MsJellicle's Creative Cats

Cats - Now and Forever Remembered

The musical, at the Winter Garden Theater, will end its run after 7,397 performances, a streak that began while much of the show's current cast was in grade school.

The closing, which has been rumored for several months, was confirmed yesterday by Peter Brown, the United States representative for Andrew Lloyd Webber, the musical's composer.

An audience pleaser with seemingly endless appeal for children and tourists, "Cats" will have been seen by more than 10 million people in New York by the time its final curtain falls. Since opening in 1982 it often ranked near the top shows on Broadway in gross sales. It outlasted hundreds of other musicals, and will have come close to outlasting three presidential administrations.

In recent years, however, the well of audiences has slowly run dry, leaving the theater half full on some nights, with the show's producers taking losses during the winter with hopes of making a profit during the tourist-packed summers.

Reached in London yesterday, Lord Lloyd Webber said the closing was bittersweet. "Obviously, I am sad that 'Cats' has to close on Broadway at the end of June, but it is also a day of great celebration," he said.

"Eighteen is a great age for a cat."

In the end, "Cats" may have been simply done in by its own success. The musical has been produced in 30 countries worldwide and seen by an estimated 50 million people, or roughly the population of California and New York combined.

Financially, "Cats" ranks as one of the most successful musical of all time, churning millions into the pockets of its investors and making international stars and multimillionaires out of Lord Lloyd Webber and the show's lead producer, Sir Cameron Mackintosh. It also acted as an economic engine for the city of New York; a 1997 study by Audience Research and Analysis said "Cats" had contributed more than $3.12 billion to the city's economy and more than $195 million in state and local taxes.

But more than a financial juggernaut, "Cats" fundamentally reshaped the Broadway landscape by ushering in the era of the megamusicals: big, flashy spectacles that required little theatrical sophistication or knowledge of the English language to appreciate. As such, "Cats"' proved that tourist audiences could drive a show's sales. Tourists filled the Winter Garden long after "Cats" had become passé among New York theatergoers.

But "Cats," with its lavish design and elaborate special effects, also whetted audiences' appetites for increasingly complex stagecraft. Soon Broadway was witness to all variety of expensive stage magic, from falling chandeliers (in Lord Lloyd Webber's 1988 musical, "The Phantom of the Opera") to helicopters landing onstage (in Sir Cameron's 1991 production, "Miss Saigon") to the foundering of the Titanic (in the 1997 musical of the same name).

While visually arresting, these effects raised the cost of producing musicals, making producers' prospect of turning a profit -- always slim -- even more forbidding. Higher production costs led to higher ticket prices.

As the run of "Cats" continued, the musical also became a cultural touchstone, becoming synonymous with longevity -- and, eventually, longueur -- in comedians' routines and among theater gossips. Even its advertising slogan, "Now and Forever," suggested a certain eerie, inevitable immortality.

And in an industry populated by old-time showmen, "Cats" also made its mark in marketing, adopting a text-free and thus internationally recognizable logo. The production also saturated the airwaves with television commercials and made its posters a permanent fixture in New York City subway stations.

It prompted a cottage industry in show-related trivia. More than 1.8 million pounds of dry ice have been used during the show's run to create fog onstage. The sheer poundage of yak hair used for wigs, 3,247 pounds during the run, outweighs a Volkswagen Beetle. The musical's first-act finale, "Memory," has been recorded 180 times by different artists around the world. "Cats" has employed 284 actors, 19 of whom have died. One, Marlene Danielle, has been with the show since the beginning of its Broadway run.

"Cats" opened in New York on Oct. 7, 1982, after months of pre-show hype and a sold-old run in the West End of London. (The London production is still running; "Cats" is now the longest-running show in the history of the British theater.)

Based on "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," a slim volume of poems by T. S. Eliot, "Cats" follows the tale of a group of alley cats, one of whom, Grizabella, ascends to kitty heaven, known as the heaviside layer, by show's end.

But story was really never the appeal of "Cats." The musical, with a catchy, melodic pop score by Lord Lloyd Webber, had no book and little plot.

Instead, the production's focus was on theatrical spectacle. The actors, directed by Trevor Nunn, are outfitted in feline body suits, foot-long whiskers and swirling face makeup and prowl the theater's aisles, stealing popcorn from children's hands and purring into people's faces. Aiding the illusion is a series of ingenious effects by the designer John Napier, who transformed the interior of the Winter Garden into a overrun junkyard seen from a cat's-eye perspective. At the musical's finale, a giant hydraulically powered tire lifts Grizabella into the sky.

Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times: "Whatever the other failings and excesses, even banalities, of 'Cats,' it believes in purely theatrical magic, and on that faith it unquestionably delivers." He also predicted that "Cats" was "likely to lurk around Broadway for a long time."

His words proved prophetic. "Cats" won seven Tony Awards in 1983, including best musical, and in June 1997 it surpassed "A Chorus Line" as the longest-running production in Broadway history. The occasion was celebrated with a reunion of former cast members and a block party in front of the Winter Garden.

Speaking then, Lord Lloyd Webber recalled how the show, based on unorthodox material, had struggled to find investors before its first run in London.

"We had almost everything going against us," he said. "We couldn't get the investment companies interested." Theater lore holds that Lord Lloyd Webber mortgaged his house to make sure the production was financed, a bet that paid off.

There was no indication of whether similar festivities were planned for the show's closing.

The Winter Garden's stage, which was completely deconstructed for "Cats," will have to be rebuilt. The theater as a whole will probably need a good scrub.

And if Broadway tradition holds true to form, those who have never seen "Cats," or want to see it one more time, will probably buy tickets, meaning one last surge in sales.

Only 144 performances now remain.

*Note~ Cats is extended! Announced 5/11/00. Read about it here!

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