Cats is a sung-through musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It is based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the "Jellicle choice" by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. As of 2024, Cats remains the fifth-longest-running Broadway show and the eighth-longest-running West End show.

Lloyd Webber began setting Eliot's poems to music in 1977, and the compositions were first presented as a song cycle in 1980. Producer Cameron Mackintosh then recruited director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Gillian Lynne to turn the songs into a complete musical. Cats opened to positive reviews at the New London Theatre in the West End in 1981 and then to mixed reviews at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier and Tony Awards. Despite its unusual premise that deterred investors initially, the musical turned out to be an unprecedented commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$3.5 billion by 2012.

The London production ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances, while the Broadway production ran for 18 years and 7,485 performances, making Cats the longest-running musical in both theatre districts for a number of years. Cats has since been revived in the West End twice and on Broadway twice. It has also been translated into multiple languages and performed around the world many times. Long-running foreign productions include a 15-year run at the Operettenhaus in Hamburg that played over 6,100 performances, as well as an ongoing run in a purpose-built theatre in Japan that has played over 10,000 performances since it opened in 1983.

Cats started the megamusical phenomenon, establishing a global market for musical theatre and directing the industry's focus to big-budget blockbusters, as well as family- and tourist-friendly shows. The musical's profound but polarising influence also reshaped the aesthetic, technology, and marketing of the medium. Cats was adapted into a direct-to-video film in 1998 and a feature film in 2019.

Background

Cats is based on T. S. Eliot's 1939 poetry book Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, and the songs in the musical consist of Eliot's verse set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Musicologists William Everett and Paul Laird described Cats as "combining elements of the revue and concept musical". The plot centres on a tribe of cats called the Jellicles, as they come together at the annual Jellicle Ball to decide which one of them will ascend to the Heaviside Layer (their version of heaven) and be reborn into a new life.

Poems

thumb|Eliot's poetry provided most of the lyrics for Cats

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a collection of light poetry about cats that Eliot had originally written for his godchildren in the 1930s. Due to the rhythmic nature of Eliot's work, there had been previous attempts before Cats at setting his poems to music, though none of these attempts had been met with much critical or commercial success. John Snelson, a musicologist, wrote of the poems:

Most of the lyrics in Cats were taken from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats with very minor alterations. Supplementary verses from unpublished poems by Eliot were adapted for "Grizabella: The Glamour Cat" and "The Journey to the Heaviside Layer", while the song "The Moments of Happiness" was taken from a passage in Eliot's The Dry Salvages. Cats director Trevor Nunn and lyricist Richard Stilgoe provided the remaining lyrics, namely for the opening number "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" and the most famous song from the musical: "Memory". The former was written by Nunn and Stilgoe and was modelled after an unpublished poem by Eliot titled "Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats", while the latter was written by Nunn based on another Eliot poem titled "Rhapsody on a Windy Night". He approached producer Cameron Mackintosh to explore possible avenues for the songs. He explained:

In the 1980s, the success of local productions of Cats in Tokyo, Vienna, Hamburg, The musical was also a boon for the Broadway touring industry. In 1997, The New York Times credited the regional and touring productions of Cats with "almost single-handedly reviv[ing] the sagging road business". Cats revolutionised the touring business by introducing the now commonplace practice of extended touring engagements that can last several weeks or months in a single city, as opposed to the typical one-week or ten-day tour stop. Mackintosh's insistence that all touring productions of Cats replicate the Broadway production also resulted in the expansion and upgrading of regional theatre venues to accommodate the musical's demanding logistical requirements, as local theatre owners did not want to miss out on the opportunity to host the lucrative show.

"Memory"

"Memory" is the standout hit song from Cats. By 2002, the song had been played over two million times on radio and television stations in the US. According to Sternfeld, it is "by some estimations the most successful song ever from a musical."

The New London Theatre, where the original London production of Cats played for 21 years, was officially renamed the Gillian Lynne Theatre in 2018. This made Lynne the first non-royal woman to have a West End theatre named after her.

Valerie Eliot used a portion of the royalty payments from Cats to establish the literary charity Old Possum's Practical Trust, and to set up the T. S. Eliot Prize which has since become "the most coveted award in poetry". Cats also turned things around for the independent British publishing house Faber and Faber. As the publisher of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, royalties of up to £1 million annually kept the then-struggling Faber afloat during the 1980s. Moreover, the musical led to a surge in the sales of Eliot's book.

Cats has been referenced many times on screen; from the films Six Degrees of Separation to the sketch comedy Saturday Night Live, and animated series like Family Guy, The Simpsons and BoJack Horseman, as well as live action comedies including The Golden Girls, Caroline in the City, Glee and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. An episode of the musical television series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, titled "I Need Some Balance", parodied Cats by having all the songs sung by anthropomorphic cats who "introduce [themselves] over '80s Broadway beats". The sitcom The Nanny includes a recurring plot of rivalry between Andrew Lloyd Webber and the character Maxwell Sheffield. The latter is often taunted by other characters with reminders that he declined to produce Cats.

Stage parodies of the musical have also been mounted in the West End and Off-Broadway. CAT – (THE PLAY!!!), a one-man show written by Jamie Beamish and Richard Hardwick, is a dark comedy about the fictitious life of Dave, a cat who was fired from the original London production of Cats on opening night. Starring Gerard McCarthy as Dave and with choreography by Arlene Phillips, the musical premiered at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival; it performed at various regional venues before making its West End debut at the Ambassadors Theatre in April 2017. Katdashians! Break the Musical!, a parody mashup of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Cats by Bob and Tobly McSmith, premiered Off-Broadway at the Elektra Theatre in June 2016. All the song parodies of Cats were later removed after accusations of copyright infringement from Lloyd Webber's representatives, who claimed the songs were being used "to parody another subject matter entirely". Other stage shows that satirise Cats include Six Degrees of Separation,

Madame Tussauds New York features wax figures of several characters from the musical, including one of Grizabella that sings "Memory" through the use of projection mapping technology. Similarly, a wax figure of Rumpleteazer is displayed at the Panoptikum wax museum in Hamburg, Germany.

A Cats postage stamp was issued by the United States Postal Service in 2000 as part of its Celebrate the Century series. The musical was chosen as one of fifteen "outstanding artifacts, events and activities" from the 1980s to be commemorated with its own stamp design. Beginning in March 2019, the Rinkai Line in Tokyo, Japan, uses two songs from the musical for its train departure melodies at the Ōimachi Station; the train to Ōsaki Station uses a jingle from "Memory", while the train to Shin-Kiba Station uses a jingle from "Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat".

The visual effects of the 2019 film adaptation were mocked in the 2022 Disney film Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers, in a scene where the titular characters notice two alley cats resembling the ones in the film as they venture through an "uncanny valley" part of town.

Recordings and music video

Cast recordings

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|+ List of cast recordings, with selected chart positions, sales figures and certifications

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:11em;" | Cast

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:22em;" | Album details

! scope="col" colspan="8" | Peak chart positions

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:12em;" | Sales

! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:15em;" | Certifications

|-

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | US<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | AUS<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | AUT<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | GER<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | JPN<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | NED<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | NZ<br />

! scope="col" style="width:2.5em;font-size:90%;" | UK<br />

|-

! scope="row"| Original London cast

|

  • Released: 1 July 1981 (UK),
  • Label: PolyGram (UK), Geffen Records (US)

| 86 || 44 || 7 || || || || 21 || 6

|

|

  • UK: Silver (1981);
  • SWI: Platinum

|-

! scope="row"| Original Broadway cast

|

  • Released: 26 January 1983 (US)
  • Formats: LP, cassette, CD

| 131 || – || 5 || || || || 17 ||

|

  • WW: >2,000,000
  • Formats: CD

| || – || 1 || 24 || || || ||

|

|

  • AUT: Platinum
  • SWI: Platinum

|-

! scope="row"| Original Australian cast

|

  • Released: 1985
  • Label: EMI
  • Formats: CD

| || 19 || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Japanese cast

|

  • Released: 21 April 1985
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD
  • Live recording

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Hamburg cast

|

  • Released: 6 October 1986
  • Label: Polydor Records
  • Formats: LP, CD
  • Live recording

| || – || 12 || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Dutch cast

|

  • Released: 1987
  • Label: Mercury Records
  • Formats: CD
  • Live recording

| || – || || || || 72 || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original London cast (Highlights from Cats)

|

  • Released: 1989
  • Label: Polydor Records
  • Formats: CD

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

  • UK: Silver (1993)
  • SWI: Gold
  • Label: Pony Canyon
  • Formats: CD

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original French cast

|

  • Released: 1989
  • Label: Polydor Records
  • Formats: LP, cassette, CD
  • Live recording

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Mexican cast

|

  • Released: 1991
  • Label: Polydor Records
  • Formats: CD

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Polish cast

|

  • Released: 12 January 2004
  • Label: Universal Music Polska
  • Formats: CD

| || -|| || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Dutch cast

|

  • Released: December 2006
  • Label: Universal Music
  • Formats: CD
  • Highlights

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Original Italian cast

|

  • Released: 26 January 2010
  • Label: Compagnia della Rancia
  • Formats: CD
  • Live recording

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Japanese cast

|

  • Released: 24 April 2019
  • Formats: CD

| || – || || || 13 || || ||

|

|

|-

! scope="row"| Film cast

|

  • Released: 20 December 2019
  • Label: Universal Music
  • Formats: CD

| || – || || || || || ||

|

|

|}

Music video

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! scope="col" style="width:18em;"| Title

! scope="col" style="width:2em;"| Year

! scope="col" style="width:10em;"| Director(s)

! scope="col" style="width:45em;"| Details

! scope="col" style="width:2em;"|

|-

!scope="row"| "The Rum Tum Tugger"

| 1985

| Jeff Lee

| style="text-align:left;"|Starring original Broadway cast member Terrence Mann as Rum Tum Tugger, the musical number was re-arranged and re-staged for a music video. It was the first music video created to promote a Broadway show.

|

|-

|}

Revisions and cut material

The stage production of Cats has undergone several revisions since its London opening. When the show transferred to Broadway, several cuts and rewrites were made with the intention of appealing more to an American audience. Additionally, a song entitled "Cat Morgan Introduces Himself" was cut during initial development. Lloyd Webber performed this song at the show's 6,138th Broadway performance, when it broke the record to become the longest-running Broadway show.

"Growltiger's Last Stand"

The "Growltiger's Last Stand" sequence has been changed multiple times over the course of the show's history. In the original London production, the "last duet" for Growltiger and Griddlebone was a setting for an unpublished Eliot poem, "The Ballad of Billy M'Caw". For the original Broadway production, the Ballad was replaced with "In Una Tepida Notte", a parody of Italian opera with more slapstick humour. This new version was eventually incorporated into all other productions of Cats.

"Growltiger's Last Stand" has been criticised as being racially offensive. The original lyrics, taken directly from the Eliot poem it is based on, included the ethnic slur "Chinks" and this was later replaced with the word "Siamese". The number also originally involved the cast putting on "Asian accents" to portray the Siamese cats. By 2016, "Growltiger's Last Stand" had been removed completely from the US and UK productions of the show.

Rum Tum Tugger

The 2014 London revival introduced several modernisations to the show. Rum Tum Tugger was reworked from a ladies-man rockstar to a breakdancing street cat. His eponymous musical number was also turned into a rap. The 2015 Australian tour and 2015 Paris production also used the new version of the character; however, the 2016 Broadway revival, and other subsequent productions thereafter, did not.

Choreography

The 2016 Broadway revival featured new choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler, who introduced more hip hop and cool jazz elements to the movements and dances.