Cats me if you can

The cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats will perform eight shows in Shanghai this September before touring five other cities amid rumors that the most successful musical ever may be making its last stop in China.

The Really Useful Theater Company, owned by Cats composer Lloyd Webber, announced that this could be the last time for Chinese audiences to watch the original production as the company will later focus on other shows such as Phantom of the Opera.

"They didn't explain in detail about this but they seem to have other future performance plans," said Zhu Huijun, chief manager of the Shanghai International Culture and Art Exchange Co Ltd, organizer of the Shanghai-based tour.

The musical is based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Elliot. It tells about the tribe of Jellicle cats uniting in a giant junkyard for their annual celebration. The most famous song in the play is probably Memory, which has been recorded more than 600 times.

Cats has toured more than 30 countries, in eight different languages, and has been staged on Broadway and in London for over 20 years.

It first came to Shanghai in 2003, with 53 shows at the Shanghai Grand Theater, and was forced to delay its Beijing tour by a year due to the outbreak of SARS. It retuned to China last year but Shanghai was not among the seven cities it toured.

Organizers were hoping to book the Shanghai Grand Theater but due to previous engagements the smaller and older Majestic Theater on Jiangning Road, near Nanjing Road W., will play host.

This has already caused some technical difficulties for staff. An extra iron frame will have to be installed on the ceiling of the stage, and the entrance of the theater needs to be widened to get the biggest props in.

"We're doing all we can to deal with these challenges. We're even ready to sacrifice some box-office income to have an audio operation desk installed in the last two rows because it's important to maintain the high quality of the show," Zhu said.

"The theater has about 1,279 seats, which means there are only 10,000 opportunities to see Cats in Shanghai this time," he added.

"We have managed to keep many of the tickets in the lower price brackets to attract a broader spectrum of viewers," Zhu said.

Since the start of last month when ticket sales opened, the company has been pulling in a daily average of 100,000 yuan, Zhu added.

Sept 5-6, 8-12, 7:30 pm

Sept 6, 2:30 pm

Majestic Theater

66 Jiangning Road

江宁路66号

Tel: 6252-6103, 6252-5763

Tickets: 180-1,680 yuan

(China Daily 07/11/2009 page14)