The Jellicle Ball Takes Manhattan
On October 7, 1982, the Winter Garden Theatre was the epicenter of the entertainment world. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, already a smash hit in London, was finally opening on Broadway. The hype was unprecedented. It was the most expensive show ever
mounted at the time, with a staggering production cost of $5.5 million and a record-breaking $6.2 million in advance ticket sales. To accommodate the junkyard fantasy, the historic theater itself was radically transformed, with parts of the proscenium and seating ripped out to create an immersive environmental set. For the cast, crew, and producers, the pressure was immense. They weren't just opening a show; they were launching a phenomenon that was expected to redefine the American musical.
The Rumor of a Last-Minute Disaster
For years, a dramatic piece of theatrical lore has clung to the legacy of 'Cats': the story of a bomb threat called in on opening night, a terrifying event that nearly forced the producers to cancel the premiere. In the high-stakes world of Broadway, an opening night is everything. A delay, especially one caused by such a scare, could have created a cloud of negative press and bad buzz from which even a show this big might not have recovered. The story perfectly captures the immense pressure and knife-edge tension of the evening. It’s a tale of near-disaster that adds another layer of drama to a show already bursting with it. And like many great theatrical legends, it’s rooted in a fascinating truth, just not the one you think.
The Real Story: A London Scare
The bomb threat did happen, but it wasn't on Broadway. The scare actually took place a year earlier, at the show's original world premiere in London in May 1981. In a 1982 interview with Dramatics Magazine, an original London cast member recalled the shocking moment the news was delivered. He said that Brian Blessed, the actor playing the wise cat Old Deuteronomy, came to inform the cast they had to evacuate the theater right after the curtain fell. Blessed reportedly took off his cat wig and ears first, wisely figuring that an actor in full feline costume announcing a bomb threat would cause a full-blown panic. Thankfully, the search found nothing, and the rave reviews poured in the next morning. The legend had simply migrated across the Atlantic, attaching itself to the even higher-profile New York opening.
The Hurdles Broadway Inherited
While Broadway's opening night was free of bomb threats, the production was only possible because the London version had survived its own series of near-catastrophes. The show's development was famously troubled. Just a week before the first preview in London, the legendary actress Judi Dench, cast in a principal role, snapped her Achilles tendon and had to withdraw. The show's most iconic song, "Memory," had its lyrics finalized by director Trevor Nunn perilously late into the preview period. Furthermore, producer Cameron Mackintosh struggled to find anyone willing to invest in a musical based on T.S. Eliot's quirky cat poems, with many major backers turning him down flat. These were the real crises that almost stopped 'Cats' from ever becoming a global sensation and eventually landing in New York.
