USA: BROADWAY MUSICAL "CATS" CLOSES скачать в хорошем качестве

USA: BROADWAY MUSICAL "CATS" CLOSES

(11 Sep 2000) English/Nat XFA In grand old New York style, "Cats", the longest running show in Broadway history, closed on Sunday after 18 years, 7,485 performances and a box office gross of more than 4hundred (m) million US dollars. Among the invitation only audience was the show's composer, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and many of the original cast members. The final performance was given to an invitation only audience of 15 hundred, who stopped the show midway through it with deafening applause after a big company number, "The Jellicle Ball." Before the final performance got underway Cats director, Trevor Nunn, expressed the feelings of many of the cast. SOUNDBITE: (English) "A lot of mixed emotions, it's going to be wonderful to see the original cast again , because we don't meet too often, and they were such a brilliant, spectacular group of people. But, yeah, I'll be really choked when that sign comes down because it's been a part of the New York skyline for a long time, that great big Cats sign, it'll be hard to say goodbye to that." SUPER CAPTION: Trevor Nunn, Director of Cats Composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber revealed that the musical nearly didn't it make to the stage. SOUNDBITE: (English) "It started with me just setting the poems to music to see whether I could set lyrics to verse because before that time when I was writing 'Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita I wrote the tunes first and the lyrics came second and of course these words were there and I just did it for fun. I never, never thought that it would get on the stage let alone what became of it." SUPER CAPTION: Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, Composer of Cats Lord Webber based the musical on T.S. Eliot's book of poems, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". The audience, filled with former members of the cast, sang along, shouted encouragement throughout and turned the final performance into a reunion of family and friends. The original New York cast of 36 felines opened the show at the Winter Garden Theatre on 7 October, 1982. The show is still running in London. The musical has also been produced in 30 countries around the world and seen by an estimated 50 (m) million people. Cats broke new ground with costumes, lighting and staging when it launched in London before coming to New York. More than 10 (m) million people saw the Broadway production, according to promoters. The show's producers announced they would close the musical in June. However, ticket demand jumped, causing them to extend the run for an extra ten weeks. The show's long life brought notoriety as well as derision from critics who loved the inventiveness of its staging, but found the story line thin. Gold and white streamers billowed down onto the stage in a final farewell after the speeches were done, with Lloyd Webber, Nunn, choreographer Gillian Lynne and producer Cameron Mackintosh surrounded by the current cast and understudies. SOUNDBITE: (English) "Every end is a new beginning and translated into Broadway terms that means another opening and another show." SUPER CAPTION: Trevor Nunn, Director of Cats Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...