About the Program

Premiere Date: November 21, 2014 

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, the second longest-running Broadway musical (only surpassed by Lloyd Webber’s own “The Phantom of the Opera”), and fourth longest-running West End musical, returns in high definition and digital sound to Great Performances where it had its 1998 world television premiere.

Based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Webber’s hit-filled stage version boasts musical highlights aplenty. Produced under the personal supervision of Lloyd Webber, the production — winner of Best Musical in both Broadway’s Tony Awards and London’s Olivier Awards — was restaged for video and recorded with a specially augmented 76-piece orchestra. It was filmed at London’s Adelphi Theatre in August 1997, and headlines original London star Elaine Paige as Grizabella the Glamour Cat, the late Sir John Mills as Gus the Theatre Cat and original Broadway star Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy.