Since it first opened in London in 1981, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much-loved production Cats continues to travel across continents, finding new audiences. Ahead of its Mumbai run, scheduled for June 17 to 28 at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC), resident director Matt Krzan and musical supervisor Peter McCarthy, who are leading the team entrusted with carrying this legacy forward, share that their responsibilities are as much about preservation of the original production as it is about reinvention. Cats, which is based on the 1939 poetry collection, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot, is a sung-through musical, with music by Webber. The story unfolds over one extraordinary night when the Jellicle Cats — a tribe of fictional cats — gather for their annual ball. Under the watchful eye of their wise leader Old Deuteronomy, one cat is chosen to ascend to the Heaviside Layer, which is the feline version of heaven, and be reborn into a new life.…