Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats comes to India

On his maiden sojourn to India, British theatre property Matt Krzan serves arsenic the nonmigratory manager of the planetary accumulation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Cats, which volition beryllium staged astatine the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) successful Mumbai.

“Cats is unsocial due to the fact that it is simply a wholly sung-through amusement and is truthful intertwined with dance. We are taking the assemblage to a antithetic satellite wherever humans are cats prowling a junkyard. It is simply a magical amusement arsenic it allows you to judge and beryllium transported,” says Matt.

Cats, which premiered successful London’s West End successful 1981, is based connected T.S. Eliot’s 1939 poesy postulation Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. First directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, the philharmonic traces the communicative of a people of cats called Jellicles.

Basically an actor, Matt has had a agelong relation with Cats successful aggregate capacities. Though Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat was the archetypal Lloyd Webber amusement that Matt saw live, helium would ticker Cats connected video implicit and implicit again, till helium saw a signifier show erstwhile helium was 17.

Professionally, helium was archetypal progressive with Cats in 2004. “I got the occupation portion I was inactive successful college. I was primitively a swing, which means you screen galore roles and spell connected signifier erstwhile idiosyncratic is injured oregon connected holiday.  I past joined the formed again 2 years aboriginal and played Macavity, touring the UK and Italy. I went connected to play Munkustrap astatine the London Palladium which was a imagination travel true. I got to enactment intimately with Sir Trevor Nunn, the director, and Dame Gillian Lynne, the choreographer,” helium says.

Subsequently, Matt took implicit arsenic creation captain. “That means I had to support the modular and prime of the creation wrong the show. I toured the U.K. and different countries. A fewer years later, I joined the South Korea cast, simultaneously playing the relation of Munkustrap and starring the amusement arsenic nonmigratory director.”

Composed by Lloyd Webber, the accumulation is renowned for its visionary stagecraft and groundbreaking artistry. John Napier’s oversized junkyard acceptable transforms the signifier into a fantastical playground, portion Lynne’s choreography and Nunn’s absorption make a richly-immersive theatrical world. The people includes the songs ‘Old Deuteronomy’, ‘Macavity: The Mystery Cat’, ‘The Jellicle Ball’ and the hugely fashionable ‘Memory’. At the Mumbai shows, Peter McCarthy volition beryllium the philharmonic supervisor.

Matt says that the formed of the production was enactment unneurotic done an extended audition process wherever they danced a conception of the amusement archetypal and past sang a opus of their ain choice. He adds, “Every quality successful the amusement has an individuality of its ain and our director, Chrissie Cartwright, has a endowment for spotting the performer and casting them successful the close role.”

This peculiar formed was assembled past October. “They performed successful South Africa for implicit 2 months and had a abbreviated break. We volition person rehearsals earlier we unfastened backmost successful Mumbai.”

Matt points retired that since the philharmonic is based connected Eliot’s work, poesy is important to the show, arsenic is the music. “We person extended rehearsal sessions to larn the melodies and harmonies and specifically the pronunciation and diction, to marque the words and poesy arsenic wide arsenic possible.”

This is the 2nd Lloyd Webber accumulation to beryllium staged astatine NMACC. In March 2025, The Phantom of the Opera had a palmy run. Matts feels Cats is simply a genuinely immersive theatrical acquisition created successful a time erstwhile this was not a communal experience. “The existent meaning down the amusement is simply a communicative of acceptance and forgiveness, thing that is ever relevant, adjacent much truthful contiguous than ever.”

Though Matt grew up connected Hollywood’s philharmonic films, helium felt drawn to philharmonic theatre due to the fact that of the unrecorded element. “My earliest influences would person been Gene Kelly, films specified arsenic White Christmas and each the Disney philharmonic films. When I realised that they were nary longer arsenic fashionable and not made immoderate more, I felt philharmonic theatre was the closest genre I could pursue. I went to a philharmonic theatre schoolhouse each week for astir of my puerility and past to the London Studio Centre wherever I trained successful dance, singing and acting each time for 3 years,” helium shares.

Matt has besides been progressive with productions specified arsenic Matilda, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Chicago, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Wicked and Starlight Express. The relation of nonmigratory manager for Cats adds a caller magnitude to his work.

Cats volition beryllium staged astatine the Grand Theatre of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) successful Mumbai, from June 17 to 28.