‘Cats’ opens at Bass Hall; shows continue at DTC, Circle Theater
The all-new tour of Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber returns to Bass Hall Nov. 16 for a limited engagement. The show continues the 2021-22 Broadway at the Bass season.
Although Cats is a modern Broadway standard, this tour has been given some new touches. The show features new sound design, new direction and even new choreography to appeal to a different generation of theatergoers.
Its legacy in the musical continuum is massive. Winner of seven Tonys including Best Musical, the original Broadway production opened in 1982 at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre, where it ran for 7,485 performances over 18 years. The show held the title of longest-running musical in Broadway history until it was surpassed in 2006 by Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera.
The original Broadway production closed on Sept. 10, 2000, and currently holds the fourth spot as the longest-running show in Broadway history. The revival opened on Broadway in summer 2016 and ran through December 2017.
So basically, Cats is kind of a big deal.
For the uninitiated, Cats is likely best known for its signature song “Memory.” Based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the show tells the tale of one magical night when a tribe of cats gathers for its annual Jellicle Ball to celebrate and to decide which cat will be reborn. And to sing songs of course.
(The movie version was released last year but we don’t talk about that.)
Cats runs through Nov. 21. Tickets are on sale now at BassHall.com.
Oscar Seung and Albert Park in DTC’s The Supreme Leader
Supreme Leader continues at DTC
Dallas Theater Center continues its world premiere of The Supreme Leader by Don X. Nguyen at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. Out actor Oscar Leung leads the cast as Kim Jong Un in his days at a Swiss boarding school, before his inevitable fate as the leader of North Korea.
The show runs through Nov. 21. For more information, visit DallasTheaterCenter.org.
Denise Lee is Amanda Wingfield in Circle Theater’s Glass Menagerie
Glass Menagerie at Circle Theater
For some southern comfort – or not – the Circle Theater is currently showing The Glass Menagerie by gay playwright Tennessee Williams. Amanda spends her time dreaming of her fabulous days as a Southern belle but then has some shitty children who remind her of the present-day situation.
Anxieties rise when a gentleman caller appears — which sounds just like real life.
The show closes Nov. 20. Tickets available at CircleTheatre.com.
— Rich Lopez
