October 7, 2021 • 8 mins
On this day in 1982, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats opened at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that demystifies history one day at a time.
I'm Gabe Louzier, and in this episode, we're pulling back
(00:22):
the curtain on one of the most popular yet polarizing
musicals to ever grace the stage. That's right, We're talking
about Cats. The day was October seven, two. The Andrew
(00:43):
Lloyd Weber musical Cats opened at the Winter Garden Theater
in New York City. The show was a tremendous success
before it even opened, boasting advanced ticket sales of six
point two million dollars. It would go on to become
one of the most lucrative and longest running musicals in
Broadway history. Cats is what's known as a fully sung
(01:08):
through show, meaning it contains no dialogue, only singing and dancing.
The plot, such as it is, follows a tribe of
cats called Jellicles, who are assembling for an annual ball
where they will choose which one of them will ascend
to the heavy Side Layer or cat Heaven and be reborn.
(01:29):
The bulk of the show consists of each cat making
the case for why it should be chosen for that
year's honor. This is done through high energy choreograph dance numbers,
in which each cat introduces itself and shows off its
distinctive traits. Among the main cast of oddly named characters
(01:49):
are rum Tum Tugger, Jenny Anny Dots, Busta for Jones, Mungo, Jerry,
Rumpled Teaser, and the indisputable m VP of the show,
Skimble Shanks the Railway Cat. The show takes a slight
turn in its second act when the villainous Macavity disrupts
(02:10):
the proceedings and kidnaps the group's beloved patriarch, Old Deuteronomy.
The forces of good eventually prevail. Old Deuteronomy is recovered,
and the once shunned Grizabella has granted the right to
be reborn. If that description didn't clue you in, Cats
(02:31):
is a very strange show. It was written by noted
English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and was originally performed on
London's West End in Lloyd Webber loosely based the show
on a nineteen thirty nine cat centric poetry collection by T. S.
Eliot titled Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. The Whimsical
(02:55):
poems had been a childhood favorite of Lloyd Webber, and
when he returned to them as an adult, he decided
to use them as the basis for his next production.
All of the cats names and the majority of their
back stories and antics were lifted whole cloth from Elliott's poetry.
Lloyd Weber set the poems to his own music and
(03:15):
used the original verse as lyrics. The soul exception was
the standout song Memory, which is performed by the down
and out Alley cat Grizabella. Lloyd Webber was granted permission
from T. S. Eliot's estate to incorporate lines from unpublished
poems into the song. The rest was his original composition,
(03:37):
and pop recordings of the song made it a hit,
even apart from the rest of the show. As for
the term jellicle, which the cats used to refer to themselves,
that was also derived from Elliot's poetry, it originally appeared
in his nineteen thirty six poem Pollicle Dogs and Jellical Cats,
where the terms were used as childlike contract actions of
(04:01):
poor little dogs and dear little cats, respectively. Elliott conceived
of jellicles as being black and white cats who frolicked
and made mischief at night, but Lloyd Weber used the
term more broadly, applying it to all different kinds of
cats belonging to the same tribe. When the show made
(04:21):
its Broadway debut, audiences were shocked by how many changes
had been made to the historic Winter Garden Theater. While
much of the show's colossal four million dollar budget went
to advertising, the rest was spent on making the theater
look as drab and ugly as possible. The interior walls
(04:41):
were smeared with black paint, and large bundles of rags
and other scraps were bolted to the walls and ceilings.
All of this was in service of the show's primary set,
a giant junkyard for the human sized cats to dance in.
This dressing down of the theory it or caused quite
a stir among Broadway patrons and critics, and the thin
(05:05):
plot and uneven score didn't fare much better. This raises
the question of why or how the musical remains so
popular for such a long time. A big part of
the appeal came from the name recognition of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
At the time, he was fresh off the success of
three hit musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Joseph, and
(05:30):
The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In fact, Evita and Joseph were
still playing in New York when Cats debuted. For fans,
Cats was Lloyd Webber on steroids. It had all the
excessive spectacle and bluster he was known for, but with
a weird enough concept to make it stand out from
(05:51):
anything that had come before, for better or worse. And
of course, it had that one hit song that everyone
couldn't get out their heads. Many fans would tell you
that the song Memory alone was worth the price of admission.
My raa the ma'ny. Love it or hate it, there's
(06:32):
no denying that Cats has an impressive pedigree. The show
ran for eighteen years on Broadway, grossing over a billion
dollars in the process. It won seven Tony Awards and
was performed in more than two hundred and fifty cities
around the world. The show was later revived in sixteen
(06:53):
at the Neil Simon Theater, and in twenty nineteen it
was adapted into an infamous live action movie that was
every bit as bizarre and divisive as the original show.
I'm Gay bluesier, and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
(07:15):
enjoy today's show, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review
the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can also
follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d
I HC Show, and if you have any comments or
suggestions for future topics, you can send them my way
at this Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks
(07:38):
as always to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and
thank you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another Day in History class. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that demystifies history one day at a time.
I'm Gabe Louzier, and in this episode, we're pulling back
(00:22):
the curtain on one of the most popular yet polarizing
musicals to ever grace the stage. That's right, We're talking
about Cats. The day was October seven, two. The Andrew
(00:43):
Lloyd Weber musical Cats opened at the Winter Garden Theater
in New York City. The show was a tremendous success
before it even opened, boasting advanced ticket sales of six
point two million dollars. It would go on to become
one of the most lucrative and longest running musicals in
Broadway history. Cats is what's known as a fully sung
(01:08):
through show, meaning it contains no dialogue, only singing and dancing.
The plot, such as it is, follows a tribe of
cats called Jellicles, who are assembling for an annual ball
where they will choose which one of them will ascend
to the heavy Side Layer or cat Heaven and be reborn.
(01:29):
The bulk of the show consists of each cat making
the case for why it should be chosen for that
year's honor. This is done through high energy choreograph dance numbers,
in which each cat introduces itself and shows off its
distinctive traits. Among the main cast of oddly named characters
(01:49):
are rum Tum Tugger, Jenny Anny Dots, Busta for Jones, Mungo, Jerry,
Rumpled Teaser, and the indisputable m VP of the show,
Skimble Shanks the Railway Cat. The show takes a slight
turn in its second act when the villainous Macavity disrupts
(02:10):
the proceedings and kidnaps the group's beloved patriarch, Old Deuteronomy.
The forces of good eventually prevail. Old Deuteronomy is recovered,
and the once shunned Grizabella has granted the right to
be reborn. If that description didn't clue you in, Cats
(02:31):
is a very strange show. It was written by noted
English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and was originally performed on
London's West End in Lloyd Webber loosely based the show
on a nineteen thirty nine cat centric poetry collection by T. S.
Eliot titled Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. The Whimsical
(02:55):
poems had been a childhood favorite of Lloyd Webber, and
when he returned to them as an adult, he decided
to use them as the basis for his next production.
All of the cats names and the majority of their
back stories and antics were lifted whole cloth from Elliott's poetry.
Lloyd Weber set the poems to his own music and
(03:15):
used the original verse as lyrics. The soul exception was
the standout song Memory, which is performed by the down
and out Alley cat Grizabella. Lloyd Webber was granted permission
from T. S. Eliot's estate to incorporate lines from unpublished
poems into the song. The rest was his original composition,
(03:37):
and pop recordings of the song made it a hit,
even apart from the rest of the show. As for
the term jellicle, which the cats used to refer to themselves,
that was also derived from Elliot's poetry, it originally appeared
in his nineteen thirty six poem Pollicle Dogs and Jellical Cats,
where the terms were used as childlike contract actions of
(04:01):
poor little dogs and dear little cats, respectively. Elliott conceived
of jellicles as being black and white cats who frolicked
and made mischief at night, but Lloyd Weber used the
term more broadly, applying it to all different kinds of
cats belonging to the same tribe. When the show made
(04:21):
its Broadway debut, audiences were shocked by how many changes
had been made to the historic Winter Garden Theater. While
much of the show's colossal four million dollar budget went
to advertising, the rest was spent on making the theater
look as drab and ugly as possible. The interior walls
(04:41):
were smeared with black paint, and large bundles of rags
and other scraps were bolted to the walls and ceilings.
All of this was in service of the show's primary set,
a giant junkyard for the human sized cats to dance in.
This dressing down of the theory it or caused quite
a stir among Broadway patrons and critics, and the thin
(05:05):
plot and uneven score didn't fare much better. This raises
the question of why or how the musical remains so
popular for such a long time. A big part of
the appeal came from the name recognition of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
At the time, he was fresh off the success of
three hit musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Joseph, and
(05:30):
The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In fact, Evita and Joseph were
still playing in New York when Cats debuted. For fans,
Cats was Lloyd Webber on steroids. It had all the
excessive spectacle and bluster he was known for, but with
a weird enough concept to make it stand out from
(05:51):
anything that had come before, for better or worse. And
of course, it had that one hit song that everyone
couldn't get out their heads. Many fans would tell you
that the song Memory alone was worth the price of admission.
My raa the ma'ny. Love it or hate it, there's
(06:32):
no denying that Cats has an impressive pedigree. The show
ran for eighteen years on Broadway, grossing over a billion
dollars in the process. It won seven Tony Awards and
was performed in more than two hundred and fifty cities
around the world. The show was later revived in sixteen
(06:53):
at the Neil Simon Theater, and in twenty nineteen it
was adapted into an infamous live action movie that was
every bit as bizarre and divisive as the original show.
I'm Gay bluesier, and hopefully you now know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you
(07:15):
enjoy today's show, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review
the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can also
follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t d
I HC Show, and if you have any comments or
suggestions for future topics, you can send them my way
at this Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks
(07:38):
as always to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and
thank you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another Day in History class. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
Host
Gabe Luzier
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