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 Joseph Conrad and James George Frazer, which, at least for reasons of textual history, echo in "The Waste Land". The "continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity" that is so characteristic of his mythical method remained in fine form. "The Hollow Men" contains some of Eliot's most famous lines, notably its conclusion: "This is the way the world ends""Not with a bang but a whimper." "Ash-Wednesday" is the first long poem written by Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930, it deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith acquires it. Sometimes referred to