The musical CATS with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber is based on the collection of poems Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot from 1939. After the musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, it was Lloyd Webber's third major success. He began setting Eliot's poems to music in 1977 and the compositions were first presented as a song cycle in 1980. Producer Cameron Mackintosh then hired director Trevor Nunn and choreographer Gillian Lynne to turn the songs into a complete musical. CATS ...