This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey, it's me. So I'm recording this after the episode that you're about to hear, but I just got done seeing CATS the film and I needed to tell you all what went down in that theater. So as it turns out, a lot of things in this movie kind of work. There are a lot of things that are actually quite beautiful. This plot, this very loose plot that CATS has always had, which is essentially a community of cats gets together in a ritualistic way to allow one of them to be chosen by their leader to ascend to heaven or go to the heavy side layer or whatever you want to call it, be born again. That plot is for better or worse, much more spelled out in the movie. So there's no confusion to be had. Was my jaw on the ground for the first 15 minutes because it was so jarring?

Yes, absolutely. Does the CGI sometimes feel unfinished and actually make the dancing look less impressive? Absolutely. Did I spontaneously break out into applause when Dame Judi Dench made her first entrance? Absolutely. It's drama at its highest. But was it the Rocky Horror Picture Show type experience that the audience with whom I saw the film had obviously decided it was before they even walked into the theater? No. And honestly, after sitting with them for an hour and a half, listening to them scream and boo and talk back to the screen, it kind of started feeling like high school a little bit where the cool kids are sitting in the auditorium making fun of the theater. Kids, I don't know, maybe I was triggered.

Maybe this is a personal problem. My point is go out, see CATS, enjoy it, buy into the craziness that it is, and then get on Twitter and let me know what you think at amusicalpodcast or email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Either way, I want to hear what you have to say. In the meantime, however, please enjoy our episode dedicated to Andrew Lloyd Webber's CATS.

[2:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff, and this episode is our first on the road episode. I'm in San Diego at the Old Globe Theater where they are currently performing a gajillion performances of How the Grinch Stole Christmas over the holiday season to amazing crowds, both young and old. And it's a tradition that has been here a long time.

[2:36] James Vasquez: Yeah, we're in our 22nd year.

[2:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I'm sitting here with James Vasquez, who is the director of said production. And how long have you been with the show?

[2:46] James Vasquez: I've been with the show for seven years.

[2:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. For 17 years. 17 of the 22 years. I don't think I realized that. I started as Buzz Who in the ensemble. And fun fact, I will be returning to the role of Buzz Who in tonight's performance.

[3:05] James Vasquez: Yeah. And then I played Papa for a couple years, Grandpa for a couple years. Then there was a year where we revamped the show and took it to New York. And that year, they decided to give us 14 performances a week here at the Old Globe Theater. So we thought, hmm, there should probably be a swing or somebody to help out. So I became the swing. And I've been swinging since. Gosh, I don't know, swinging for 11 years now and directing for nine.

[3:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So you know this show?

[3:46] James Vasquez: Yeah. Like the back of your hand? I've played every adult role in a performance except Grandma, Mama and the Grinch. All the rest of them you've played?

[3:52] James Vasquez: I've played on stage and performance and some kids. If a kid if there's something that a kid has to do, and we're missing a kid, then I will swing in.

[4:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And that's fantastic. Yeah. You're like a superhero. You're a Dr. Seuss superhero. And then sitting next to James is the current Old Max, Mr. John Treacy Egan.

[4:09] John Treacy Egan: Yes. So grateful for you to be here.

[4:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you for having me here. I was joking with you before the podcast that you are the reason why Frank Wildhorn writes all of those high notes and then expects regular people to sing them. So thank you for that.

[4:27] John Treacy Egan: My pleasure. Um, your career is kind of insane. You have a lot of Broadway credits, but you also have a history with Cats.

[4:33] John Treacy Egan: I've done Cats in two different companies. I was in Zurich, Switzerland, where we performed 15 days a month in English and 15 days in German.

[4:46] John Treacy Egan: From 91 to 93. Yes. So the beginning of the month to the 15th was in English.

[4:52] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. For the rest of the month, the performances were in German.

[4:56] John Treacy Egan: Oh my heavens. And then I was on the national tour from 93 to 95, playing Old Deuteronomy in both companies.

[5:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I'm not saying that this is the weirdest show that we'll cover on the podcast, but I am saying that this is probably the weirdest show that we'll cover on the podcast that has made billions of dollars.

[5:12] John Treacy Egan: So much money. Billions.

[5:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And yet, I know you love it.

[5:24] John Treacy Egan: So much. Why do you love it? What's not to love?

[5:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can think of a couple things.

[5:35] John Treacy Egan: Well, I mean, are we jumping right into the story?

[5:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I mean, sure. Why not jump right into it? Why do I love Cats? I grew up a, um, that's going to go wrong. Um, no, I grew up in Southern California and grew up doing youth theater in a mini mall where the sets were painted by our parents. And my mom sewed the costumes and it was fold up chairs in the lobby.

[5:56] John Treacy Egan: That's kind of fantastic. Can we just touch on a few more details of maybe what you were doing in the mini mall? What shows?

[6:01] John Treacy Egan: Oh my gosh. Well, I played Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh. Nice. Um, I played the boy in the pink sweater in the Lion Who Couldn't. That's a classic. He couldn't play baseball. He couldn't cook. He couldn't, but what he could do, we discovered at the end, I was an Indian captive, which I look back at pictures now and think that the makeup plot for our Southern California white cast was maybe not appropriate.

[6:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure. Um, so, you know, then I add, as a freshman in high school, went on a little bus trip with not even my high school and neighboring high school that my dad taught at with their drama department to LA to see the first national tour of Cats at the Schubert theater, the no longer standing Schubert theater in LA.

[6:44] John Treacy Egan: Don't even get me started. Oh.

[6:49] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I walked in to this huge theater and we were in the balcony, like near the last row. So I, I saw this enormous theater from the back and this enormous set. And then the lights went down and green eyes appeared in front of me and green eyes appeared scattered throughout the theater. And then lights came up and all these actors dressed as cats and acting like cats.

[7:14] John Treacy Egan: Listen, I can admit the ridiculousness of it, but to be 13 and to want to do this for a living and to see these people on this enormous world that had been created, who were singing, who were dancing, who were creating these wild characters for two hours and 15 minutes. I sat there and it blew my mind in that moment. I was like, Oh, theater theater isn't just done in my backyard. It's done in a junkyard as well. Hey, you know, and I, I think I love cats really, truly, honestly, because of that first experience of it being my first big theatrical adventure.

[7:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So when you started the Schubert, I just want to ask, was it total immersion? Like it is like it was 100%.

[8:02] John Treacy Egan: Oh yeah. That's that was pretty special to be in the atmosphere of the actual piece.

[8:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, and what they did was I believe that launched a tour from LA. So it sat in LA for, for quite a while.

[8:15] John Treacy Egan: Um, so that they were able to, right. I didn't do the research on the international companies, but do you have any idea how many?

[8:20] John Treacy Egan: Oh, so many. And there are many now. There's so many now.

[8:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I mean, I have friends who were, who worked on the Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland, mostly the musical directors, um, who work in other countries. They've worked in Spain, they worked in South America, they've worked in, uh, Japan, right. You know, they've been all over.

[8:35] John Treacy Egan: I mean, so when, when we were running in Zurich, there was a company in, um, Hamburg, Germany as well, different translation in German.

[8:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh.

[8:46] John Treacy Egan: And then there was the London production as well as the Broadway production and probably others national tour and whatever.

[8:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[8:55] John Treacy Egan: So, um, some people who would come from the Hamburg company to join the Zurich, but they had to learn a different translation, which was interesting.

[8:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's fascinating. When I was in high school, I asked for Christmas, um, for as many different languaged, uh, cast albums that I could get. Um, and I had the German company. I had a Japanese company. Um, yeah, they were, they were cool. And some of them were a little like cassette recordings that had been made for me.

[9:18] John Treacy Egan: Um, I wish I could find them, but I would listen to them on loop. Um, they were great.

[9:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: My first experience with Cats was I was a young, young teenager. I think my whole family decided to go to the national tour coming through Salt Lake city. We, you know, all pile in the suburban.

[9:36] John Treacy Egan: Oh, I don't, but you might, it might've been you. Would you say 93 to 95?

[9:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yep. That'd be amazing. It might have been you. Totally.

[9:49] John Treacy Egan: That's hilarious.

[9:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, I remember there was a great Marie calendars. That's where I learned about Marie calendar.

[10:01] John Treacy Egan: Well, yeah, I believe it.

[10:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. I, what I remember about that evening is that I forgot to bring my glasses. I was newly prescribed some glasses and like a dumb kid totally forgot them. And so I kept stealing my mom's glasses from her throughout the production so I could see better, but then immediately bought the double cassette, went home and would choreograph the overture in my basement over and over again.

[10:25] John Treacy Egan: Sure. At the same time though, I remember we finished as a family watching the show and then got in the car and didn't talk about it at all because I think as a family growing up on Rogers and Hammerstein, the expectations for Cats were very different than what we received in the theater. Does that make sense?

[10:41] John Treacy Egan: Well, it, it was very groundbreaking. I mean, everything about it. I mean, the storytelling, it was all pretty much sung. It was, but it wasn't, it wasn't as linear as an Oklahoma or even a, even Sweeney Todd. I mean, at least you knew what they were talking about, but because they were doing these poems, it was, we're not quite sure what the story is, but there was, there's a story there.

[11:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. Whether the audience got it all the time that wasn't, you know, known, but there was a story there.

[11:10] John Treacy Egan: When do we break the news that, that we did Cats together?

[11:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Let's break it now because I've done Cats once. It was never on my radars in terms of a show that I wanted to do. And then the opportunity came up to do, to do it with this guy over here, Mr. James Vasquez. And we did it together and I played Skimbleshanks and you were, we can talk about this now.

[11:26] James Vasquez: Let's do it.

[11:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because as with most regional theaters, there will be like a week of non-union rehearsals and then they bring in the union actors and you have to play catch up crazily. So the very first day of rehearsal for me, they threw the entire 15 minute Jellicle ball on me in four hours and I was drowning, of course. So that was insane, but that was kind of my frame of mind for that whole first week was just staying above water.

[11:58] James Vasquez: And we would get, I remember we got to the place where we were starting to run the show and I'm still feeling completely unprepared and not solid on most of the choreography. And I I'm thinking that it's a mess and we would get to the end of the run and James, and you would say, all right, so let's work on the Grizabella entrance again.

[12:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I'd be like, seriously, of all the things, we're going to focus on the Grizabella entrance again?

[12:18] James Vasquez: And we would do it over and over and over again.

[12:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I did not understand why we were doing this. After we closed our show, I went and saw another production of Cats that I had friends in. And that first Grizabella entrance came in and I went, oh, that's why James wanted us to rehearse this over and over again, because it is the one of the most essential moments of the entire show, because it's coming out of so much choreography that hasn't stopped since the beginning of the show. And then all of a sudden the show comes to a complete standstill and the melancholy orchestration that, you know, Lloyd Webber created so beautifully, if that doesn't land, then really the story that we're talking about, this plot, which does exist in Cats, doesn't hold any water or weight for the audience. So hats off to you for rehearsing that freaking Grizabella scene so often.

[13:14] James Vasquez: It's a very important moment.

[13:18] James Vasquez: For me, it was always the first big hit of the community, you know, and where we are heading as a community and where we want to head as a community and how we react to the community and respond to it. I got called by this local theater. They had a director and choreographer who had done the show for years in New York, and they had to step away at the last minute. And so they called me and they were like, we're doing CATS. And I was like, oh, my God. And they were like, would you have any interest? And I was like, yes, what do we do? And I was like, I'm in. Yes, I'm in. 100%. And on closing day, when we were striking the set, I rode the tire to the heavy side.

[14:00] John Treacy Egan: Did you? Of course you did. You had to. That's fantastic. Talk to me real fast about being a director in a dance musical, which because we also did West Side together.

[14:09] James Vasquez: We did. How do you feel about it? How do you like it? And how do you maintain kind of your director leadership quality with it? Sure, I think, you know, I think, well, first of all, I mean, West Side and CATS and 42nd Street, I mean, all these choreo heavy shows are some of my favorite and some of the stories that I want to get out and tell. I always feel like the best choreography is not. This sounds obvious, but the best choreography is not just look how many times we can turn and look how high we can jump. Absolutely. But how does it service the story? And is the movement actually furthering what we're feeling and where we're trying to head? And so in a situation like that, spending time with my choreographers prior and really discussing the journey that we want to take.

And I think, you know, having to step back a little in rehearsal and let them take charge for a few minutes, but always needing to step back in and say, OK, now that we've got that in our bodies, why story? Why are we moving like this? And what is this big gesture? Where is it coming from and what does it mean?

[15:29] James Vasquez: And I think with something like CATS, the fun of it was getting to create this community and this language. And the choreography was fun and fantastic. And we did a lot of the original in the production that we did at the risk of it looking like a dance concert. We could have just made it very clean and said, put your tail on and go. Right. But there is a story and there is emotion underneath it all. And I think that's where I come into play. Yeah. One of the things I loved about our production of CATS is and any time I saw CATS where I was really moved by it was when the whole junkyard felt alive. And we talked a lot about that. You may be off sitting on a cardboard box right now, an empty milk crate.

But why are you there? What are you doing? How are you moving? How are you reacting? So there was constant life going on in our community. Yeah. Um, and it just felt alive. It felt like it had an energy that we hadn't seen in the junkyard for a while that I hadn't seen in the junkyard for a long time.

[16:32] John Treacy Egan: It's interesting because I you just announced that you're directing Hair here at the Old Globe, which is also about another tribe. And I've always felt that CATS was about a tribe.

[16:37] James Vasquez: Oh, it is. You know, I'm the tribe. And to fill that sense of community is I think one of the reasons why most of the CATS fans you'll find in the theater world are people who have done it. Because I think you're right, because it like James said, it really is the dancing and the singing. It's emotional. So that's why you need a director who understands that. Otherwise, it's just dancing. It's just movement, you know, dead eyes or it's singing with dead eyes, you know, which can be you can have a beautiful voice, but if there's nothing behind it. Sure. And I think you're right. I think it's because we've been told a story and we've been able to sort of be a part of that family and that tribe and telling that story. And I have great respect for CATS. It's like opera, either you lock in or you don't. But yes, I think we are fans, people who have done it. But to that point, I mean, theaters program CATS. And there's a line around the building to get in sometimes.

[17:36] James Vasquez: Well, maybe it is now, because I remember there was a time where I think it actually had burnt out a little bit. I remember we went to Dallas and we got a letter that said there was a letter from a woman who was a subscriber and said, if CATS shows up on my subscription one more time, I'm taking my subscription away. It symbolizes a big shift in musical theater, huge in every sense. It can't be overstated the shift that the show brought. And I think that if you are a big fan of the American musical tradition, that it was really, you know, popping and living in the 60s. Once you get to 1983 and CATS comes out, you're like, what happened to my musical theater? Because it is revolutionarily different.

[18:29] John Treacy Egan: I think what I would like to do is actually go back a little bit and talk about its inception. So for those who don't know, CATS is based on a book of poems by T.S. Eliot, who is a famed poet who is American. He was born in Missouri in 1888, moved to England at the age of 25 to work. He ends up getting married and stays there, winning the Nobel Prize for poetry, much more serious stuff than CATS. But at some point in his career, he writes Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats for his grandkids so that they could enjoy the poetry and grow up on it. And it's embraced by the Brits in a way that I don't know what would be here, Dr. Seuss, maybe?

[19:14] James Vasquez: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Old Possum was a nickname given to him that he like grandpa.

[19:22] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. Yeah. Throughout the show, you hear Jellicle Cats over and over and over again. And it's a nonsense word for a general English speaker. What on earth does Jellicle mean? But T.S. Eliot was making fun of the upper British class, right? I think that and also for the it's also to hear a child say jolly little cat. Yes. Turned into Jellicle Cat. Oh, that's a polycle dog was poor little, poor little dog. It was one of his godchildren, I think.

[19:46] James Vasquez: Oh, really? Yeah. That's so funny. In Andrew Lloyd Webber's book, he says that Valerie Eliot said that he was making fun of the British upper class for slurring. Well, by the way, it makes sense. So he has written this book, Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is a British composer of musical theater. At this point, he's written Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, all of which have been hits in New York, in America. But he's still I don't know, I feel like New York still feels a little allergic to him. They don't want to admit that he's as big as he maybe is.

[20:31] John Treacy Egan: Well, when did that? This is a dumb question, but when did the British invasion of musical theater really sort of? It was the 80s, because I remember being in New York and going to the theater. There wasn't a lot going on. There were, you know, strange, probably only had a few shows at a time, sometimes that were actually running. And then the British invasion came in and these things are still running. We talked about this a little bit in our Rent episode earlier this year, about how the American musical tradition was dying in the 80s. And part of it was because of the innovation of film and blockbusters. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, all of these movies were huge, huge blockbusters. And so how was theater going to respond?

CATS was the first blockbuster. They figured out how to make a Star Wars for musical theater. And I think on some level, because we didn't figure it out in this country, we really pushed hard against that kind of tradition. And the Cameron Mackintosh productions really just took over musical theater for the next decade.

[21:40] James Vasquez: I think it's after Joseph Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is a really interesting composer because he loves the classical tradition of music, and yet also seems to be really fascinated with the pop music industry and how to make money off of popular music. I'm sure growing up in, speaking of the British invasion, the initial British invasion of pop music with the Beatles and everything certainly piqued his interest. And so the combination of those two things is really fascinating. At some point he writes Variations, which is kind of his classical version of all of Mozart's variations, all of classical composers. And he decides that he's going to make an evening of theater where Variations, which was well-reviewed, is the second half.

And then the first half would be this poetry telling of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. At some point that totally gets abandoned because he goes to dinner with Cameron Mackintosh, who is a famous producer in Britain. They drink like three bottles of wine, and at the end of that dinner they've decided to turn Practical Cats into its own full-fledged musical. Now Cameron Mackintosh is kind of the genius behind the juggernaut that CATS became because he was the one who figured out how to make a blockbuster. I think he's also the one who figured out how to get T.S. Eliot's widow to sign off on it.

[23:13] John Treacy Egan: He decides to go after the choreographer Gillian Lynn to choreograph this piece about the Cats because Gillian Lynn had worked with Trevor Nunn, who was the director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. So if they can get Gillian Lynn, then they can get Trevor Nunn. And if they get Trevor Nunn, then that is a high-profile director.

[23:29] James Vasquez: Well, and Trevor didn't want to do it originally. And Cameron really pushed to get like a serious. He felt like this could just be a campy dance concert, that it needed to be a legit theater piece. So they were pushing for somebody legit like Trevor Nunn, who had no interest. And nowadays, I think the Old Globe, for example, does musicals. But there was a time when the cheesiness of musical theater wasn't touched by serious theater. And maybe this is kind of a turning point for that as well, that when Trevor Nunn decides that he's willing to go into musical theater land, like all bets are off, then Les Mis happens. Then all of a sudden, all of these Shakespearean companies are now doing the Utah Shakespearean Festival. The Utah Shakespearean Festival does two musicals a year that have nothing to do with good old Bill Shakespeare. So that might actually be a revolution in and of itself.

[24:34] John Treacy Egan: So Trevor Nunn signs on and he gives them three rules. He says, number one, Judy Dench must be in this piece. Number two, John Napier needs to be the designer. And number three, he has to be the director. Because even though there's obviously going to be a lot of dance, he didn't want Jillian Lynn being the director, like a co-director. She needed to be choreographer, he needed to be director. They agree to all of those. Judy Dench is the first major star to sign on to this thing. And from what I understand, she was going to play both Old Deuteronomy and Jenny Annie Dots.

[25:09] James Vasquez: No, I think it was Grizabella and Jenny Annie Dots.

[25:12] John Treacy Egan: Grizabella and Jenny Annie Dots were a combined track.

[25:13] James Vasquez: You're right. You're totally right. I'm giving away the ending of the story. So yeah, so she's going to be Grizabella and Jenny Annie Dots. Then she breaks her ankle or something.

[25:25] John Treacy Egan: Tore her Achilles?

[25:26] James Vasquez: Achilles. I think you're right. And so then ends up just having to bow out of the show because there's too much movement. She can't do it. Fast forward now, she's going to be Old Deuteronomy in the movie.

[26:37] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do yourselves a favor and get down to San Diego Musical Theatre to enjoy all they have to offer. They're located at the Horton Grand Theatre in downtown San Diego, which is walking distance from a gajillion restaurants. I got some handmade pasta there once with my family that was bomb. It doesn't matter what time of year you go, because it's San Diego and it's San Diego Musical Theatre. They're doing musicals all year round. Go get dinner and go see a show. And since SDMT are friends of the podcast, they have a special deal for you listeners. I already mentioned A Christmas Story, right? Well, they have one more week of performances. They close on December 29th. And they are offering you a special $10 discount on any regular price ticket for Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday's shows.

Incredible. All you have to do is use the code word podcast. Use the code podcast and get a $10 discount to any of the performances on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday this week at A Christmas Story. And if you can't make it to A Christmas Story for some strange reason, get a season subscription because it automatically saves you 25%. For ticket info, you can go online at www.sdmt.org. That's www.sdmt.org. And when you go to San Diego Musical Theatre, be sure to tell them hello from their friends at A Musical Theatre Podcast.

[28:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, I remember earlier this summer when the Cats trailer for the new film, which will be coming out this week, when that trailer first came out and everybody's brains broke, especially in Los Angeles and Hollywood. I think Hollywood people just malfunctioned and couldn't conceive as to how a project like this happened. And I think in the theater world, we were like, yeah, that's what we've been asking since 1983. Welcome to the club, because it seems so strange. And it is kind of funny that it happened over three bottles of wine, because you do need a little bit of liquid courage, I think, to put $2 million behind a show where you're like, yeah, it's just going to be humans dressed as cats.

And people are going to go crazy for it. And it's going to make a billion dollars. Like, who thinks that? I would never have the guts to think that that was going to be the case. So bless them for taking the leap of faith, right? So unfortunately, Judi Dench bows out, but they continue to create the show. And when they go into rehearsals, they go into rehearsals not with a script. They don't have really this idea of what the show is. They find it during rehearsals. Sure, they did lots of improv in that original rehearsal process. And it's a tradition that continues to this day, I think, with all of the productions of Cats. It's a term known as felinity. You take time to figure out how not to be a human acting as a cat, but that you are just a cat.

[29:35] John Treacy Egan: When you went in, because you never originated a company, did you?

[29:39] James Vasquez: No, I never did. So I always went in.

[29:42] John Treacy Egan: So what was that process like for you?

[29:45] James Vasquez: So it was brief, because they're trying to get you in quickly. Well, the first company I went into was the company was going into English and German. So besides learning choreography and blocking and things, we would have cat improv. But it was usually myself and maybe another actor going in. Dance captain, maybe.

[30:05] John Treacy Egan: Right. So I believe the Grizabella and I in the Zurich company were going in at the same time. So we, I think, probably had an hour or two of cat improv and just kind of discovery. And then on the national tour, we had a couple of rehearsals where the artistic team would come in and say, OK, we're going to cat improv for a couple of hours. You know, let's talk about this and, you know, talk about the story some more. It was a priority.

[30:33] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's cool. Let's go ahead and talk through some of the cat characters, because even though there is a story to the show, I think it's best told through the characters that, you know, make up the show. Let's start with Grizz, Grizabella, the Glamour Cat. Who wants to take that one?

[30:49] John Treacy Egan: Well, I'm interested to hear James, because James knows a lot of history of the story.

[30:55] James Vasquez: No, no. And knows a lot and has directed it. And I've only been an observer. But I would say that Grizabella was, you know, she was a Marilyn Monroe or, you know, Whitney Houston that burned out, you know, and was looking to be forgiven for all sins and to be reborn. And it's, you know, it's about second chances that Cats is about second chances. And she is, you know, the point of second chances.

[31:21] John Treacy Egan: Which is kind of genius because cats are known for nine lives, right? There is kind of an inherent reincarnation type feel with this animal in general. So the idea of being reborn is inherent to the animal and something that then we as an audience can explore vicariously through them. That's kind of genius.

[31:38] James Vasquez: What's actually so genius about it before you speak is just what it what the show is about is it's just spoken in like two lines, which is, you know, the Jellicle Ball they gather for one night to choose one cat who will live their life over again to be reborn. And you think the plot is so beautiful and so simple. It really is kind of special. I mean, what what else is like that? You know?

[32:00] John Treacy Egan: Yeah, I can't think of anything.

[32:03] James Vasquez: You know, as a director, having to approach it as a director, I had to take it out of the junkyard and I had to look at these characters as and their human qualities and the story behind that and who they would represent for me in my society life and then transfer that back with the actors. But Grizz from Grizabella, for me, is sort of that representation of, like you were saying, somebody who has had a rise, who was in the spotlight, who was known and through circumstances or through age or whatever started to falter. And I think in our world, unfortunately, still today, we're so quick to push aside and to push those aside that aren't as pretty or don't have as much or who are struggling a little bit.

And I don't know if that's from fear that we have or fear of our own death and getting older. And so I think the community around Grizabella, it's really a fear. You know, so the I agree the character of Grizabella is about second chances and about just wanting to be seen for what's on the inside.

[33:18] John Treacy Egan: You know, what's interesting is talking about society, going to another cat, Gus, the theater cat, who in many ways has a similar arc as Grizabella in that he was a dashing actor in his younger days. Now, now is old and can't do it anymore and has a real identity crisis because if you've only known yourself as an actor and you can no longer do it, then who are you?

[33:43] James Vasquez: Right. However, the tribe loves Gus.

[33:47] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. And he's endearing. There's a sweetness. There's a sentimentality and a want to take care of that they don't feel towards Grizabella at all. And I'm I'm wondering, is that because she's a female and we have we're not comfortable with women looking older, getting older, more so than than men? Or was she was she promiscuous? And there's that whole thing. You know, I mean, I think, you know, well, and then you can get into some of the stories about the lore of the cavity and Demeter and ballerina.

[34:23] James Vasquez: Absolutely. This is when we all start sounding really crazy. But, you know, I don't know. I, well, I think with Gus, there's that idea of the old grandpa or the, you know, or the old doddering man that we we run to help. But Grizz, Grizabella has been self-sufficient, I think, or trying to be and trying to work her way back into this community. I think she also left the community and where I don't know that Gus ever did. And so this idea of her coming back and knocking on the door saying, let me back in. She's a prodigal. This idea of who are you? Why now? You know, I think inclusion was also one of the big themes of the show for me.

[35:10] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. Acceptance of those around us in the world around us.

[35:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's cool. OK, we also have Rum Tum Tugger, who is kind of the rock star of the tribe. He makes me uncomfortable with his hot topic belt and gyrating hips. And here's this is this is where I maybe start to get a little catty. When did Rum Tum Tugger, when did the approach to Rum Tum Tugger become super campy and over the top?

[35:38] James Vasquez: So over the top, there can be an androgynous feel to it because of David Bowie. And because at the end of the day, this musical is so British, you know, in terms of tone and humor. So I think that he can be so glam rock. But there's also the technical thing where you're in you're in a leotard, you know, as it's a matter of honesty of playing it rather than playing at it.

[36:04] John Treacy Egan: Mr. Mistoffelees is a kitty. I love the in the tribe. It's very obvious who I was very obvious. There are there are for sure grown up kitties and little and young kitties. Mr. Mistoffelees, young kitty. And he's also known as kind of the magical one.

[36:23] James Vasquez: Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, who at one point in the show, after old Deuteronomy is kidnapped, is able to bring him back using his magic powers.

[36:34] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. And also turns on a dime that Mr. Mistoffelees.

[36:40] James Vasquez: Well, I think, you know, he has the lore of being a black cat. You know, black cats are have magic, magic.

[36:46] John Treacy Egan: Totally. That's a good point.

[36:49] James Vasquez: So speaking of mysterious, we got McCavity, who is going into the lore. I had heard was old Deuteronomy's son at one point, like that. That was the rumor that I had heard that, you know, and that he rebelled and that he rebelled against the tribe.

[37:06] John Treacy Egan: And so, yeah. Oh, that would have been a cool thing to play. These are all of those things that I think when you do the show, it's really fun to play.

[37:18] James Vasquez: Yes. They're not necessarily communicated to the audience. You know, and and I wonder if people might even like it more if they were.

[37:27] John Treacy Egan: Well, I used to think, say, we McCavity was almost like Bill Sykes and Oliver. Oh, he was abusive. And that's what that's who Demeter is running from in the beginning of the play. When you see the girl, the cat getting caught in the traffic, in the headlights of the car. She's running from him because she's a girlfriend. And, you know, but he's abusive and made her crazy or cracked out or something.

[37:50] James Vasquez: Yes. And he's a bad guy. Demeter is known as the she's the female cat and who I think is representative of cats who are fine and then all of a sudden have a crazy, hissy fit. And you're like, what is going on with them? Yes. But it's always she has these hissy fits, though, whenever she hears she senses.

[38:11] John Treacy Egan: I mean, you know that she senses that McCavity is near nearby. She she starts to feel and the fur rises and she starts scratching at the ground. So then once again, the lore is that McCavity and has abused her. Right. Or she's whatever it is that they have something that she's running from him.

[38:28] James Vasquez: Not really running from McCavity is Bomb Ballerina because Bomby, man, she's she's a sassafras.

[38:36] John Treacy Egan: Well, she's somewhere between, you know, Grizabella and she might she might be on her way to Grizabella territory. Right. She probably doesn't have the super glam, but she certainly has the sexuality.

[38:48] James Vasquez: Maybe I think that's it. I like that. And confident and actually and probably empowered, empowered, the most empowered in some ways of once. Once I saw a production of Cats where everybody was in like the traditional Cats costume, except for Bomb Ballerina, who is in three inch Leducas and had to do the entire show in heels.

[39:09] John Treacy Egan: What I always loved about our Bomb Ballerinas is there was crazy wigs. My wig needs to be bigger than all the Bomb Ballerinas I've ever worked with. My wig isn't big enough. I need a bigger wig. They just wanted a big red wig. Dolly Parton time.

[39:22] James Vasquez: I miss this is jumping in the revival.

[39:26] John Treacy Egan: Yes.

[39:27] James Vasquez: Oh, I missed the McCavity shadow dance that happened behind the McCavity number as the girls were singing.

[39:34] John Treacy Egan: It's a great movie.

[39:36] James Vasquez: Yeah.

[39:37] John Treacy Egan: Munkustrap, leader, leading man. I would say if we have like a hunky leading man of the tribe, it's Munkustrap.

[39:45] James Vasquez: And a thankless role. We were talking about that before. He really is like almost leading. He works so hard. He narrates the entire thing. He takes us through the journey.

[39:55] John Treacy Egan: He's the big gray one. Yeah, he should get more credit. And yeah, he's just kind of ensemble with everybody else at the same time. He's also domesticated because he has a collar, which is kind of fun. And being groomed by Old Deuteronomy to take over something. Love that. So Old Deuteronomy, prophet.

[40:12] James Vasquez: Oh, absolutely. Leader.

[40:14] John Treacy Egan: You know, Bambi's got a collar too.

[40:16] James Vasquez: Does she? I wonder if she's spayed or neutered or whatever. Probably not. Maybe she is. Maybe that's why she's so frustrated. Jenny Any Dots, also known as the Gumby Cat.

[40:28] James Vasquez: I love Jenny Any Dots.

[40:29] John Treacy Egan: And why do you love Jenny?

[40:31] James Vasquez: Well, I mean, as a performer, I'm a tapper at heart. So I always loved the Jenny Any Dots number. And when all the cockroaches came out.

[40:40] John Treacy Egan: Very clever.

[40:41] James Vasquez: Yeah. For me, we got to that number and it's the first. It's really the first cat of the neighborhood that we're meeting. And so it kicks off. It kicks off all the introductions of who are the kitties in our neighborhood. Her story is actually really cute, too. The idea is that she's the fat cat who doesn't move all day. But then as soon as you go to bed, she has a whole life that you have no idea.

[41:05] John Treacy Egan: No idea about.

[41:06] James Vasquez: Yeah. She's teaching the cockroaches how to tap dance. She's teaching the mice how to sew. And everybody loves her. She's great. She's also kind of one of the older ones. She's a leader in the group. And I think it's probably maybe in the running to go on to the heavy side layer. It wasn't there.

[41:24] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. I mean, I think I always like to think that that's sort of Monk's pick is Jenny. And he's just starting.

[41:30] James Vasquez: Sure.

[41:32] John Treacy Egan: And let's get us to the party.

[41:34] James Vasquez: Yeah. Going back to the Revival, I have lots of opinions. I liked the Jenny. I liked the Gumby Cat number in the Revival. Did you see it?

[41:43] John Treacy Egan: I didn't see the Revival.

[41:44] James Vasquez: I liked what they did. They cut the tapping cockroaches.

[41:50] John Treacy Egan: Oh, that's a shame because I always thought they were so clever how they made their cockroach.

[41:53] James Vasquez: Right. But they just brought a bunch of life's giant size props out. And at one point, the Gumby Cat goes swirling around on a giant mop. And it was really cute. There were some cute things that I thought they did with that particular number.

[42:07] John Treacy Egan: Going to Jillian Lynn's original choreography, she is a lyrical ballet with modern influence type choreographer, not a tapper. So you look at that original Jenny Any Dots number, and that's some pretty silly. It's some pretty silly tap dancing. It's tap for ballet dancers. So I don't remember. Did they do tap in the Revival?

[42:32] James Vasquez: They do. And they-

[42:33] John Treacy Egan: And I'm sure it was probably better.

[42:35] James Vasquez: They hoofed it up a little more.

[42:37] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. I remember that the New York audiences were really harsh on that number because, you know, tap is such an essential part of Broadway and dance that I think they kind of tore her apart. And even though Cats won a lot of Tony Awards that year, she didn't win for Best Choreography, which is crazy. Because that vocabulary is legendary. I mean, even if you do revivals of Cats, you're still going to be riffing on a lot of those angles and just style that she brought to the movement.

[43:08] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. I'm curious who won.

[43:10] James Vasquez: Tommy Tune for My One and Only.

[43:12] John Treacy Egan: That's tapping.

[43:13] James Vasquez: And that's real tap.

[43:16] John Treacy Egan: I really loved the Revival. I think they did some really lovely things to it. And I think Andy is a great choreographer. Controversial comment. I think he took the feline out of it.

[43:32] James Vasquez: Oh, interesting.

[43:34] John Treacy Egan: I felt like a lot of the revamped choreo that he did for the show-

[43:40] James Vasquez: A little too human?

[43:40] John Treacy Egan: Humanized it a bit. And while I was very open to updated choreography, I was actually very excited to see what they would do. I found myself missing some of the tradition of it.

[43:58] James Vasquez: I understand that.

[44:06] John Treacy Egan: I haven't seen the movie. I'm prejudging what I haven't seen. First of all, we have to take a bet. Do you think Peaks and Apocalypses is in the movie?

[44:11] James Vasquez: Oh, God, no.

[44:12] John Treacy Egan: Absolutely not.

[44:12] James Vasquez: They definitely cut it right. You know, the original productions of Cats, they had the slink. They had the mood. It was so all perfect in the fact that it was one thing and you were in one atmosphere. Whereas I look at the previews of this movie and go, oh, here's the jokes and here's the pop music. Now we're going to take you out of what was originally intentioned and made it more commercial, where it was already kind of commercial.

[44:40] John Treacy Egan: It's only just.

[44:42] James Vasquez: But they managed to make something experimental commercial, and I don't know how they did that. So again, I'm judging a preview.

[44:50] John Treacy Egan: But I'm saying like originally in 1983.

[44:53] James Vasquez: Oh, God, yeah. This is an experimental dance. It was thought of as an experimental dance. I think it's something like a Hamilton. I mean, you know, who thinks we're going to do a musical about Alexander Hamilton that people are going to flock to? So every now and then some genius is created and everybody catches on whether they get it or not. Right. They just think I have to go to that because everyone's going to it. And mostly because it's pretty great.

[45:17] John Treacy Egan: Yeah, there are other kitties we can talk about. But I just kind of want to hear it because I know you have to get to a show. Rumpelteazer, Mungojerry, they're mischievous cats that work together, right?

[45:32] James Vasquez: Yeah, they're there. I always thought of them as the teen cats who were trying to figure it out. And, you know, in the little bit of that, let's see how much we can get away with.

[45:43] John Treacy Egan: Yeah, absolutely. Pushing your boundaries.

[45:45] James Vasquez: I in high school, I never danced until I was 15, 16. And then I sort of did it in high school. And I probably because of Cats for my senior year dance concert. I got my friend Sarah and we did Mungojerry and Rumpelteazer.

[46:02] John Treacy Egan: Did you do the cartwheels at the end?

[46:04] James Vasquez: We did. We did. We managed to get three cartwheels out.

[46:08] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. And she was I'm short. And she's five nine. So I jumped into her arms at the end.

[46:15] James Vasquez: Give me that gender reversal. That's awesome.

[46:18] John Treacy Egan: The fun thing about being on tour is watching the Mungojerry and Rumpelteazer in the airport. See how many cartwheels they could do.

[46:21] James Vasquez: Stop it.

[46:24] John Treacy Egan: While we're waiting for a plane. Oh, my gosh.

[46:25] James Vasquez: They just go down. Just roll and roll.

[46:29] John Treacy Egan: Musical theater people can be so annoying, but that's amazing.

[46:34] James Vasquez: Bustopher Jones, very posh, overfed cat.

[46:39] John Treacy Egan: Kind of the one percent of the junkyard, I think.

[46:42] James Vasquez: Perfect. Fantastic. Cillabub, a cat who sees something in Grizabella that the rest of the tribe doesn't.

[46:52] John Treacy Egan: Yeah, well, she's like your Cindy Lou Who.

[46:54] James Vasquez: She's like she's the one who recognizes the goodness and, you know, the ostracized.

[46:59] John Treacy Egan: Who knew Grinch and Cats had so much in common?

[47:02] James Vasquez: Also, the original Cillabub, Sarah Brightman.

[47:06] John Treacy Egan: Yeah. Crazy.

[47:08] James Vasquez: Yep. Insane.

[47:09] John Treacy Egan: Not in New York, but in London.

[47:12] James Vasquez: Yeah. You know, I've always loved Cillabub. It is that I think that perfect example of a kid who has not learned to judge yet.

[47:23] John Treacy Egan: You have to be carefully taught.

[47:24] James Vasquez: Don't they also say that she's Bombalurina's kitten?

[47:27] John Treacy Egan: Yes, I think so.

[47:28] James Vasquez: And that Jenny Any Dots is taking care of everybody's bastard children.

[47:31] John Treacy Egan: Oh, my gosh. I hadn't heard that one.

[47:34] James Vasquez: That's hilarious. Victoria, the purity of the group.

[47:39] John Treacy Egan: What do you think?

[47:40] James Vasquez: Yes. Yeah. She's the famous white cat that, you know, has just the gorgeous.

[47:45] John Treacy Egan: Right. She's just beautiful.

[47:47] James Vasquez: And I think she's who they're hooking the whole movie on.

[47:49] John Treacy Egan: Right. Right.

[47:50] James Vasquez: The movie, I think, centers around Victoria's journey.

[47:54] John Treacy Egan: Like it's her first Jellicle ball or something like that.

[47:56] James Vasquez: Yeah, but that's what it looks like to me. It feels like they've sort of for the movie anyway, again, based off the two minute trailer that we've seen.

[48:02] John Treacy Egan: Sure.

[48:03] James Vasquez: That I've seen. It feels like they've sort of taken some of Cillabub's energy of this fresh, wide eyed and infused it into Victoria a little bit.

[48:14] John Treacy Egan: Interesting.

[48:14] James Vasquez: I don't know. I'll find out Thursday night at 9:45.

[48:17] John Treacy Egan: I love that so much. Cassandra, infamously the hardest costume to pull off because she doesn't get any leg warmers.

[48:24] James Vasquez: No.

[48:24] John Treacy Egan: So like, God bless her.

[48:26] James Vasquez: But everyone looks at her.

[48:29] John Treacy Egan: She's constantly.

[48:29] James Vasquez: Because she's stunning.

[48:30] John Treacy Egan: That's stunning.

[48:31] James Vasquez: I mean, I am.

[48:34] John Treacy Egan: So alluring.

[48:34] James Vasquez: I am getting low on time, but I have a bunch of things I have to tell you.

[48:40] John Treacy Egan: Please.

[48:40] James Vasquez: First of all, Cassandra, when the first time I saw the show, seriously, the only person I could watch was Cassandra. When like two years later, I came here to the Globe with my high school English class to see a production of Blood Wedding. And the original Broadway Cassandra was in the show. And we got to stay for a Q&A afterwards. And they were like, do you have any questions about the production? And I was like, hand in the air. And they stopped taking my questions. First of all, nobody was asking questions. So I was like, I got another one. I got another one about Cats. And it was all about Cats. And it was all geared to her, to Renee.

[49:22] John Treacy Egan: Literally just wanted to talk to her about Cats.

[49:25] James Vasquez: I'm so obsessed with that. I did decorate my room when I was 14 years old, like the set of Cats.

[49:29] John Treacy Egan: No, you did not.

[49:30] James Vasquez: I took a tire and I put pillows in it and made it a seat. I took a trash can and made it my laundry hamper. I took Christmas lights and strung them over my bed.

[49:38] John Treacy Egan: I can't, James.

[49:40] James Vasquez: And then a little top horse came out and I took that down and put a giant plant on my wall with vines hanging over the bed.

[49:45] John Treacy Egan: We'll see if that makes sense. And then the last story that I have time for is, I took my friend, my best friend from drama school, Carrie Preston, and I went to see Cats. She had never seen Cats. And we were both freshmen in drama school. And we weren't called for rehearsal that night. And we were like six weeks into school. So we didn't know each other really. And she was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm going to go see Cats. And she was like, what? Because she was there to like train, to be an actor.

[50:18] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[50:18] James Vasquez: And I was like, they have $10 standing room. You can get $10 standing room. Let's go see Cats. And she was like, I've never seen that. Let's go. So we go, we get our $10 standing room. We're at the back. And I loved the standing room at the Winter Garden because the cats would come by. You know, and you could stand back there and you could secretly just very small, do the choreography. And then at intermission, an usher comes up and goes, oh, we have two seats, third row center. Would you like them? And Carrie was like, third row center. We'll take them. It wasn't until like five years ago that I admitted to her how angry I was that we moved to third row center seats because that meant that at the end of the show at curtain call, when they all came to the back of the house, I wouldn't get to see them up close.

[51:06] John Treacy Egan: That's amazing.

[51:08] James Vasquez: You're a true meow in forever.

[51:10] John Treacy Egan: I'm meow in forever.

[51:11] James Vasquez: I like to believe that I created that hashtag, even though I know I didn't.

[51:14] John Treacy Egan: It's a good one.

[51:14] James Vasquez: I mean, I knew that you were a fan, but I don't think I knew how...

[51:17] John Treacy Egan: You can take it a step further, meow in forever.

[51:19] James Vasquez: Oh, you guys. I hope that was on your poster when you directed it.

[51:23] John Treacy Egan: Meow in forever.

[51:26] James Vasquez: Look, I'm impressed. Beyond impressed. You know, we didn't talk about my favorite cat.

[51:35] John Treacy Egan: Who is it?

[51:36] James Vasquez: Is the cat that you played.

[51:37] John Treacy Egan: Skimbleshanks!

[51:38] James Vasquez: Skimbleshanks, the railway cat, also has the craziest time signature of all the songs in the show.

[51:41] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[51:41] James Vasquez: Isn't that 1-2-3?

[52:00] John Treacy Egan: Is it 7-8?

[52:01] James Vasquez: It's crazy. It's something weird. It's the same as...

[52:03] John Treacy Egan: Andrew Lloyd Webber loves his Bizart.

[52:05] James Vasquez: Money keeps rolling in.

[52:10] John Treacy Egan: Okay, you need to go. But I do want to say that the part of the show that feels most divine to me is in the naming of cats, which happens at the beginning of the show. It's a very difficult matter. It isn't just one of your holidays. And it's something that...

[52:29] James Vasquez: All of the cats come and just kind of speak in a Meredith Wilson rap sort of way to the audience.

[52:36] John Treacy Egan: And I guarantee that most of the audience tunes out after the first two lines.

[52:41] James Vasquez: But it is the poetry of T.S. Eliot. And I think that the ending is really beautiful. It talks about how every cat has three names, essentially. The name that is given to them by the humans, the name that they have as a tribe, and then a name that nobody else knows.

[52:54] John Treacy Egan: And that's when they go into a trance.

[52:56] James Vasquez: Yeah, and the poem says, when you notice a cat in profound meditation, the reason I tell you is always the same. His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name.

[53:13] John Treacy Egan: Effable, effable, eff and ineffable, deep and inscrutable singular name. And I, I really, that kind of sense of identity is something that's so cool in the show to think that these people or these people, these cats, who their sense of identity is so pure that they can, they can go and meditate for hours about who they are, not to other people, not to each other as cats, but to themselves and only themselves. And that kind of integrity, I think is actually really divine.

[53:51] John Treacy Egan: And except for James, probably, just so you know, we would go out to children's hospitals and all kinds of hospitals. You'd get two or three cats would volunteer to go to a hospital and dress in costume. And then we would do the address, the naming of cats, which you couldn't do unless you were standing next to each other, because somehow it was no one could ever remember it. By themselves. That's kind of profound, isn't it? In a hilarious sort of way. So it was fascinating to go, okay, we're going to, we have to stand next to each other. And then when we would start to separate, everyone would just start to lick their paws or comb their hair or something because no one could remember it unless you were in a tribe. It was very eerie.

[54:31] John Treacy Egan: Oh God, it sometimes haunts me in the middle of the night on loop. He just said, name, name, name. We'll just do the beginning of it and then stop. I couldn't remember.

[54:40] John Treacy Egan: Oh, Jeffrey, I gotta go to a rehearsal.

[54:41] Jeff: You gotta go. You gotta go. I adore you. Do you mind staying for just a little bit longer, John?

[54:48] John Treacy Egan: I'd love to.

[54:49] Jeff: Everybody say goodbye to James. Thank you, James. You're amazing. We'll see you in the show.

[54:54] John Treacy Egan: See you on stage. The other thing that I think is really cool about the show, or I guess not cool, but the game changer with the show is the merchandise.

[55:01] John Treacy Egan: Well, that was a big thing for Cameron McIntosh. That was another, you know, he created merchandise, I think. I think we all had cats t-shirts. I mean, I do. It's turned into a blanket now. I made a quilt out of all of my old show t-shirts.

[55:18] John Treacy Egan: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I always find it fascinating that the shirt had yellow eyes, but we wore green eyes in the audience.

[55:24] John Treacy Egan: Oh, that's a good point. Well, but those eyes, those cat eyes with the dancers as the pupils, you know, like take the Kardashians out of the equation, that kind of branding, that singular branding of just one image to sell a show to an international audience, what it proved to be, you know, so important, that one logo.

[55:47] John Treacy Egan: Brilliant. I mean, and I don't think they ever really had to do much else. I mean, I think it always remained to be that logo. And, you know, like the phantom is the mask and the rose. But it's, you know, everyone knew exactly what it was.

[56:00] Jeff: Yeah, certainly. I feel like Cats is responsible for all of the merchandise in the lobby.

[56:07] John Treacy Egan: He completely created it. You know, if Disney was in a, you know, was on Broadway, I mean, they're the king of merchandise, I think, at this point. But Cameron McIntosh really created merchandising, I think.

[56:20] John Treacy Egan: Souvenir program.

[56:21] Jeff: Absolutely.

[56:22] John Treacy Egan: Cassettes, hats, shirts. I mean, you know, you had certain things when you would go to the theater. But I remember, I think, remember going, you know, even with my parents as a young person, we would go to the show and then we would go to Liberty Music to buy the record. So they didn't sell it in the lobby. You went somewhere else to buy it. But that was sort of like a little tradition. Like you'd go to a show and then we went to Liberty Music on Fifth Avenue to buy the record because there was no...

[56:50] John Treacy Egan: There wasn't something in the lobby.

[56:53] Jeff: No, you could buy, I think it was, you know, the program and Orange Aid or something like that. Boy, it sounds like I'm really old, but I guess I am now. But, you know, the people have often said that the reason, because Cats was, how long did it run? 14 years on Broadway?

[57:10] John Treacy Egan: I got to go to the last performance.

[57:12] Jeff: Did you really?

[57:13] John Treacy Egan: I did. And I think, first of all, two of the best parties I've ever been to in my life were thrown by Nina Lannan, who managed Cats. She threw the record-breaking party when it became the longest running and I was in Jekyll and Hyde at the time. And she invited every Broadway show to come to the party after their curtain came down.

[57:34] Jeff: That's so generous.

[57:35] John Treacy Egan: It was amazing. And then I went to the closing night party and show. I was lucky enough to be invited, which I have to say there were probably a lot more people who were much more worthy to be invited than I was. I mean, I was in the national tour for a couple of years and it was a great evening.

[57:53] Jeff: Did they just perform the show as they did?

[57:57] John Treacy Egan: Absolutely. It was just and the audience went crazy. They brought all these great people up on stage at the end. It was an exciting night to see. Especially if you were in that company, I guess, you know, the people who were in that company. I think it had to be a great moment.

[58:13] Jeff: That's beautiful. It ran so long and I think that a lot of people have surmised that the reason it could run so long was that you didn't necessarily have to speak English to enjoy it, which is interesting than how you learned it in German.

[58:29] John Treacy Egan: And it's funny and that's what it was about. It was about the written word. Originally it was about the written word and then it became an incredibly visual piece. It was a dance piece and it was an atmospheric piece. So with that branding, with the immersive nature of this being such a theatrical experience and then the idea that you didn't necessarily have to follow a traditional linear plot, you could have anybody who's coming to New York go to the Winter Garden and buy a ticket and probably enjoy it.

[59:01] Jeff: Let's talk about the Tony Awards real fast because then we can go through the other shows that were there in 1983. So you were talking about how there weren't very many shows.

[59:11] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[59:12] Jeff: To see and this is very true because let's talk about the best musical nominees that year.

[59:18] John Treacy Egan: I can't wait.

[59:19] Jeff: Blues in the Night.

[59:20] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[59:21] Jeff: Cats. Which one?

[59:22] John Treacy Egan: Star Mites?

[59:23] Jeff: No, Star Mites. Oh my gosh, no.

[59:25] John Treacy Egan: That was one of the years.

[59:26] Jeff: Yeah, that was later in the decade. So Blues in the Night review, right?

[59:30] John Treacy Egan: Yeah.

[59:31] Jeff: And then Cats, which one? Merlin.

[59:34] John Treacy Egan: Oh, right.

[59:35] Jeff: Which was Chita Rivera as the evil witch in the Camelot story.

[59:39] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[59:40] Jeff: Anyway, so she's playing the evil witch and then there's this magician playing Merlin.

[59:47] John Treacy Egan: No kidding.

[59:48] Jeff: And it was just an excuse to have magic tricks. And then My One and Only, which was Tommy Toon's tap dance musical.

[59:54] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[59:55] Jeff: Then My One and Only is all Gershwin music. So there's nothing original in terms of that score. So for the best score nominees, you had A Doll's Life.

[1:00:06] John Treacy Egan: Wow.

[1:00:07] Jeff: Right. Which was a total flop and a sequel to A Doll's House.

[1:00:14] John Treacy Egan: Oh, I thought it was a musical version of A Doll's House.

[1:00:16] Jeff: No, it's a sequel. It's after she leaves her husband. What happens?

[1:00:19] John Treacy Egan: I didn't know that.

[1:00:20] Jeff: Even crazier. Cats wins, then Merlin, and then Seven Brides with Seven Brothers. Speaking of movies that are better than their, you know, than their stage counterpoints.

[1:00:29] John Treacy Egan: Wow, that was.

[1:00:31] Jeff: Yeah, so it was a tough year. Cats wins for best book of a musical.

[1:00:37] John Treacy Egan: Fascinating.

[1:00:38] Jeff: Isn't that fascinating?

[1:00:39] John Treacy Egan: Yeah.

[1:00:40] Jeff: Well, you know, best book of a musical, meaning the script that it's through song and it's won by T.S. Elliot.

[1:00:46] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[1:00:47] Jeff: So that's, isn't that, I have no idea how that's even possible.

[1:00:51] John Treacy Egan: But I wonder because it had existed before. I guess it doesn't matter. I guess it doesn't matter how long it existed. It had never been put on Broadway before.

[1:00:58] Jeff: Right. It's just interesting that he won a posthumous Tony Award for a book of a musical that really is only there because of the order in which they placed his poem.

[1:01:08] John Treacy Egan: Sure. Fascinating.

[1:01:10] Jeff: It's fascinating. And then once again, Gillian Lynn didn't win for choreography. That was Tommy Tune. But Cats also won for costuming and lighting.

[1:01:20] John Treacy Egan: Yeah, all the design things.

[1:01:22] Jeff: Yeah, that's I can't believe it didn't win for choreography.

[1:01:26] John Treacy Egan: No, that's really too bad.

[1:01:29] Jeff: I do think that the New York just was, it was a little too different for New York. But it was so anticipated because I remember, I remember, you know, the buzz of it coming over from London and I saw it right around this time of year, I have to say. My parents got my sister and I tickets to go and we had gone into the city and it was raining horribly and we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral first and we went to the theater. We were soaking wet and we sat in the theater and I didn't know what I was seeing. I really didn't know what I was going to see. I just knew that you had to see Cats.

[1:02:04] John Treacy Egan: Sure.

[1:02:05] Jeff: You know, there wasn't a lot of buzz. There weren't a lot of pictures out yet. You know, Barbra Streisand sang Memory. That was on the radio.

[1:02:12] John Treacy Egan: How have we not talked about Memory? Oh my gosh.

[1:02:15] Jeff: Yeah, which was a late installment.

[1:02:17] John Treacy Egan: Exactly. They knew that Grizabella needed a big moment.

[1:02:20] Jeff: But once again, it was originally going to be acted by Judi Dench, who, while being a fantastic actor, is not a huge, you know, musical theater belter. Once she leaves, Elaine Page gets the role and who is a big Broadway belter. And he, Andrew Lloyd Webber, uses a melody that he had written for one act about Puccini's making La Boheme that didn't go anywhere. He uses that melody that's very Puccini-esque to create Memory. And then Trevor Nunn wanted to write lyrics. There was this whole story about who was going to write the lyrics. Finally, they get the lyric down using some of T.S. Eliot's other poems that aren't in the book of Cats.

[1:03:02] John Treacy Egan: Right.

[1:03:03] Jeff: And create this great song for her to sing about, you know, when she was beautiful, what does it mean to return to beauty, you know, and live again? And the song takes off.

[1:03:16] John Treacy Egan: Takes off. It's one of those stories that you always hear in these theater stories about the song that they were going to cut or, you know, somewhere over the rainbow. They wanted to take it out of the, you know, Wizard of Oz. Or part of your world from Little Mermaid. Yeah, all these songs that just come and you go, my God, that wasn't always there. It might not have made it into the show.

[1:03:35] Jeff: It's crazy.

[1:03:36] John Treacy Egan: Hey, James.

[1:03:37] Jeff: Our guest star.

[1:03:38] John Treacy Egan: We were talking about Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[1:03:40] Jeff: We totally forgot to talk about Memory.

[1:03:42] John Treacy Egan: Oh, I forgot. We forgot all about it.

[1:03:45] Jeff: Forgot all about Memory. How long does it take for you to get into Grinch?

[1:03:48] James Vasquez: I prefer a pretty fast face. I think I can do it in about five minutes.

[1:03:53] John Treacy Egan: Seriously?

[1:03:54] James Vasquez: Oh, my gosh.

[1:03:55] John Treacy Egan: I couldn't when we did Cats, I could never get it down to under an hour.

[1:03:59] James Vasquez: Wow.

[1:04:00] John Treacy Egan: Well, and I mean, it's so fast in regional theater. But like with the warm up and everything, like I could I could never get it all down.

[1:04:08] James Vasquez: The face when you first do it.

[1:04:09] Jeff: Well, thank you guys both for being on this episode. I appreciate you so much. Let's do part two. I have so much more to say.

[1:04:16] John Treacy Egan: Do you really?

[1:04:17] Jeff: Thanks, everybody, for listening. Don't forget to subscribe, like and share a musical theater podcast. We're going to be taking the next few weeks off for the holidays. So be sure to catch up on all of our episodes. If you have an idea for shows that you want to hear, go ahead and email us at a musical podcast at gmail dot com. And don't forget to follow us on Twitter for more great content and lots of fun discussions at a musical podcast.

[1:04:40] Jeff: Thanks, everybody. Happy holidays. And as always, meow and fur ever.

[1:05:01] John Treacy Egan: OK, so literally sitting in the credits as the movie just ended, I have to say I didn't hate it.

[1:05:07] John Treacy Egan: I didn't hate it. There's a lot that's wrong with it. They made some choices that were really interesting that I don't know that I agree with. Jenny, any dot. Come on. She's supposed to be darling, not this. Like, I don't know. I didn't like Jenny. Any doctor didn't like the Gumby cat. Buster for Jones. They kind of mocked Buster for Jones, too. And look, I know he's to be mocked, but they really sort of mocked him. The communal the communal hairball that happened in the Jellicle ball almost made me laugh out loud. And Victoria was really good. I mean, she and Monk is trapped. And even the police. I thought they were really good. I really liked them. The CGI. I mean, at times. Come on, just let them dance.

Just let them dance. Right. Just let them dance when they dance. They were glorious. Here's the thing. Sometimes the CGI was like, what? You couldn't tell what they were. Sometimes they had faces that looked like cats. Sometimes they were just people. And what was with the people hands? There was no attempt at like cat paws at all, ever. I didn't hate it. I didn't hate it.

[1:06:18] John Treacy Egan: There you go.

[1:06:22] John Treacy Egan: Oh, I also have to say my husband went with me and cried through the last like 15 minutes of it. Sobbed. Cried.