Andrew Lloyd Webber defends Cats’ daring reinvention

On Broadway, “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” is drawing acclaim—and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber says the show feels closer to T.S. Eliot’s heart than any earlier version. He credits a bold creative shift: the action moves from a London junkyard to New York’s queer

The first thing Andrew Lloyd Webber noticed about “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” wasn’t the spectacle—it was the pull of the poems underneath it. In the theater where the new version is playing. the composer sat with the kind of focus that suggests he’s heard enough praise to be picky. and enough history to be careful.

“This ‘Cats’ that is not just reimagined. ” Lloyd Webber said. “it’s not just a revival. ” adding that it “gets closer to the heart of Eliot’s writing than any version of it that I have seen before.” He’s talking about a musical based on T.S. Eliot’s poetry about a tribe of felines called Jellicles. where the imaginary name has been carried into a new form. The production has already drawn major recognition: it received nine Tony Award nominations and won three.

Where the story breaks from the familiar is the stage picture. The earlier “Cats” is often anchored in the image of cats in a London junkyard. In this version, directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch have set the action in New York’s queer ballroom scene. Contestants—“in and out of drag”—sing and dance while staying “never far from a history of oppression and ostracization. ” competing and showcasing their styles and personalities as they celebrate their culture.

Lloyd Webber didn’t describe it as a marketing choice. He called it “organically right.” Jeffrey Brown pressed him on what made it click. Lloyd Webber said the production “reaches into these kind of differences in humanity. ” and that. when it works. something rare happens—“it’s very hard to define. but it’s very rare when it happens.”.

The composer has spent decades on both sides of that threshold: creating theater that became cultural shorthand, and also facing the moment where the room laughs at your idea.

He first dreamed up the musical in the late 1970s, and he said people met it with derision. “Suddenly, your back is to the wall and everybody says, this is the most disastrous idea,” Lloyd Webber recalled. “Nobody should ever be doing this.”

What followed wasn’t just skepticism—it was financial strain. When “Cats” opened. he said it started with “some of the investment missing. ” and he had to “get a second mortgage on my house to pay for the production costs.” Brown asked him whether that meant the problem had a happy ending for him. and Lloyd Webber’s experience fed the takeaway: “Suffice it to say he was able to pay off his mortgage.”.

“Cats” went on to become a cultural phenomenon, beloved and parodied, running on Broadway for nearly 18 years. Lloyd Webber’s Broadway trajectory later hit another extraordinary peak with “Phantom of the Opera,” which opened in 1988 and ran for 35 years.

This time around, the conversation moved from what audiences see to what creators must decide—whether to build a show from the full arc or start by chasing individual songs. Brown asked him: do you work thinking about the entire show, or individual numbers?

Lloyd Webber’s answer was blunt. “You have to think of the entire show.” He said he learned “the hard way that a great story is what you need.” If the story isn’t right, “no amount of music, no matter how good, will really, really make it a great evening or even save a show.”

He also argued that music doesn’t exist alone. “I would go so fast to say some of the greatest songs ever written for musical theater. we wouldn’t know if they had been in shows that hadn’t worked.” He returned to advice from famed director Hal Prince. who told him—after Lloyd Webber had a big flop musical in London—that he should keep tunes for something else. but then underlined a rule: “You can’t listen to a musical if you can’t look at it.”.

In Prince’s framing, production design can’t be an afterthought. Lloyd Webber explained that “the production designer’s got to be right,” and that “every aspect has got to be right for a show to really click.”

He has heard how audiences and critics can turn. Brown asked how he handles failures, and what it feels like when criticism lands. Lloyd Webber didn’t pretend it doesn’t hurt. He simply described what he does next: “Well, you move on. You move on.”

His belief is practical and future-facing. If something is good, “it’ll resurface again in some way.” If it doesn’t—if the story isn’t quite right—“it probably won’t.”

That prediction is playing out in real time as “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” joins a wave of earlier work being pulled back for a new generation of directors. Lloyd Webber pointed to “Sunset Boulevard,” first on Broadway in the ’90s, now returning in a new version. For him. “a lot of things have come together at the same time. ” and he doesn’t sound surprised that it’s happening.

He said he always feels that if shows are good. they “would stand the test of time.” Watching the current production as “The Jellicle Ball. ” he described it as “incredibly moving now. ” because “they are real people as cats.” He added that “19 of them had never been on Broadway before. ” and he credited that mix of new faces and old material with a “raw quality. ” arguing that “cats are street things.”.

When Brown asked whether he’s surprised by how often his shows and ideas have come back together. Lloyd Webber sounded almost relieved by his own luck. “I’m very lucky. ” he said. explaining that knowing what you want to do is rare. succeeding at it is rarer. and making a living from it is rarer still.

He concluded with a simple summation that landed like a personal confession. “I can’t do anything other than say I’m the luckiest man alive.”

The momentum isn’t slowing down. Lloyd Webber has “several new projects in the works. ” and an acclaimed new production of “Evita” comes to Broadway next year. As for “Cats. ” the run of “The Jellicle Ball” has been extended at least into next January—still giving audiences time to see the gamble turn into something that. in his view. goes closer to Eliot’s heart than before.

Andrew Lloyd Webber Cats: The Jellicle Ball Broadway T.S. Eliot Jellicles queer ballroom scene Zhailon Levingston Bill Rauch Tony Awards Evita Sunset Boulevard