Feline fine at 40: Cats lets the musical memories live again
Four decades after it first premiered in Australia, Cats returns to Australia … with producers hoping there’s no repeat performance of the show’s very dramatic Australian premiere.
Confidential
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Forty years after it first premiered there, the nonsensical but perennially-popular musical Cats returned to Sydney’s Theatre Royal on Friday night.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber masterpiece — once the longest running musical on Broadway — made its way Down Under in 1985, just four years after it made its world premiere in London.
And it was a premiere that would go down in the history books.
Just before the first act ended the music fell silent and the show’s producer, Sir Cameron Mackintosh, walked onto the stage and told the audience they would need to leave the theatre.
A who’s who of Australian society, including the Prime Minister Bob Hawke, spilled onto King Street, champagne in hand, none the wiser that a bomb threat had been called into the theatre.
Among the guests was the man who is bringing the show back to Australia, producer John Frost, who was drafted in to fill a seat on the opening night.
“That opening night was a really big deal, it was the resurgence of event theatre, so it was a big deal to be there, to be invited,” he said.
“When Cameron walked onto the stage, we thought it would be to make a celebratory speech or something, but he asked us all to exit the theatre, so there was quite a bit of confusion.”
In the end, the threat was a hoax and the audience were allowed to re-enter the theatre and the show continued without a hitch.
It went on to be an enormous success and made more than $28 million at the box office (the equivalent of about $105 million today).
Frost will be hoping to emulate that success 40 years on, and feels quietly confident.
“I feel like there’s a bit of a buzz around about it, and we are opening with a very healthy advance (ticket sales) so I am pleased about that.”
Cats plays the Theatre Royal until September 6.
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