Cats

CATS by Andrew Lloyd Webber

I attended the performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS at Toby's Dinner Theater in Columbia Maryland. The show in itself was the longest-running Broadway show ever. It's had a historic 6,138th performances. Other interesting facts about the show I was unaware of was it has been seen by an estimated 8 million people in the US and fifty million worldwide. It brought in $3.12 billion into the New York City economy. The show has employed 231 actors. Since it's opening, nineteen have died and two, Marlene Danielle and Susan Powers, have been with the show since day one. The show has sold 390,000 T-shirts, 130,000 sweat shirts and 1.14 million souvenir books as well as outlasted two U.S. presidents (Reagan and Bush) and the Eastern European Communist Bloc.

The show is about one special night each year when the tribe of Jellicle Cats reunites to hold a ball in the same junk yard celebrating who they are and pick one cat to have the honor of going on to another life and be reborn. The cats are all members of the same tribe but living in different places. The show is performed as being that one special night and all the cats are returning to see each other again.

The play was performed, as said before, in a dinner theater. This was my first time to a dinner theater so my expectations were not really high for the overall turnout. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the result of the entire production to include the meal. In my critique of the performance, it would only be fair of me to start with the meal and go from there.

The meal was a buffet, and I mean a full spread. The buffet included steamship round, roasted turkey breast, and baked Virginia pit ham, which was all carved to order. It also included steamed shrimp, poached salmon with lemon dill sauce, Salisbury steak, baked chicken breast supreme and catfish in the round. There were plenty of sides and an ice cream bar and cheesecake for dessert. The whole meal was professionally prepared and delicious.

The theater gives you two hours to fill up and then the show begins. One interesting thing is the actors double as your server for the meal. I know this sounds a bit low rate, but they accomplished both tasks excellently. Serving and then hitting stage to entertain with wonderful singing and acting is not easy and there was no skimping on the act.

The stage was set up as a "dinner in the round" with a maximum seating capacity of 300 people. The stage was located in the center of the room with all the dining tables surrounding the stage floor. This allowed for excellent viewing and surrounded lighting abilities. The lighting was done very well. Most, if not all of the lighting taking place from the ceiling above was always subtle when need be and brilliant when expected. The lighting accented the characters and their costumes very well. The lighting was always directed just right as to not see undesirable movement elsewhere on the set.

The props were either very light or on wheels and were easily moved into place between songs or performances. Since the stage was centered, there were four exits on each side of the room to move the props in and out as needed. The small size of the stage room also played a key role in the sound quality of the performance. I was able to hear every word uttered without difficulty. The costumes worn by the actors were very well done. They were all different in their own way and represented cats very well. They wore tights so the actors could dance and move with ease