Cats is based on T. S. Eliot’s 1939 poetry book Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, the songs in the musical consisting of Eliot’s verse set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. A tribe of cats called the Jellicles, come together at the annual Jellicle Ball to decide which one of them will ascend to the Heaviside layer (their version of heaven) and be reborn into a new life.
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