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School from 1985-1989.

After leaving school, she worked at Chichester Festival Theatre for a season, playing Anne Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She met her former husband, actor Peter O'Brien, at Chichester. She was next cast as a replacement Sally in the West End production of Me and My Girl.

In 1993, Riding played the role of Julie Jordan in Nicholas Hytner's Royal National Theatre revival of Carousel and won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance. In 1995 she played Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music opposite Judi Dench, followed by Sarah Brown in Richard Eyre's acclaimed revival of Guys and Dolls, both at the National Theatre. She created the role of Jane Smart in The Witches of Eastwick in 2000, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and in 2003 played the role of Eliza Doolittle in Trevor Nunn's National Theatre revival of My Fair Lady, for which she won her second Olivier Award.

Stephen Thomas Ward (19 October 1912 – 3 August 1963) was an osteopath and artist who became notorious as one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, a British public scandal which profoundly affected the ruling Conservative Party government. Ward introduced the married British cabinet minister and MP John Profumo to a showgirl named Christine Keeler at a house party hosted at Lord Astor's country home, Cliveden, in the summer of 1961. Profumo's subsequent sexual relationship with Keeler and his false statement to the House of Commons regarding its nature led to Profumo's resignation.

Following the Profumo scandal, Ward was charged with living off the profits of prostitution ("immoral earnings"). Ward committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping tablets on the last day of the trial.

Ward was the son of Arthur Evelyn Ward, Canon of Rochester Cathedral. He was educated at Highgate School in London. In 1920 the family moved to Torquay when Ward's father became Vicar of St. Matthias.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber Kt. (born 22 March 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre.

Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. He has also gained a number of honours, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from the British Government for services to Music, seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006.

Several of his songs have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals, notably "The Music of the Night" from The Phantom of the Opera, "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar, "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" and "You Must Love Me" from Evita, "Any Dream Will Do" from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and "Memory" from Cats.