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The musical was produced by Mackintosh and Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group, with direction by Nunn, choreography by Lynne (who also served as the associate director), set and costume design by Napier, lighting design by David Hersey, sound design by Abe Jacob and music direction by Harry Rabinowitz.
- Andrew Lloyd Webber
- Multiple productions worldwide
- 1981
- Andrew Lloyd Webber
The magnificent musical score composed by the legendary Andrew Lloyd Webber, includes the poignant hit song Memory, which has been recorded by over 150 artists from Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis to Liberace and Barry Manilow. CATS is quite simply a phenomenon.
Jul 19, 2019 · At its core, CATS is a musical about accepting one another despite our differences in appearance. The musical tells this story through expositional singing and intricate movement, with sections ...
- Andrew Lloyd Webber Is Admittedly "Quite Neutral" When It Comes to Cats.
- "Memory" Was Inspired by A Poem That T.S. Eliot Never finished.
- Dame Judi Dench Left The Cast of Cats When Her Achilles Tendon snapped.
- Judi Dench Is Coming Back to Cats in Tom Hooper's New Big-Screen Musical.
- To Finance The Show, Andrew Lloyd Webber Ended Up Mortgaging His House.
- When Cats Came to Broadway, Its Venue Got A Huge Makeover.
- Cats The Musical Set Longevity Records on Both Sides of The Atlantic.
- One Theatergoer Sued The Show For $6 Million.
- Thanks to Cats The Musical, T.S. Eliot Received A Posthumous Tony.
- The Original Broadway Production Used More Than 3000 Pounds of Yak Hair.
For his part, Andrew Lloyd Webber has described his attitude toward cats as “quite neutral.” Still, the composer felt that Eliot’s rhymes could form the basis for a daring, West End-worthy soundtrack. It seemed like an irresistible challenge. “I wanted to set that exciting verse to music,” Webber said. “When I [had] written with lyricists in the pa...
In 1980, Webber approached T.S. Eliot’s widow, Valerie, to ask for her blessing on the project. She not only said “yes,” but provided the songwriter with some helpful notes and letters that her husband had written about Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats—including a half-finished, eight-line poem called “Grizabella, the Glamour Cat.” Feeling that ...
In 1981, esteemed actress Judi Dench was brought in to play Grizabella for Cats’s original run on the West End. Then, about three weeks into rehearsals, she was going through a scene with co-star Wayne Sleep (Mr. Mistoffelees) when disaster struck. “She went, ‘You kicked me!’” Sleep recalled (which you can see in the above video). “And I said, ‘I d...
Nearly 40 years after being forced to bow out of the West End production, Dench is getting another chance to star in Cats—only this time she'll play the wise and beloved Old Deuteronomy. Jennifer Hudson will play the role of Grizabella. (Taylor Swift, Ian McKellen, James Corden, Idris Elba, Rebel Wilson, and Ray Winstone also star.)
Although Andrew Lloyd Webber had previously won great acclaim as one of the creative minds behind Jesus Christ Superstar and other hit shows, Cats had a hard time finding investors. According to choreographer Gillian Lynne, "[It] was very, very difficult to finance because everyone said ‘A show about cats? You must be raving mad.’” In fact, the mus...
Cats made its West End debut on May 11, 1981. Seventeen months later, a Broadway production of the musical launched what was to become an 18-year run at the Winter Garden Theatre. But before the show could open, some major adjustments had to be made to the venue. Cats came with an enormous, sprawling set which was far too large for the theater’s av...
The original London production took its final bow on May 11, 2002, exactly 21 years after the show had opened—which, at the time, made Cats the longest-running musical in the West End’s history. (It would lose that title to Les Miserables in 2006.) Across the pond, the show was performed at the Winter Garden for the 6138th time on June 19, 1997, pu...
Like Hair, Cats involves a lot of performer-audience interaction. See it live, and you might just spot a leotard-clad actor licking himself near your seat before the curtain goes up. In some productions, the character Rum Tum Tugger even rushes out into the crowd and finds an unsuspecting patron to dance with. At a Broadway performance on January 3...
Because most of the songs in Cats are almost verbatim recitations of Eliot’s poems, he’s regarded as its primary lyricist—even though he died in 1965, long before the show was conceived. Still, Eliot’s contributions earned him a 1983 Tony for Best Book of a Musical. A visibly moved Valerie Eliot took the stage to accept this prize on her late spous...
Major productions of Cats use meticulously crafted yak hair wigs, which currently cost around $2300 apiece and can take 40 hours or more to produce. Adding to the expense is the fact that costumers can’t just recycle an old wig after some performer gets recast. “Each wig is made specifically for the actor,” explains wigmaker Hannah McGregor in the ...
In essence, Cats was a giant show without much substance — a description that would gradually affix to its creator himself: composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. Andrew Lloyd Webber poses with...
Jul 18, 2019 · Cats the musical was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and first performed on London’s West End in 1981. Lloyd Webber based the wide cast of characters on one of his childhood favorites, poet...
Dec 5, 2019 · The cost of producing Cats in New York was (minus the renovation) $4.5 million. It was the most expensive musical in the history of Broadway. The Shuberts priced the top tickets at $45 ...
