The 2014 production stage by Fairfax Academy Dance and Musical Theatre programs.
If you are looking for tickets for the Young Artists' Series (the shortened children's version) please go to http://fxdance.ticketleap.com/cats--yas.
Created by Andrew Lloyd Webber, directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats is the second longest-running show in Broadway history. After opening in London in 1981 the same creative team brought it to Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for 21 years, and the Broadway production ran for 18 years.
Cats is based on T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939). Webber premiered his original compositions at the Sydmonton Festival as a concert in 1980 that was attended by T.S. Eliot's wife, Valerie, who loved what Webber composed. She gave her blessing for the songs to be adapted into a musical stage play asserting, however, that they write no script and only use T.S. Eliot's poems as the text. Hence, the show is presented entirely through music and dance with virtually no dialogue between songs.
The most well-known song “Memory” sung by Grizabella was a late addition. Two weeks before the opening of Cats in May 1981, Webber wrote the melody for "Memory" and then Trevor Nunn wrote the lyrics, based on T. S. Eliot's "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" and "Preludes." Prior to opening Dame Judi Dench, cast in the role of Grizabella, snapped her Achilles tendon during rehearsals and was replaced by Elaine Paige.
Cats played a total of 8,949 performances in London. Its final performance in London's West End was on its 21st birthday, 11 May 2002, and broadcast on a large screen in Covent Garden to the delight of fans who could not acquire a ticket for the final performance.
