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... [continues]

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