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CATS in Australia
The innovative Touring Theatre concept is one where the show comes to the people, with the complete production staged in a huge Big Top.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's universially renowned production has been seen by over 50 million people in over 150 cities and staged in 14 languages.
On Saturday 11 December 1999, Cats had its World Premiere Gala performance at Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia. Making it the most remote staging of a first class musical ever presented, the unique location was chosen to demonstrate that Cats could play anywhere - an entertainment event for all Australians.
The Cats Big Top was custom built for this new production of Cats, and represents and extroadinary achievement in design and engineering.
The unique black skin was constructed in New Zealand from 6,500 meters of Ferrari fabric from Italy, while the internal pole structure was built in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. When erected, the Big Top stands 24 meters high and 57 meters in diameter. It takes 150 tent pegs, some up to 2.5 meters long, and 8 kilometers of wire and rope to anchor the Big Top which contains 40 tonnes of equipment in its cupola, or dome.
The clever use of technology allows the entire Big Top and staging to be set up in less than 2 days, a necessity for the gruelling national tour schedule which often covers a new city each week. There are over 140 people on the road in Cats including the cast, backstage crew, Big Top riggers, dressers, costume department, Box Office Staff, caterers and even a physiotherapist.
The entire Cats village is powered by 4 generators, each weighing 10 tonnes and delivering an electrical output sufficient to power a small town. The two air conditioning units used to control the interior climate of the Big Top are the same that would be used to air condition a large shopping center.
All the dressing rooms are located inside the custom fitted trucks which are backed inside the Big Top up to the rear of the stage. The mobile Cats Cafe de Wheels serves over 250 meals a day to the cast and crew.
To bring all of this to you, it takes 90 vehicles including 17 semi-trailers to transport the tonnes of sets, costumes, seating, lighting, technical equipment and of course the Cats Big Top itself.
Stone and myself had the pleasure of attending this awesome production of Cats when it visited Mount Gambier on 14th Feb 2001 till the 18th Feb 2001. Stone took some photos of the Big Top while it was here in Mount Gambier, and also scanned some pictures from the official program. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but Stone lost the plot LOL
