The hit West End musical "Cats" is coming to the Costa Blanca this February and will be performed by members of the Footlights Youth Theatre in Calpe.

"Cats" is the 4th longest running West End musical, which originally opened in 1981and the following year on Broadway. The actress Elaine Paige is probably the best known actress to have been in the production, but it was by a complete fluke. The role of Gizabella was originally cast for Judi Dench, but 3 days before the opening night she snapped her achilles tendon during final rehearsals!

The music was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and the most famous song out of the entire show is probably "Memory" -which is often incorrectly referred to as "Memories". It was sung by Elaine Paige and became a top 10 hit , peaking at number 6 in the UK singles chart in July 1981. The song has been covered by numerous others including Barry Manilow, Barbara Streisand and even The Shadows did an instrumental version.

The show is set on a rubbish dump where the cats meet up for their annual tribal meeting. They have been busy creating the props for the show over the last few weeks and the picture here shows four of the cast members dressed in their costumes and beautifully made up.

The make up team of 4 girls is led by Lauren Staton, who by pure chance has a link to the original musical. In the mid 80´s, Lauren founded the popular face painting company Snazaroo. Andrew Lloyd Webber´s "Really Useful Company" got in touch and asked if her company could design a make up set to sell during the intervals and alongside the tour of the musical. It was a very proud moment for her, watching the original Cats makeup artists creating the faces for photographs using her face paints! Lauren said that she was very touched to be asked by the Footlights Youth Theatre to design the faces and train the kids to construct them.... and looking at the photograph the detail is amazing.

The Footlights Youth Theatre will have a multi-national cast of 30, all teenagers, with an average age of 16. It is sure to be all-singing all-dancing musical spectacular.

Performances will take place on 3 dates - Thursday 14th, Friday 15th and Saturday 16th February at 8pm with a matinee performance on Saturday only at 5pm. Tickets are priced at 12 euros for adults and 8 euros for children under 14 and available by calling 652 404 798 or alternatively you can email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.