This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Mike Abrams: Hey everybody, this is Mike Abrams from The Wrong Cat Died, and I'm here with...

[0:00] Chris Adams: Hey, it's me, Chris Adams, one half of Out for Blood, the story of Carrie the Musical.

[0:09] Mike Abrams: And we are excited for this bonus episode of The Wrong Cat Died, where we're going to talk about the Out for Blood book and Chris's experience and the podcasts and Cats and everything else. But we wanted to bring it to both of our listeners. So Chris, tell us a little bit about the book and what we're gonna hear.

[0:24] Chris Adams: So if you're listening to this on the Out for Blood feed, you probably already know that Holly and I have spent a good two or three years exploring the history and mysteries of Broadway's greatest flop, Carrie the Musical. And since then I've written a book with even more interviews, even more backstage stories, and it made sense to chat with Mike about our love of niche, bizarre 80s musicals.

[0:47] Mike Abrams: Yeah, and if you're listening to this on The Wrong Cat Died feed, you will know that Carrie might not know, but Carrie has a huge influence on the 80s musicals, and so we talked about that, the book, Cats, the musical, the crossovers between Grizabella's and Carrie's, and all kinds of fun stuff. So enjoy this episode of The Wrong Cat Died discussing Out for Blood.

[1:09] Mike Abrams: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. And the Wrong Cat Died.

[1:23] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of the Catastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another amazing guest. He is a fellow podcaster as part of the Broadway Podcast Network with a show called Out for Blood, which is exploring the debacle that was the Carrie musical. And he now has a book about the show releasing in July called Out for Blood, and he discusses a little bit about how Cats influenced Carrie, and so that's what we're here to talk about today. So welcome, Chris Adams, and thank you for joining me.

[1:47] Chris Adams: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. I have a bit of imposter syndrome because I love your show. I know your guests are always so amazing. And I've never been in Cats, and here I am. So thank you for having me.

[1:59] Mike Abrams: Well, it's fun for me because when I first started with the podcast network, the Broadway Podcast Network, I had a lot of people kind of always talking about your show and my show together. They were like, I think we were on the end of the spectrum for them of like talking about one particular musical and one kind of thing.

[2:18] Chris Adams: Yeah.

[2:19] Mike Abrams: And so I had your show referenced to me all the time, and I'm like, oh, this is another one with a crazy story and another crazy plot. So I've always kind of been a fan of your show and known about it. And then when I heard you were doing the book, I was super excited because I've kind of always hoped to do a book someday as well. So it's like we gotta chat. But I'm less familiar with Carrie, and I feel like a lot of my listeners might be more familiar.

[2:42] Chris Adams: Yeah.

[2:43] Mike Abrams: So tell me about how you started your podcast and kind of digging into that leading to this book.

[2:50] Chris Adams: Sure, yeah. I mean, I totally agree we're at the niche end of intense analysis of niche musicals, but yours is a bit less niche than Carrie. So I mean, I guess this all started like many years ago when I was a teenager. I was a bit of a theater kid, as many of us were, but I also loved reading Stephen King. And so at some point I was kind of fascinated to find that in the 80s they had made a musical of Stephen King's first novel, Carrie. And if you know Carrie, it's kind of a weird topic for a musical in a sense. And you know, I lived in this quiet town in the north of England. I was nowhere near Broadway for a start, but there was this book which I managed to get hold of, which was published in, I think it was 1991, by a Broadway writer called Ken Mandelbaum.

And many of I'm sure many of your listeners will know his work. But he wrote this book called Not Since Carrie. And the idea of the book was that he used Carrie as the kind of definition of the ultimate theatrical flop. And in the book, he kind of frames all of these other flops, but it kind of comes to the conclusion that no other show will be as big a flop as Carrie was. And he talks about all these crazy things that happened on the show and how unusual the show was, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But it kind of sent me on this mission to find out as much about Carrie the Musical as I could. And I got hold of a video bootleg, an old school VHS, and I kind of remember watching it open-mouthed because it was just this bizarre, unusual show.

And I just kind of got this fascination with it and just wanted to find out as much about it as I possibly could. And I guess years later, skip forward a decade or so, I met my good friend Holly Morgan, and we kind of watched the show. We were both, we did shows together at university, and we also became obsessed together with Carrie. And then skip forward more time, we get to COVID-19. By this time, you know, I worked in theatre offstage, but that meant I had no job for a long time. Holly and Tom had kind of launched their own podcast about a different subject, but we were kind of talking about other things we could do. You know, they had the equipment, they had the kind of, they figured out how to make a podcast, and we thought, wouldn't it be cool to kind of look into Carrie and kind of bust some of the crazy urban legends that had been circulating all these years and talk to people who were there and find out if it was true?

So yeah, we did. We kind of started reaching out to people involved in the show, and it turns out, you know, all of those people who would, you know, usually working in theater, either on stage or off stage, they had nothing to do either. So everyone was kind of stuck at home looking to talk about this kind of industry that they were so passionate about. So people just agreed to talk to us. And you've probably had the same kind of thing where you're like, yeah, what is this amazing person doing on my show?

[5:33] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely the COVID boost of like everyone's home and they lost their stage, so they're looking for something.

[5:42] Chris Adams: So yeah, that was very true. And yeah, I love that you've had this festering with you for years and building up to the moment, which is kind of the opposite of mine, where I'm like, I didn't even know about the show until 2016 and didn't even think about it again until 2019, and then all of a sudden now it's a hundred and whatever episodes deep of it.

[6:01] Mike Abrams: Yeah, so there's been some historic flops. But what makes this one so unique?

[6:08] Chris Adams: Well, it was kind of, we talk about this a lot in the podcast, and now in the book, you know, that it's kind of the perfect storm of a flop musical in that everything that could have gone wrong sort of did go wrong, and there was so much going for the show in the first place. I mean, when you say, you know, Carrie the musical, people are like, what? That's crazy! What are you talking about? But this, you know, if you try and explain the plot of so many of those crazy 80s musicals, you could have the same response. Not, you know, Cats, you know, front and center. If you try and explain the plot of Cats to somebody, it's absolutely crazy, right?

[6:39] Mike Abrams: And yeah, I've been trying.

[6:40] Chris Adams: You've been trying all this time. And I think, you know, there were certain things about the plot of Carrie which made it slightly more undigestible for people in the 80s, but it was kind of, I think a strange time, and this is something that I tried to kind of look into a bit more in the book than we had time to do in the podcast, is kind of what drove this musical to exist at the time it existed. What was going on here in the UK where it first launched, and then on Broadway in the 80s to kind of make this musical make people think this could work as a musical, and what made it flop so disastrously? You know, this was the time of Cats. You know, Cats opened in London, I think in 1981, and it was a huge success over here, and then opened, I think the following year in New York, and it kind of redefined, you know, as so many of your guests have said, it kind of redefined what Broadway was.

You know, there wasn't really at that time such a thing as these long-running mega musicals, and you know, it was sold out continuously for so long. The tickets cost a fortune, it was everywhere. It was kind of welcoming a very different audience to Broadway. You know, families were welcome. It was very high tech. It kind of became this brand almost. I guess it was like this early example of FOMO. You know, people felt like they had to see it or they were missing out. And I think because of Cats, other Broadway composers and producers started to think about how they could reproduce the success of this ginormous show. And this is where I launched into the history of Carrie the musical. So I don't know if you obviously go into this epic history or whether we'll get to that later.

[8:16] Mike Abrams: I also want to save a lot of it because I think it's really interesting for people to listen to your podcast and the book, like to read the book, I'd like to go into it. I think I'm curious. So Carrie, did it do well on the West End?

[8:28] Chris Adams: So one of the kind of things people often misunderstand is that it never opened, it never played on the West End. It played, it was commissioned, co-commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and they're based up in the Midlands, so kind of like halfway up the country in this town called Stratford-upon-Avon, which is like two, three hours away from London, so quite far away from, you know, the testing ground of the West End. And that was part of why people were so surprised. A couple of the reasons why people were surprised that this show existed in the UK. Firstly, it was being done by the Royal Shakespeare Company, whose remit obviously was usually to do Shakespeare. But also it was, it wasn't being tested in the way that you might test a Broadway show in London or the other way around.

It was being tested in this small town where audiences were used to going to see, you know, Twelfth Night and Macbeth and stuff. And all of a sudden, this American horror story was being put on stage in musical form in front of them. And of course, you know, it was there for three weeks or something, and it sold really well because it had people who were very exciting to British audiences. You know, it had people from Fame in it, and it was being, you know, it had this kind of stellar cast and this amazing choreographer, Debbie Allen, who people knew really well from Fame too. So it sold really well, but the critics absolutely mauled it. It was trashed beyond anything anyone had ever read about, and yet still they continued and took it to New York.

[9:53] Mike Abrams: So this is, maybe as you went through all of that, I'm like, did you just describe the most recent Cinderella and Bad Cinderella?

[10:02] Chris Adams: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's the first thing in the book that is now out of date because as I was writing the book, they just announced that that show was going to New York with a new name and now it's gone. So the book is already out of date. But yeah, it was kind of the same thing, you know. I talked to Dean Pitchford. We talked to Dean Pitchford, who's the lyricist of Carrie for the podcast, and one really interesting thing he talked about was how you test musicals and how you get a sense of how an audience is gonna respond. And he described the feeling of he and his two writing collaborators standing at the back of the theater in Stratford, thinking, this is the complete wrong place to test this musical for Broadway. You know, if you test a show in Boston or Chicago or something, you're gonna get a much closer idea of how a Broadway audience is gonna react. And yet here they were in the middle of the British countryside testing this new Broadway mega musical.

[10:58] Mike Abrams: It's so, I mean, this is where, as someone who's not like a theater insider really knows. I mean, I've learned more over the years, like the past three years, but I, the business side of things is really fascinating. And I do think, like I was confused when Bad Cinderella, as much as I love Bad Cinderella, I might be in the minority there, but I loved it. I thought it was really camp and fun. But I like, I was like, why is this coming here when it did so poorly?

[11:23] Chris Adams: Yeah, and they didn't really change much. They kind of just like made some adjustments.

[11:25] Mike Abrams: So you didn't really get it, you had a real test in there.

[11:29] Chris Adams: Yeah, but this is also with Carrie, it feels like some of it's right place, right time because there's now like every book and movie and everything turned into musicals, and like there's a roadmap of success there, whereas that wasn't as common when this happened, right?

[11:46] Chris Adams: Like in when they did it in the 80s, that wasn't, you know, there's not the pretty woman and Tootsie and every Life of Pi and every version of book or movie turned into musical that's possible.

[11:59] Chris Adams: I think it's a really interesting point. I think, you know, it was an early example, I guess, of what of an IP-based show, you know, something that already existed. But it was, you know, it was not an obvious thing to make a musical about. I think now people are much more accepting of trying, you know, to do unusual stories on stage. But this was the 80s when people were used to very comfortable shows, Shakespeare and revivals of comfortable musicals from the 50s and things on Broadway.

[12:25] Chris Adams: This was a show about you know a girl who has telekinetic powers triggered by her first period who kills all their classmates. You know, this was not uh comfortable material for Broadway, and you know, you begin to think that's maybe why it didn't do so well. But yeah, I mean, that like Cinderella, not much was changed between London and New York. Um, a big change was the replacement of one of the leading ladies, um Barbara Cook, who played Margaret White, Carrie's mother in the UK, pulled out of the show because she hated it, basically, and she was replaced by Betty Buckley, who you all know from the Cats Universe, um was big on Broadway, especially at that time, only a couple of years after originating Grisabella in the Broadway cast of Cats. So there's your first Cat link, Cats Carrie Connection.

[13:12] Mike Abrams: So I I'd love to hear a little bit about how you decided to transfer podcast to book. Like, you know, there's you obviously have dug really deep into it, but you're covering it in just uh an audio format, and then now you're adding more to it and putting it in print. And you know, for to some of it you said it's like it's cool to have a documented history, but at the other point, like we just talked earlier, like it's a moment, it's a snapshot from today because then the bad Cinderella's and everything in the future, until you do second versions of the update. But um, but like how did you decide to make that change in format?

[13:43] Chris Adams: I think um I was always surprised that there wasn't um there was obviously the Ken Mandelbaum book, but that was written just after the show closed, and really nothing had been written much about the show ever since. Um, with the kind of feeling of retrospect. And the interesting thing about Carrie is that um, unlike most flops, it kind of had this renaissance. Through the 90s. There was this huge fan demand for bootleg recordings and photos and reviews and stuff, and then the writers kind of continually refused to have anything to do with it until um 2009 when they started to rewrite it, and there was a revival of the show in 2012, which is quite unique, you know, in the world of flops. So I think when we were doing the podcast, we were kind of releasing the episodes a bit on the fly.

The more um people we spoke to who had been connected to the show, the more contacts we were making. And because we were really sort of recording it as we went along, we had this backlog of people really that we would have loved to include it in the podcast, but we never got round to kind of we tried to retrospectively slot a few people in later on, but we kind of told the story chronologically, so it was a bit difficult to do that. So we had this amazing list of people that um I knew that I would love to speak to about the show, and then as kind of COVID restrictions eased off and it was possible to go out and go to archives and libraries. Um, I was able to kind of find uh interview recordings from the time and you know technical drawings of the set and all this kind of cool stuff.

So it just kind of there was just so much more material that I thought could be shaped into a book and and kind of tell a bit dive a bit more into the kind of cultural history of what was going on at the time of the show, as I say, to kind of figure out a bit more about why the show happened, why it flopped, not just what happened. Um I kind of spoke to, I was very lucky in that I managed to speak to someone at Methewin, which is a theatre publisher. Um, and and the guy there had actually listened to the podcast, which kind of gave me this head start, I suppose, and he kind of saw the the value in that deeper dive into the show. And yeah, I was just hugely lucky um to kind of have that connection, and and here we are.

[15:48] Mike Abrams: Were you able to talk to anybody that went to that first three weeks in the English countryside?

[15:52] Chris Adams: Yeah, we spoke to um a couple of audience members who'd seen it there. Um it it we we knew that we wanted to kind of tell more than the story that existed on Wikipedia, if that makes sense. There's this kind of top line story of the show and all this crazy stuff that supposedly happened. We knew that we wanted to get a broader story. So we wanted to speak to not just the people who wrote the show but the cast and then people who were backstage people who saw the show people who worked in the theaters that it was on to kind of get this 360 degree kind of picture of what had happened and and and different perspectives. So yeah we spoke to people and and you know people's memory it's it's interesting.

It's been a really interesting study of people's memories because there are these kind of urban legends that have developed and people start to tell those stories and then they're like oh maybe that didn't happen the way I remember this is actually what I remember and you kind of start to pick their their brain and this was a long time ago you know it's 35 years ago so I can't remember why I was I was like three 35 years ago but like I can most people can't remember what they were doing that long ago. So to kind of pick these details out of people and get them to to recall these really fantastic stories has just been such a pleasure.

[16:58] Mike Abrams: Yeah that it's such a good point too because like I've talked to so many different productions over the years and it's like I can have with somebody who just finished their tour or are still in like on their show doing cats I'm getting like deep dives into the analysis of the characters. Then I talked to somebody on like the third tour in 87 and they're like yeah here's kind of the loose but like they remember the stories about being on tour and the other stuff but like the their character analysis they remember the the basics and so it is an interesting dive into that of like having so many years of that.

[17:31] Chris Adams: Yeah. I also love that you know that they revive the show because it gives me hope that maybe the 2019 cats movie will get a another light light of day because they've all done the exact same thing. They've all stepped away from it. No one wants to be associated with it. You think like there's so you think that could be like a re-release a re-edit at some point in the future.

[17:50] Mike Abrams: I I still firmly believe that if you took the what they shot yeah there's probably a good movie there but the current edit choices were were questionable in my opinion.

[18:02] Chris Adams: Interesting interesting well here we are maybe in 35 years we'll be back talking about the movie I hope in 35 years this podcast is not going but yeah there'll be a new medium anyways launch all their stuff and there's gonna be some some VR and AI stuff coming in here.

[18:19] Mike Abrams: Yeah so t tell me a little bit more about the other cats influences because like there's a there's obviously the Betty Buckley there's the the show kind of being on at the same time what other cats influences you find because I know you mentioned you talked to about some in the book.

[18:31] Chris Adams: Yeah so I think like the interest the biggest obvious thing is that the cats was just dominating Broadway at the time and I think uh you know other writers other composers producers were looking at it and thinking how do we replicate this success and cats obviously originally was directed by Trevor Nunn who was the joint artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare the Royal Shakespeare company. So um he his his kind of co-artistic director was Terry Hans who would direct Carrie so there's a really kind of um you know two directors who are very close. Trevor Nunn gets this enormous international success with cats and later he also directs Lemis Rabla. So Terry Hans presumably I mean Terry Hans sadly he's no longer around to to tell this story but presumably Terry was looking on and thinking you know how do I get a piece of this this mega musical action you know what could I adapt for the stage that um that could kind of do this huge Broadway piece.

And I think you know that that's kind of the first the first connection I guess is that you know it's a British show they're both British mega musicals that tried to make it big in New York and one of them did and one of them didn't and what what are the kind of reasons behind that um but there's there's also lots of crossover in terms of personnel and people who are involved you know um Betty Buckley's the obvious one she she did her time in both cats and Carrie uh one of course being more successful than the other um Charlotte Damboise who played Chris the the the kind of mean girl in Carrie was also a big cats person she'd been in I think the first national tour she met her husband uh Terence Mann on the show and uh a great a great kind of cat's romancer Liz Callaway who's played Grizzabella many times I think was in the in the workshop of Carrie before it even kind of made it to the stage.

Lilius White was in Carrie too another like loads of grizzabellas are basically um so I think yeah it's the it's this really interesting look at Broadway in the 80s and this kind of this kind of community of people who played similar roles and you know would audition for similar shows but you know this this show just didn't take off and so it's it's kind of interesting to see how those careers have kind of progressed over the years and how this this this can you know supposed flop didn't stop these people from becoming huge Broadway stars in the end.

[20:48] Mike Abrams: Yeah yeah I mean as the actor and the performer you're kind of like it's a job at some point too like you know they're not uh the source material they're not writing they're not directing they're performing so as long as they can go out and belt yeah um but yeah, it is there's there's so much, and there's still even you know, today we still see stuff come up and down all the time, and yeah, there's a lot of IP turn to musicals, and uh, but back then it's very different, and I think that's what makes this one so unique. And also just it's kind of a weird story to begin with, you know, like it's an interesting choice of all the things to pick.

[21:20] Chris Adams: Yeah, I mean, there was a you know, people always say, you know, oh, this show would never have worked on Broadway, the plot's too crazy. But like I say, the plot of cats is possibly crazier. The plot of uh, you know, if you try and explain the plot of Starlight Express to someone, or you know, even stuff like A Vita, you know. If you try and say, Oh, yeah, we're doing this this uh this new musical about a dictator's wife, you know, people are like that's crazy. But you know, um most Broadway musicals are a bit crazy. You can spell out the plot.

[21:45] Mike Abrams: Totally. Totally. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died.

[21:52] Chris Adams: So let's talk a little bit about cats in general. Not not related to uh to Carrie, but um how how much you know, like how much are you a fan of it? How much do you know? I mean, how many times have you seen it? Like, give me your cats experience.

[22:05] Chris Adams: No, I gotta admit, I am not the biggest fan of cats. I've seen the show once a long time ago, and obviously the movie. I think I s for some reason I've seen the movie twice, but I don't know why. I'm one of the few people who has uh in the in the cinema and then on TV as well. So yeah, I mean, I I have to admit, I just cats is one of those shows, you know, people who say they can taste colors. You know, when people say, Oh, I can I get when someone says a color or says their name, they can kind of taste it in their mouth. I kind of get that with cats in a weird way. As soon as people start talking about cats, I get this weird allergic reaction to it, and I kind of struggle struggle with it a bit, but I'm fascinated by it because it is just this, you know, it is there's just this army of people who have been in it and who who love the show so much. I find it really fascinating. I just couldn't explain the plot to you if you asked me to.

[22:57] Mike Abrams: I and that's also I think that's what's so unique about the show is that I've never met anybody that that's the most articulate version of not liking it that I've heard. Because most people are just exactly that. It's like I can just tell it's not my cup of tea, it's not my not my particular show. But there's never been a real visceral of like, here's my critically why I don't like this and why I don't like that. It's just more of like, yeah, it's kind of a little old, stupid, a little dumb, not my thing, and and there are other people like that are obsessed. And so I've been like waiting. Uh early on when I started this, I wanted to find someone who hated it to talk to, but like hated hated it.

And every person I met, and I'm like, why'd you hate it? And they're like, I just didn't like it. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah. No, that's not a reason. Um so it is kind of interesting because it is one of those that's like it's an easy punchline, and it's an easy thing to say, like, yeah, that wasn't really for me. But there's it's really hard to articulate the why.

[23:52] Chris Adams: Yeah, there's something quite odd about I think there's it's when people talk about this uncanny valley thing, you know, where then they're not real cats, but they pretend to be real cats and they're kind of roll up in your face. That yeah, something about it just makes me kind of shiver a little bit.

[24:06] Mike Abrams: Do you do dislike cats?

[24:08] Chris Adams: No, do you do you just like cats cats?

[24:10] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I don't like cats either.

[24:11] Chris Adams: Maybe that's it.

[24:12] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I think that's probably it.

[24:13] Chris Adams: Yeah, I love dogs. Someone should someone should make a dog musical, and I'd be there. But yeah, cats not my not my animal.

[24:20] Mike Abrams: But um yeah, so maybe that's why.

[24:22] Chris Adams: Maybe I'm literally allergic to cats and cats.

[24:26] Mike Abrams: This is this is what we're trying to figure out here is is what caused how old were you when you saw it the first time? Were you a kid or

[24:30] Chris Adams: I was a teenager? I think I was on a school trip to the West End, I guess. Um, and I can't this is the thing. I really can't remember a huge amount about it. And I think in my head, I kind of have pieced it together over the years, and then when I saw the movie, I was like, is this what cats is?

[24:45] Mike Abrams: This is crazy. It doesn't make any sense. Um yeah, I think you know, as mad as Carrie is, at least there's a sort of vague plot in there somewhere, and at least you know, the characters have got things on their minds and things to do, but Cats just seems to be a lot of cats, you know, walking around and getting sad and angry, and it's yeah, it's very dance-heavy.

[25:06] Chris Adams: And so if you're not a like I'm not a dancer, and so I'm like, I'm not, I'm like, oh, that looks really hard, but I'm not like the choreography is more of just like a I'm a spectator, not uh understanding anything about it.

[25:17] Mike Abrams: Yeah, exactly. I think that's why you know I do find it really fascinating. I think you know, I appreciate that the dancing and the choreography is so it is is amazing, and and you know, the people in the show must be amazingly talented. And I think what I found from looking into Carrie so much is the thing that interests me is is the kind of context of how something came together. And I think the story of Cats itself, the making of Cats is a really fascinating story, and the branding of Cats. I uh you know, I work in marketing and and the story of how Cats became this kind of worldwide phenomenon through its branding and the way it was promoted so differently to other shows at the time. I think that side of things really fascinates me.

[25:58] Chris Adams: The kind of story of Cats fascinates me a bit like well, there's mass appeal because it's because there's so little plot, you almost don't even need to be able to understand the language. Like it's it's translated. Like I could go see the German version in German, not speak German, and still follow most.

[26:15] Mike Abrams: Exactly. Like I'm pretty sure I'd be able to comprehend. I mean, I guess I for sure now would, but like even before. It's like you'd get the general idea of this one they don't like, she comes back, they celebrate her at the end. Like that's that's pretty much it.

[26:28] Chris Adams: Um it is interesting to hear that of the you didn't see it. But you so you didn't see you would have been before the street Tugger. So you would have been, I I'm wise, I was like, could that have been the reason? But no, you would have been about this. I've heard about the rapping.

[26:42] Mike Abrams: And yeah, no, I don't think if that was it. I I wish maybe I saw it on tour or something because yeah, I can't even I I feel like if there was someone really famous in it, I would remember that, but I don't think there even was.

[26:53] Chris Adams: So have you seen the VHS 1998 like stage pro shot version? I guess not a pro shot. They actually did so you should watch that and then come back and tell me because that's an actual it's a movie that they did, but they and they you know they hired all the performers for it, but it's much more of a here's a here's a stage version, yeah.

[27:14] Mike Abrams: Um that they shot over three months, and that is the original choreography and the essence of Cats. And it's like if that doesn't do it for you, then you're not in.

[27:22] Chris Adams: Okay. But like seeing it once and then seeing the 2019 movie are very different.

[27:26] Mike Abrams: Yeah, exactly. That's why I feel unqualified to be on your show because I yeah, I feel like I've missed the kind of quintessential Cats experience. So I'll go and find this VHS and and watch it. Um I've watched John for a while because I do like I've always thought when when people go to the Broadway Podcast Network, I do think that we sit in this weird little bubble on the side, yeah, of the you know, like I've I always when you look at the amount of shows and the for theater people, there's like hundreds of amazing shows, but you have like a diversity and inclusion one, you have someone about producing, and then you've got someone about auditioning, and then I'm like, then you got you and I over here exploring the essence of these like very strange shows.

[28:03] Chris Adams: Yeah. Of one show and like, you know, what happened in those, you know, in those moments. And so it's always been fun to kind of have, you know, our logos are usually together when they do stuff. Um it makes it fun. They they put it in like the obsession category on the BP homepage 'cause it's just so in depth rather than just broadcast. It's like these two have pro these two have problems. If you want to go s go sort those out with the two of them, come join.

[28:28] Mike Abrams: Um let's do a little Cats rapid fire, which might be hard if you if you're not as familiar, but I'll guess I can help out here because there's only one important question, and and I'm gonna be mad if you pick Grizabella now, because if you if you don't have an opinion, then you should at least agree with me. Um but if you could go and play one cat for one night, who would you want to perform as?

[28:49] Chris Adams: So I can't choose Grizabella. That's what you're saying.

[28:50] Mike Abrams: You can.

[28:52] Chris Adams: No, no, no. Grizabella's the last question if she's the right jokical choice. I think the good thing from what I understand about Grizabella is she doesn't have a huge amount to do until like the last 20 minutes of the show. She's yeah, she's on stage fifteen about 15 minutes.

[29:05] Mike Abrams: That isn't a bad answer for this.

[29:06] Chris Adams: Well that appeals to my sense of like, you know, I'm the main event here, I'm the you know, I'm what you've all paid your money for. Here I am. So I'm gonna go with Grizabella, I think.

[29:15] Mike Abrams: I know that's a good thing. I think that's a great answer for this.

[29:16] Chris Adams: No, that's a great answer for this because you get to sing the the one song that everyone knows. You're on stage for yeah, about 15 minutes, a little bit in the first act, a little bit in the second act.

[29:27] Mike Abrams: Exactly. Yeah, that's it. And it's always like this, you know, the the kind of celebrity or the minor celebrity. We have this kind of minor celebrity here in the UK called Jane McDonald, who I don't expect you to know, but she's this kind of TV host, and she's kind of like she's kind of a bit of a gay icon, and she's also yeah, she's like everyone's mum, basically. She usually presents the show about cruises, which kind of gives you the kind of level. And somehow she often ends up playing Grizabella in Tours of Cats. And I kind of find that kind of amazing. You know, she's like, Yeah, I'll do I'll do nothing else in the in terms of theatre or performing, but I will be Grizabella and Cats because I get to do like 20 minutes and the big song at the end, and everybody loves me for it.

[30:06] Chris Adams: So yeah, shout out to Chatters.

[30:09] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it it is where if you're gonna stunt cast, yeah, exactly. Grizabella is where you can stunt cast, which they have. I mean, the very first one I saw was the Leona Lewis, and they've had a few over the years that um it's not a show you can generally do that because it's like they're in full makeup and costume, and losing some of the essence of like the major celebrity, but as long as they're a powerful singer, yeah, and can belt memory, then yeah, you can do that.

[30:34] Chris Adams: Yeah, yeah. I love it. Um, we'll see if uh I can get your if I can get her to come on, get her to come on.

[30:40] Mike Abrams: Oh my god, that would be incredible. I mean, you would yeah, it would yeah, the the UK gays would be would be downloading in their drives.

[30:49] Chris Adams: Let me see the details.

[30:51] Mike Abrams: Yeah, yeah. Who are your favorite and least favorite Cats characters? Do you have a can you even name the ones that you love and dislike?

[30:59] Chris Adams: Oh my god, this is like a test. Um so who's Jason Derulo?

[31:04] Mike Abrams: That's Tugger, Rum Tum Tugger.

[31:10] Chris Adams: And the name as well freaks me out a bit too. Terrence Mountain played Rum Tum Tugger. I know that's that's the one fact that I bring to the show today. But um, let's go with least favorite for him and favorite.

[31:23] Mike Abrams: Oh my god. Can you give me some tips?

[31:27] Chris Adams: Um, well, you so let's go off the movie. Uh did you like Taylor Swift? Did you like Bomballerina? Did you like Idris Elba as Macavity?

[31:35] Mike Abrams: Yeah, let's go with Idris.

[31:36] Chris Adams: Uh let's go with Idris for some, you know, some British representation.

[31:40] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[31:40] Chris Adams: Um, let's go with Idris. What's his name? Uh he's Macavity.

[31:47] Mike Abrams: Yeah, but you know, I've heard that before.

[31:50] Chris Adams: Yeah, these names this is what I mean. When when you say these names, I get like a strange taste in my mouth. I don't know what it is.

[31:56] Mike Abrams: It is uh they're crazy. It is it makes the I've been using um we've we've I've had some fun with this because I've been using the AI software and transcription services to do editing for this podcast. It cannot get the names right. It's so far like it's so far off. It's like comical to see what they picked up as Macavity and Mistoffelees, yeah, yeah. Rum Tum Tugger and all these things, like none of them are are even remotely typed correctly.

[32:23] Chris Adams: Maybe you should write like a sequel that uses the AI generated Cats names. Just kind of see if any remembers.

[32:27] Mike Abrams: Oh yeah, what it puts in no, it's usually like three or four words mashed together. It's like it's like they picked common words, but they're not actually even close.

[32:36] Chris Adams: Brilliant. Um what's your favorite song from Cats and your favorite song from Carrie?

[32:40] Mike Abrams: Oh my god. Let's do Carrie because obviously that's um I think so there's two different versions of Carrie, obviously, as I was mentioned, but Out for Blood, not just because it's the name of the book and the podcast, but Out for Blood, I think is the ultimate ruling song from Carrie. It's it's this bizarre number at the top of the second act where they kill the pig that they use to cover Carrie with his blood. Um and it's just this brilliant memorable number. Um I love it.

[33:03] Chris Adams: Oh, Cats, Cats, Cats. Um do I have to choose a favorite from Cats? What's the one where they your listeners must be like, who is this guy who doesn't know anything about Cats and why is he on this Cats podcast? Um, I can't choose Memory because that's kind of the only one I can remember.

[33:18] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[33:22] Chris Adams: Let's go with let's go with that. Because I think that's the only one that sticks in my head from from uh it's the only one I knew when I saw it the first time. So it's it's it's fair to pick that.

[33:31] Mike Abrams: But this is the one I want you. This is the one I want you to think about. Um I argue that I don't think Grizabella is the right jokical choice. So I would love to know if if you're gonna defend Grizabella, I'm gonna need a real defense. But if not, who would you pick as your jokical choice?

[33:48] Chris Adams: And we're saying that the choice is a good thing, right?

[33:51] Mike Abrams: Depends on how you want to interpret it.

[33:54] Chris Adams: Well, you know, I feel like I feel like Grizabella deserves it because she's the kind of the diva star of the show. She deserves the big finale, and you know, she goes up on whatever that what is that thing? Like a swing? The tire to um to the heavyside lair. I know that bit. Um so I suppose that's good. But in terms of the person who should die from Cats, probably Jason Derulo, otherwise known as probably Jason, because I think he was one of the worst parts of the movie.

[34:28] Mike Abrams: So let's send let's kill him off.

[34:30] Chris Adams: I like that. So I'm gonna I'm gonna make your vote the Rum Tum Tugger.

[34:33] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[34:34] Chris Adams: For the reason of that you just dislike Jason Derulo.

[34:36] Mike Abrams: Yeah, yeah.

[34:36] Chris Adams: And that's I love it. Any reason that's not Grizabella, it can be because of Jason Derulo. That's great. Cool. Let's do that. Let's say that.

[34:42] Mike Abrams: I love it. Um, how can people uh stay in touch with you, find the book? Uh like how you know let's let's let's plug everything here.

[34:52] Chris Adams: Yeah, sure. Well, you can download the podcast here on the Broadway Podcast Network. Um the book is out at the end of July. It's also called Out for Blood. Um and our socials were Out for Blood Pod on Twitter, and Out for Blood Podcast on on Instagram. And I'm Chris A on Twitter and Chris A31 on Instagram. Just a load of information for you there.

[35:16] Mike Abrams: We'll link them all. That way it's a lot easier. I mean, I have to give you my apologies because I clearly don't know anything about Cats, but um no, but this was super fun.

[35:24] Chris Adams: Yeah, it's it's in my mind. I think about it a lot, I just don't know a lot about it. But um, yeah, here we are. This was this was awesome. I I was I've been fascinated by your show for a long time and was so excited for the book because of it. It does feel similar, even though you know I I know nothing about Carrie, you know very little about Cats. Like, but there's a there is some history there, and I'm glad we got to blur the lines today.

[35:46] Mike Abrams: Yeah, um, and share a little bit about that.

[35:48] Chris Adams: Exactly. Big up to the 80s Broadway mega musicals, even if some of them don't work out so well in the end. Some do and some don't. And you know, it's a coin flip. Which one should have? One about murder or the one about murder. They could have both yeah, they could have both they're both about murder at the end of the day.

[36:04] Mike Abrams: Exactly.

[36:04] Chris Adams: Yeah, there's a great quote from Trevor Nunn that I wrote down here that I'm gonna read out about comparing the two. He said that Cats and Carrie both featured barn-sized pieces of scenery flying around in an ostensibly audience rousing manner, both told stories no one could possibly follow, and both climaxed with Betty Buckley dying amid a phasia-inducing lighting effects.

[36:26] Mike Abrams: And as we say, one of them did well, one of them didn't.

[36:30] Chris Adams: And that is probably the best way we can end this. So thank you so much for coming on. This was super fun.

[36:36] Mike Abrams: Thank you for having me. And and thanks everyone else for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of the catastrophe. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or anyone else listen to the podcasts. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at The Wrong Cat Died, or check out our website, thewrongcatdied.com.