The third musical nominated as the season's best is "Cats," written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the T.S. Elliott poems, and directed by Trevor Nunn.
Here is Betty Buckley along with much of the feline population of that musical.
[applause]
Are you blind when you're born?
Can you see in the dark?
Dare you look look at a king?
Would you sit on his throne?
Can you say of your bite that it's worse than your bark?
Are you cock of the walk when you're walking alone?
Because jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
We can dive through the air like a flying trapeze
We can turn double somersaults, bounce on a tire
We can run up a wall, we can swing through the trees
We can balance on bars, we can walk on a wire
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Can you sing at the same time, in more than one key,
duets by Rossini and waltzes by Strauss?
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!
And can you (as cats do) begin with a 'c'—
Ah!
— that always triumphantly brings down the house?
The mystical divinity of unashamed felinity
'Round the cathedral rang 'Vivat'
Life to the everlasting cat!
Feline, fearless, faithful, and true To others who do...
what...
Jellicles do and jellicles can
Jellicles can and jellicles do
Jellicle cats sing jellicle chants
Jellicles old and jellicles new
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Practical cats, dramatical cats
Pragmatical cats, fanatical cats
Oratorical cats, Delphicoracle cats
Skeptical cats, Dispeptical cats
Romantical cats, Pedantical cats
Critical cats, parasitical cats
Allegorical cats, metaphorical cats
Statistical cats and mystical cats
Political cats
Hypocritical cats
Clerical cats, hysterical cats
Cynical cats, rabbinical cats
Jellicle songs for jellicle cats
Mem'ry Turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in
If you find, there, the meaning of what happiness is
then a new life will begin
Sunlight through the trees in summer
Endless masquerading
Like a flower as the dawn is breaking,
the memory is fading
Touch me,
its so easy to leave me
all alone with the memory
of my days in the sun
If you touch me,
you'll understand what happiness is
Look,
a new day
has begun.
[applause]