"Jellicle cats come out tonight. Jellicle cats come one come all. The Jellicle Moon is shining bright. Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball." The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical on Broadway Cats was the longest running Broadway musical until January 2006. This spectacular musical was inspired by Nobel Prize-winning Poet T.S. Eliot’s collection of childeren’s verse called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The musical introduces several additional characters from Eliot's unpublished drafts－ most notably Grizabella. Contents of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, along with the name of the featured cat when appropriate:
- The Naming of Cats
- The Old Gumbie Cat (Jennyanydots)
- Growltiger’s Last Stand
- The Rum Tum Tugger
- Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer
- Old Deuternomy
- The Pekes and the Pollicles (Great Rumpuscat)
- Mr. Mistoffelees
- Macavity, The Mystery Cat
- Gus, The Theater Cat
- Bustopher Jones, The Cat about Town
- Skimbleshanks, The Railway Cat
- The Ad-dressing of Cats
- Cat Morgan, Introduces Himself (added in the 1962 edition)
The show takes place in a junk yard at night under the "Jellicle Moon," where an ensemble of actors dressed in elaborate cat costumes perform a series of delightful songs and dances. The "Jellicle cats meet once a year at the Jellicle Ball... That's when Old Deuteronomy just before dawn. Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife, announces the cat who can now be reborn and come back to a different Jellicle life."
