CATS: The Jellicle Ball Brings Ballroom Culture to Broadway

0:00 How did this first come together?

0:02 Did you guys call Andrew Lloyd Webber?

0:04 Like, how does this happen?

0:06 Eventually we.

0:09 But how did it start?

0:10 Like, there's always either people sitting around a table thinking,

0:13 oh my God, what if we just to this.

0:16 We both have our own stories about that.

0:18 And yeah, about 30 years ago,

0:20 I began to think about Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical cats in a gay context.

0:24 I thought about the possibility of Grizabella being an older

0:28 gay man in a gay bar singing the song memory.

0:31 And that was the seed.

0:33 But over time, we realized, of course, it's not a bar, it's a ball.

0:38 And Grizabella is not a gay man.

0:39 Grizabella is a transgender woman.

0:41 And that is, in fact, uh, what cats joke about became.

0:45 Yeah.

0:45 I mean, it really started with that, that impulse

0:48 from Bill and we were connected.

0:51 Um, after I had started to have

0:54 some really in jest conversations with a roommate

0:57 of mine about what if there was a production of Cats were in.

0:59 No one was an actual cat, and there weren't ears and there weren't tails.

1:03 It sounds like they just think you can love it,

1:06 and you just kind of called each other cat

1:08 in the way that you did in the 20th century.

1:10 Look at that cat.

1:11 Look at that cool cat.

1:11 That's a sly cat right there.

1:12 And I was like, well, it's already kind of in the American vernacular.

1:15 I bet there's a cultural context.

1:17 Yeah, that you could put the show in, but I just assumed Andrew

1:21 Lloyd Webber would never let such a radical change happen with the show.

1:25 And then we were connected soon after

1:27 that, because the casting director of that show, um,

1:30 was like, you need to talk to Bill,

1:33 because Bill is also thinking along the exact same.

1:36 So who calls Andrew Lloyd Webber?

1:39 We really it was a group of us who figured

1:42 out how to do the show in the context of ballroom,

1:46 and we began to reach out to people in Andrew's company.

1:49 And each person we talked to you said, we think it's fantastic.

1:52 We love the idea.

1:53 It's going to be up to Andrew.

1:55 And that was like a good year long process and eventually Andrew said yes.

2:00 Can you talk a little bit more about the how

2:04 perfectly the world of ballroom overlaps with structurally how Katz works?

2:08 Because Katz, if you've seen it, is not it's not a linear plotline.

2:13 It's essentially like a narrator announcer saying like,

2:15 and look at this character.

2:17 And like, that is very much how ballroom works.

2:21 And with the additional script work that they

2:23 did it were it maps almost perfectly into it.

2:26 I've talked to so many people who say Katz has never worked this well,

2:30 including Elaine Paige.

2:31 Right.

2:32 It's been very exciting.

2:34 We've had, uh, a lots of Katz alum,

2:37 both people who have been on stage and off stage who really relate to the show.

2:40 There's people who have historically hated

2:43 the musical and really enjoy themselves,

2:45 and people who feel a lot of fidelity towards

2:47 the original musical and enjoy themselves of the show as well.

2:49 So there's a lot of that happening.

2:51 It's very fascinating.

2:52 But yeah, I do think that there is

2:55 this kind of beautiful Marriage between ballroom culture and cats.

2:59 Some of the themes of cats that have always been,

3:03 their themes of family, themes of tribe,

3:07 means of competition and one upmanship in who's going

3:10 to get the grand prize by the end of the night.

3:13 You know, if you go to a ball and it's all centered around a competition.

3:18 Um, where an identity is made pageant.

3:21 And I think that the mix between that and just working with the original T.S.

3:27 Eliot poetry and really finding new ways to interpret these humans not as cats,

3:33 but as humans in the ballroom scene.

3:36 There are all these ways that the show ended up dancing with ballroom.

3:40 That was really surprising.

3:42 One of the most fun aspects of the whole

3:46 project was matching each song about each character,

3:49 with different categories in ballroom.

3:51 Yeah.

3:52 And, uh, that was from early on, so many

3:55 of them just completely locked into place and made perfect sense.

3:59 So it does feel like T.S.

4:00 Eliot meant this all along.

4:01 Yeah, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

4:03 It was just waiting to be excavated in this way.

4:05 How do you take a production like this that was

4:08 so successful downtown and bring it to Broadway?

4:12 Well, I think one of the things you have to do

4:15 first is to make a commitment to not copy and pacing.

4:18 An experience like, is it is it a different.

4:20 I mean, Chris, you've seen it both different ways.

4:23 Is it different?

4:23 Yeah.

4:24 It's enhanced.

4:24 I mean, when you take something to Broadway,

4:26 you enhance it and it it really is amped up.

4:28 And do you get new do you get new production?

4:30 Not different and stuff.

4:31 And like, do there needs to be additional funding?

4:34 And there we go for the costumes, get amped up because that's a big part, right?

4:38 It's the amping up you're talking about.

4:40 We have to lead producers who are extraordinary and many, many co producers.

4:44 But the biggest thing we struggled with was how to make it work in a proscenium,

4:49 because at pack NYC it's a very immersive space.

4:52 It's very very flexible.

4:54 There are cabaret tables.

4:56 The runway was 50ft long,

4:58 so essentially on Broadway we have twice as many audience members,

5:01 but only half the space.

5:03 Yeah, and what was great about the exercise of figuring out how

5:07 to tell this story on a Broadway stage is that it forced more focus,

5:11 and it allowed us to dig into the story in an even deeper way.

5:15 And I would say that by the end of Off Broadway,

5:18 we were able to say what really works about this?

5:22 What is the thing that if we had to take it somewhere else,

5:24 people would go, but I can't lose this.

5:26 And to my surprise, I really would have

5:29 assumed that it was the 50 foot long runway.

5:32 And I think that's the expectation of the thing that you think you might miss.

5:36 But the truth is, what felt life or death for this production was making

5:39 sure that the audience felt like they

5:41 were in a different relationship with each other.

5:44 And that feels even more amplified on Broadway,

5:47 because you're on Broadway and you can't believe

5:49 you're whooping and hollering next to people on Broadway.

5:52 You have you.

5:55 Well, speaking of life and death,

5:56 it is not an easy time to take a musical to Broadway.

5:59 I mean, was this anxiety provoking?

6:01 I mean, can you talk about how much it was capitalized for?

6:04 Or like, you know, how risky it felt to take

6:06 it from from your theater to this huge stage?

6:09 I think the final numbers and the capitalization are not known even to us,

6:13 but it was it was not cheap.

6:16 Yeah.

6:16 It's not cheap to do a 23 actor on stage musical on Broadway in today's economy.

6:23 Um, but it was, um, there was just such passionate

6:27 belief in the project from the get go from our producers.

6:31 Yeah.

6:31 But I will say, I mean, you say this all the time.

6:34 Us being able to accomplish the show in the proscenium means

6:37 that the show gets to have a longer life means that we

6:40 don't make something that's so expensive that we can't eventually take

6:43 it on the road or take it to another country or.

6:47 So there's always that negotiation between like, what is the budget?

6:50 What is the scale?

6:52 How do we accomplish this without an audience ever knowing?

6:55 All right, I'm just gonna.

6:55 I'm just gonna put you, not call me out here.

6:57 Come here.

6:59 Let's just go with it.

7:00 No proscenium.

7:01 Yeah.

7:02 No, no, no.

7:04 But I was like, the same thing.

7:05 I was gonna do it.

7:06 And I'm like.

7:07 So what exactly is a traditional Broadway theater?

7:09 Yeah.

7:10 Where most of the audience is sitting.

7:12 Yeah.

7:13 What we think of as the audience.

7:14 And most of the action happens on a stage behind the proscenium arch,

7:18 behind the picture of the proscenium arch.

7:21 So our job was to break that proscenium as much

7:24 as we could with 80 audience members on stage,

7:27 with the actors out in the audience all the time.

7:31 And to really make it that everybody's in one room together.

7:34 Well, and not to go back to the original cats, but let's go there.

7:37 But that's how you could actually sit on the side of the stage.

7:41 And I also remember, like when it opened, I saw it a couple times.

7:44 Yeah, I did do my first Broadway show,

7:46 but like the cats coming down the aisle and stuff like,

7:49 so like it's really Wonderful.

7:51 And when you could do it into the ballroom as well, right?

7:55 Yeah.

7:55 Even that element of cats from the original, in terms of actors everywhere,

7:59 that's the exact same kind of energy you want to create at a ball.

8:03 So even down to that detail, we're in conversation with what was already

8:07 in the event of cats from the very beginning.

8:09 Jalen mentioned taking the show on the road.

8:12 And I just want to say,

8:13 one of the things we are so proud of is if you are somebody from the ballroom

8:17 world or if you think ballroom is watching

8:19 and fox trot and like whatever your degree of knowledge,

8:23 if you love cats, if you've never been exposed

8:26 to catch everybody of all ages loves this show.

8:30 And we can say that it is.

8:32 It is a joy bomb and we are so proud to be sharing it.

8:36 And so we want it to have a good, long life on Broadway,

8:39 and we want to take it out on the road

8:40 and get as many people to see it as possible.

8:43 How many times have you seen it?

8:45 I saw it twice downtown so far.

8:47 One is twice downtown and then once on Broadway.

8:49 The first time I went,

8:50 I got a group ticket discount and brought 50 gay guys from Brooklyn.

8:54 And they tried that on Broadway.

8:57 When temptress is about to hit like the big,

8:59 you know, the big touch me big moment.

9:01 And I just looked around the theater and there were, you know,

9:04 like, the theater was full of people, just, like, waiting for her go.

9:07 And, um, so, yeah, I mean, it was really magical as so from the, the, the PAC,

9:12 the Problem Performing Arts Center is part of your goal

9:15 to create shows that move on from there or what?

9:17 How does this fit into that, um, that project for you?

9:21 Our mission at pack NYC is to bring people

9:24 together in that historic site at the World Trade Center.

9:27 We want to bring people together from as many different communities as possible,

9:31 to be in community together in our theaters,

9:34 and we believe in every project we do.

9:36 So when one can have a longer life, it is an absolute gift.

9:41 It's not the only measure of success at all,

9:43 but it is one lovely measure of success.

9:45 Uh, I see it.

9:49 I have to go see it.

9:50 I can't really say what it was.

9:52 Just say.

9:52 Oh, you got him on the phone.

9:53 Oh, he really was just tickled by the amount of joy.

9:58 And like, he often any time, at least I'm talking to him.

10:02 And he's talking about the show.

10:03 That's the first thing he mentions is just so joyful, isn't it?

10:06 Has he come to see it?

10:08 Oh, many times.

10:09 Oh, yes.

10:09 Yes.

10:10 In fact, one of his great quotes is I've never been in a theater

10:13 with as much love as I've been in for Catch the Jellico Ball,

10:16 and it's been thrilling to watch him, like,

10:19 receive the lyrics and the poetry in a new way through this lens as well.

10:23 Yeah, I feel like that's what arts and culture like arts is about, right?

10:25 Like, you take something and just it evolves, right?

10:28 And, I don't know, a rebirth or an innovative way, I don't know.

10:33 It's it's pretty revival, a revival, but it evolves.

10:37 And these guys are nominated for a Tony for it.

10:38 You ask for revival.

10:40 Congratulations.

10:41 Nine Tony nominations.

10:42 That's a pretty big deal.

10:43 That's a pretty big deal.

10:44 So, Chris, next time, will you take Tim and me?

10:46 Yeah, we'll get a group discount.