Bringing the Cats Back to Cats On Broadway
I, Andrew Lloyd Webber, am titillated to announce the all-cat version of my international smash hit musical, Cats. It has been a dream of mine for quite some time to bring this piece back to where it belongs, with the true Jellicles.
This is how I always intended the piece to be produced. With real cats it will not only be exciting, as it has always been, but now it will be simply adorable.
No matter how many different types of costume and make-up options my team tried, we could never make the actors felines. It was a very frustrating process. At every turn I thought, they’re not agile enough. They’re not fluffy enough. They’re not cat enough. I should be able to look into their eyes and see nine separate lives.
We’re hard at work casting the perfect cats for these iconic roles. We’re seeing cats of varying species as this is feline-blind casting. However, if you know any sexy cats we are having difficulty finding the Rum Tum Tugger.
This new production will be called CATS: The Jellicle Ball and serve as a companion piece to the human version. We’d like to bring it to Broadway in spring 2018 after a short run on the West End. I’m no idiot obviously; I know there will be kinks we have to work out. I think our biggest hurdle will be making sure our Grizabella doesn’t get a hairball during the key change in “Memory.” That would really just ruin the entire moment.
I think this will be bigger than the Puppy Bowl and America’s Funniest Home Videos: Animal Edition combined. My true fans will get it.
A lot of people have been asking me when will it be enough? So many shows, so many productions. It will be enough when I see an all convicted-stalker version of Phantom of the Opera! That’s when I’ll retire.
Now and Forever…and then some,
ALW
