Wagon Wheel Theatre

Stay connected!

Receive e-mail updates regarding shows, concerts and special offers!

sign up here

Wagon Wheel on Twitter

Cats

June 8 - 18

Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics by T. S. Eliot
Based on “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by T. S. Eliot
Additional Lyrics by Trevor Nunn and Richard Stilgoe
 

You don’t have to love cats to love Cats! However, one can tell when you are seated around the stage, that you have entered their space--a junkyard inhabited by felines. The visible cats are cautious and curious, and gradually congregate in spite of human observers. It is difficult to spot your favorite actor on the stage due to the costuming and makeup. You may detect who is inside the skin of the cat by their movement (courtesy of the hard working choreographer) and the sound of their voice. What a treat to see actors interpret the personality of their cat character!

You don’t have to love the writings of T. S. Eliot to love Cats. However, Eliot’s collection of poems about Jellicle cats and how they think and interact were originally written in 1939 as letters to entertain his godchildren. Lloyd Webber remembered these poems from his own childhood and was inspired to combine his music with the poetry. Eliot maintains in “The Naming of Cats” that the reason cats appear to be deep in thought is that they have more than one name. They sometimes act like their curious private names, such as temperamental Rum Tum Tugger, or the notorious Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer. We learn that once a year at the Jellicle Ball, the cats come out to celebrate that one of their own will be reborn to enjoy life as a different kind of cat.

You don’t have to love the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber to love Cats. However, Lloyd Webber’s collaboration with fellow Briton Tim Rice resulted in The Really Useful Theatre Company, Ltd., and years of award-winning productions. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1970), and Evita (1976) have become three of the more successful shows on the American Broadway stage. Lloyd Webber then split with Rice and composed Cats in 1981 and Phantom of the Opera in 1986.

In 1981 Cats opened in London to mixed reviews, perhaps because it was so different, but then enjoyed a 21 year run with 8,949 performances. It came to Broadway in 1982 and became the longest-running musical up to that point with 7,485 performances in New York. Cats was given 7 Tony Awards in 1983, including Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and for Betty Buckley, the Best Featured Actress award, for her role as Grizabella, the Glamour Cat. She was privileged to sing “Memory” each night, the most familiar song of the show.

View Season