Cats (musical) Cats (musical) Cats is a sung-through musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" by T. S. Eliot. The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as "the Jellicle choice" and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, "Cats" first opened in the West End in 1981 and then with the same creative team on Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards, including
T. S. Eliot one of the most moving poems Eliot wrote, and perhaps the "most perfect", though it was not well received by everyone. The poem's groundwork of orthodox Christianity discomfited many of the more secular "literati". In 1939, Eliot published a book of light verse, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" ("Old Possum" was Ezra Pound's nickname for him). This first edition had an illustration of the author on the cover. In 1954, the composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems for speaker and orchestra in a work titled "Practical Cats". After Eliot's death, the book was adapted as the basis