Cats set for 12 week run at the London Palladium
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ANDREW Lloyd Webber’s record-breaking musical, Cats, is returning to the West End for a strictly limited 12 week run at the London Palladium beginning early December 2014.
Based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, tickets for this production will go on sale on Monday, July 7, 2014, when casting and further details about the production will be announced.
On just one special night of the year, all Jellicle cats meet at the Jellicle Ball where Old Deuteronomy, their wise and benevolent leader, makes the Jellicle choice and announces which of them will go up to The Heaviside Layer and be reborn into a whole new Jellicle life.
Cats is directed by Trevor Nunn, with Gillian Lynne as associate director and choreographer. Working with them on this London Palladium production will be Chrissie Cartwright, long term Associate Director of Cats. Designs are by John Napier.
Cats, one of the longest-running shows in the West End and on Broadway, received its world premiere at the New London Theatre in 1981 where it played for 21 record-breaking years and almost 9,000 performances. That production won the Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for Best Musical. And in 1983, the Broadway production received seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, and ran for eighteen years.
Since its world premiere, Cats has been presented in over 26 countries, has been translated into 10 languages and has been seen by over 50 million people world-wide. Both the original London and Broadway cast recordings won Grammy Awards for Best Cast Album. The classic Lloyd Webber score includes Memory, which has been recorded by over 150 artists from Barbra Streisand and Johnny Mathis to Liberace and Barry Manilow.
Cats was originally produced by Cameron Mackintosh and The Really Useful Group Limited.
For more information visit the official website.