Musical· 1981· Fantasy

Cats

by Andrew Lloyd Webber

Cats: it draws on 1 recorded source.

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What influenced Cats

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats

Poetry · 1939

AdaptationHIGH

Andrew Lloyd Webber set T. S. Eliot's poems about cats to music, keeping their words and characters, from Macavity the mystery cat to Old Deuteronomy and Mr. Mistoffelees. The one strand Eliot did not publish, Grizabella and her song "Memory", was built from his unpublished drafts and other poems.

About the work

Cats

A tribe of New York cats gathers once a year to hear which of them will be chosen for a new life, and one by one they introduce themselves. There is no plot to speak of: T. S. Eliot's light verse is set almost unaltered, the rest is dance, and a single song sung by an outcast carries the whole evening.