Miscellaneous
Andrew Lloyd Webber composed the score for Cats in 1977, setting to music the poems from T.S. Eliot's “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,” published in 1939. Cats began life in 1980 as Practical Cats , a song cycle, which is a set of individual songs that are meant to be performed in a particular order as part of a whole, each one contributing to the central theme. Producer Cameron Mackintosh called in choreographer Gillian Lynne and director Trevor Nunn to help bring Lloyd Webber's cycle into a full-fledged musical. It was a mighty struggle. Perhaps the most famous song from the show, “Memory,” did not have lyrics until previews had already begun. Nunn finally wrote the lyrics, basing them on the Eliot poem, “Rhapsody on a Windy Night.” It was also left to Nunn to cobble together a story that united the separate pieces. Cats debuted in the West End at the New London Theatre in 1981, and in 1982, the show made its way to Broadway. Andrew Lloyd Webber literally bet the house on his