“Cats,” the loved-and-loathed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical about, well, cats, is returning to Broadway with an all-new taxonomy.
The show, originally set in a junkyard and featuring actors padding around in cat costumes, now has human characters who are cats only in the slang sense. This version is set in the underground ballroom scene, a queer subculture built around dance competitions.
The show, with the full title of “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” was a hit last year at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan. Its Broadway transfer is scheduled to begin previews March 18 and to open April 7 at the Broadhurst Theater.
The musical, based on T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” features music by Lloyd Webber; most of the lyrics come from Eliot’s poems.
The original ran from 1982 to 2000, and for a time was the longest-running show on Broadway; a 2016 revival was far less successful, and a starry 2019 film adaptation bombed.
“Cats: The Jellicle Ball” is directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch and choreographed by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons. The show features the Tony-winner André De Shields reprising his role as Old Deuteronomy, an elder statesman figure.
The lead producers of the Broadway run are Michael Harrison, who has a partnership with Lloyd Webber to develop new productions of the composer’s musicals, and Mike Bosner, who previously produced “Beautiful” and “Shucked.”
The downtown staging of the show featured a central runway surrounded by audience members. The Broadway version will be different, given the building’s more traditional layout. A publicist said that the set designer Rachel Hauck “has taken the runway that was so successful at PAC and reimagined it for Broadway audiences” and that “there will be some upgrades, enhancements and a few surprises for the proscenium architecture.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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