Message for Beijing folks: If you have unwanted stuff hidden in some corner of your house, go take them out, because they might be able to decorate the backdrop for the upcoming musical Cats.

A poster of the musical Cats, which will hit the Beijing Exhibition Theater on January 19, 2008.

The Tony award-winning musical by British theatrical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber will hit the Beijing Exhibition Theater on January 19.

The show's local agency, CPAA Cultural Entertainment Company, is soliciting props to help the Western musical gain a local flavor, reported Web portal Sina.com.cn, which is cooperating for the collection project.

Cats features a set as an oversized garbage dump, and the one inside the Beijing Exhibition Theater will be piled up with locals' donations.

Ideal submissions can be car license plates, beer bottles, home-brand bicycles, or other household items that speak of Beijing characteristics.

Placing such items on the stage is to shorten the distance between the performers and the audience, the report said.

Participants are required to send a JPG photo of their stuff to 2008cats@sina.com between December 27 and January 14, with descriptions of the objects and their contact information.

Cats, first shown in London in 1981, has been played in more than 20 languages. It opened on Broadway in 1982 and is generally considered as the longest-running Broadway musical of all times.

The itinerary for the musical's upcoming China tour will include stops in Beijing, Macao, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Dongguan and Shenzhen.

(CRI December 26, 2007)