[Source: CCN Entertainment]

Andrew Lloyd Webber is the American theater’s favorite punching bag.

It’s easy to hate on the enormously rich British lord whose musicals, despite their commercial success, are frequently considered among the emptiest and most confounding shows in the canon.

He’s written musicals about Jesus Christ, Cinderella, and anthropomorphic trains, and they’ve all attracted some degree of critical hostility.

So when did Lloyd Webber get cool?

A string of new, drastically different revivals of Lloyd Webber’s most famous shows are dragging his work into the present — and inspiring his many detractors to reappraise the divisive composer.

On the West End, Rachel Zegler is leading a younger, sexier “Evita” whose Broadway transfer seems inevitable.

A recent revival of “Cats” set in the downtown ballroom scene is rumored to return to New York soon.

“Sunset Boulevard” just completed its celebrated run that won its Pussycat Doll leading lady a Tony.

And earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo assumed the title role in a one-night-only performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” that was lauded by the composer himself.

And the Phantom of the Opera is already haunting New York City again in “Masquerade,” an immersive new take on “Phantom,” formerly the longest-running Broadway show before its 2023 closure.

The recent revivals have succeeded artistically because they’re “fairly radical reimaginings from the original text,” said Amanda Eubanks Winkler, a professor and musicologist who leads Rutgers University’s department of music.

“It’s taking, weirdly, this avant-garde theatrical toolkit and applying it to the most mainstream popular theater,” said Eubanks Winkler, who’s also writing a book on Lloyd Webber’s work.

These revivals are challenging expectations of what depth a work from Andrew Lloyd Webber can achieve — even a piece about dancing cats — though, for the most part, the score and text remain unchanged.

Maybe the striking profundity these new interpretations have uncovered has been there all along, suggested John Snelson, an associate lecturer in musical theater at Goldsmiths, University of London, who wrote a book on Lloyd Webber.

“What has changed is an understanding, or shall we say an appreciation, of the type of musical theater that Andrew Lloyd Webber has put together,” he said.

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