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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande, Hi, I'm Cynthia ARIBO, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit vpn.fm to discover more. There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there.

[0:28] Mike Abrams: cat died. The podcast breakdown of the cat's atrophy. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another amazing guest. He was Gus on the US national tour four, and then he was in the cats course twice during the original Broadway production. So welcome Lee lobenhofer, and thank you for joining me, well, thank you for having me. This is gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. I love having guesses, because generally, you all agree with me that Grizzle is the wrong choice, so we will get to that point. But I always love starting at the beginning, because especially with the tours for an original Broadway, you pre date the 1998 movie, which is like, where half of my guests kind of seem to know cats from. Yeah. So my question to you is, is, when did you get first introduced to the show? It had been around for a little bit since you before you went on tour, but it wasn't long. So what was your first experience with it? Well, I went

[1:15] Speaker 2: into my agent's office and I said, anything happening? And typical of an agent. He said, No. And I looked on his table, and there was an audition for cats. And I said, What about cats? And I said, we want to see that. You want to go in for that? And I said, Yeah, absolutely. So I went to see it, and my first audition for cats was for Rob Dum Tugger, and I had not seen the show. Didn't know anything about the show, so I went in and decided, okay, this is what romped on Tugger must be. And I was basically doing David Bowie slash Prince slash everything, completely wrong. But then so I went and auditioned it. But that same day, I went in and saw the show, and I went, I don't want to play I don't want to play rom Tucker. I want to play Gus. Gus speaks to me. So then I went back in and I said, No, I want to to my agent. I said, I really want to be seen for Gus. And so then I went in for Gus, and lo and behold, they cast me in it. And I have such an affinity to Gus. I just My heart always swells whenever I talk about him, because I love the guy being a theater person and Gus being a theater person and just and now being a little bit longer in the truth than I was when I played Gus, I could even appreciate his point of view a little bit more.

[2:38] Mike Abrams: I love that side you see you originally, I mean they could not be more polar opposite similarities between Tugger and Gus in the sense of, like, rock star ish, but past this prime and early in his kind of peak, yeah, but I mean opposite character to play

[2:53] Speaker 2: totally opposite character. And also something like, I done grease twice, and I, you know, I kind of done that rock and roll thing, and I wasn't particularly interested in reviving that, that sort of sense memory. So instead, I was, I want to challenge something else. And Gus spoke to me up for a variety of different reasons, which, if you're interested, I can, I can share that, but basically, it's here. Yeah. Well, my father was quadriplegic, so I became a dancer and all of that stuff. It was super, super physical. But then I saw Gus, and when it talked about his hand shaking, palsy that makes his hand shake, well, my dad's hand and body shook, and as a testament to him, I decided that, you know, I was going to take his story and add it into gossip and make it so it had a very personal feeling to me, not just looking from the outside, but I was also from the inside.

[3:57] Mike Abrams: Wow, that is, I mean, what a powerful way to bring, like, a very personal piece of your life into the role,

[4:03] Speaker 2: yeah, it was, I always felt like I was doing a service, not only to my dad, but also just to anybody with any sort of a disability, making sure that, you know, Gus was representative of them truthfully, and not giving a parody or anything like that. Yeah,

[4:23] Mike Abrams: that's super interesting. So, so you get cast in this role, yeah? And this is what, two years into this, this tour went for like 1015, years, yeah, forever. I was just two years into this. I think the tour, which is, it's, you know, really the second time it toured the US, yeah. So I'm always interested in what kind of rehearsal process goes along with that. Like, how much story do you get told about all of your characters, because you end up playing three, yeah, on the show, yeah. And how much kind of like goes into that process when it's between, you know, switching between a couple years of something that's going on multiple times, multiple years

[4:59] Speaker 2: in a row? Um, you. Was very interesting, because I started in in New York, when that, when I got cast, they were, first of all, I went in and spent two days listening to the story of cats and the interrelationships of all the characters. And then, upon listening for two days to, okay, so this is the, you know, Tugger and monkey strap are brothers. They're all sons of older Deuteronomy, and then they follow it up with but none of this is important for the

[5:30] Mike Abrams: audience to know, but as long my whole show centers around this, yeah, everything I want to know,

[5:34] Speaker 2: it was all about. You need to know the relationships of the tribe in order to have truthful relationships and all of that. So that was fun. And then they spent a day. They said, Okay, here's the set. This was on the Broadway set. And they said, well, we'll be back in about four or five hours. Just play. I just spent time by myself, which allowed you to not be self conscious, you know? Okay, I'm sitting here licking my paw and cleaning my ears and all of that stuff that we did as as cats. And it's very easy to shut down and say, I look like such an idiot. But when they leave me, went to the into the space that is sort of perfect for the size of everything. It allows you to bring yourself down into the into the size of a cat, but also nobody's watching you, so there's no sense of, Oh, my God, I'm making such an idiot of myself. Instead, you could just explore and play, and that became my license to just go out there and completely immerse myself in being a cat and of course, I've also been a cat lover all my life. I have two cats right now that we

[6:50] Mike Abrams: say there's one over your shoulder, absolutely.

[6:53] Speaker 2: And we have two that we rescued from the garage next door, and I have six feral cats that I take care of outside every night, sort of a big cat fan, wow. But so it was wonderful to really delve into the physicality of a cat.

[7:12] Mike Abrams: Yeah, and it's so interesting, because there's that part, there's the dancer part, but then also, you spend two days learning a story that you're specifically told we don't, as audience, need to know, which is a wild part of this show. So I want to ask you, what do you remember about your Gus backstory? What's the part you were told

[7:31] Speaker 2: they didn't say too much, other than the fact that you know, he was an English theater cat who tried to get on stage whatever he could. But what, you know, whenever they needed the cat, he was sort of the go to person other than, you know, if he was, like, probably second there was somebody better than him, but he was always wanting to read the first one, but he was always, maybe the second cat, but that he just immersed himself and loved the theater so much. And that's that's why he says, and I say, now these kittens, they do not get trained as we did in the days when Victoria raised. It's like, yeah, he really immersed himself in the into the world of the theater and and totally bought into the importance of it, which I could also relate to, because I do the same thing as an actor. I completely buy into the importance of theater, even though a lot of people might disagree with me, I feel like it is a way to change the world, and he felt the same way, in that the new generation wasn't doing as full of a service to the art form as he felt was necessary.

[8:39] Mike Abrams: Yeah. What about what they tell you about Buster, because that's the other part of the track, right? Yeah, which I'll ask next, yeah,

[8:46] Speaker 2: Buster for such a such a ball. He's just so full of himself, but so full of whatever he can get his hands on to eat as well. He's who was it? Like there were some actors that like Peter used enough and stuff like that that they would put into my mind as saying, you know, think, think of yourself as this grand master of because he's not really a part of the tribe. He just comes by every once in a while. So so you kind of feel like he's he's actually an indoor cat who occasionally goes outdoor because he gets fed a lot and he's spoiled, and totally thinks he's he's not only sexy, but also gorgeous, even though he's the size of, you know, a bloom. Yeah. And then,

[9:33] Mike Abrams: do they tell you much about growl Tiger?

[9:37] Speaker 2: Growl? Tiger was they would say things like, you know, think Errol, Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, all of that stuff. So you are, you are swashbuckling, Big Blow hard, but, but very theatrical. It was not as a real character, but as a big theatrical character.

[9:55] Mike Abrams: Yeah, because it's a story within a story within a story. I. Months.

[10:00] Speaker 2: So, yeah, yeah, exactly. Are you growl Tiger? Are you Gus asparagus? Or as when I was dancing, because that was the interesting thing about the difference between the tour and the Broadway tracks. On the tour, we had two less cats, so they needed the

[10:15] Mike Abrams: twins. Weren't there, right? That yeah, it was cut, yeah. And

[10:19] Speaker 2: so they needed extra dancers, which was great for me, because I was a dancer as well. So every night you would dance the Jellicle Ball. And the Jellicle Ball was, it's always like, Okay, pull up your socks. Here we go. Let's go. Yeah. And then when I came to Broadway, it was like, Gus comes out, he does that opening sequence, and then he escapes and runs away. And I went, No, I want to stay. I want to dance the ball Yes. Because as much as it was exhausting, it was also just so much fun. So

[10:48] Mike Abrams: you are asparagus in the opening number Yeah, and then your bust of her Yeah, and then your asparagus in the gel in the ball, yeah, and then your Gus in act two for the rest of the time, is that the track? Well,

[11:01] Speaker 2: sort of, yeah, I used to call them generic Gus. Generic us was when I wasn't really asparagus, because asparagus is old, and when you're dancing the ball and all of that stuff, you're still in sort of the costume, without the big cloak and all of that stuff. So that I wasn't really Gus. I was something else. So I just called him generic us. So

[11:26] Mike Abrams: I love that you call that so much better than in the 2016 revival, they called him Peter, like they named him, yeah, cat, yeah. And so I like generic us way better. That's fine. Okay, so that's yeah, that makes sense. So you're just, but that's that is a body essentially, to dance like you're it's a, yeah, you're not supposed to be known as Gus at that point. You're supposed to be just a member of the tribe person to be able to, yeah, exactly, yeah. So you go on tour. I'm curious what the crowd reaction is this, because this is, was an 8990 ish, like, this is, it's late 80s, early 90s, it's on. Been on Broadway for about eight to 10 years. At this point it's been around for about 10 years. It's only been through the US once. I think two or three did kind of a roll through the US once. And now this is the four. Is the next one. So what is the crowd reaction? Do most people know what they're seeing? Or were you really the first time that they were experiencing it again. It was a

[12:21] Speaker 2: little bit of both. You definitely had the cats fans that would come up and do all of the fun things and dress up and all of that. But we were also playing cities, like we were the first one, first tour I, as far as I know, to play Anchorage, Alaska, wow. They had never seen at all. So it was, it was all new to them. And typical with cats, it's like people were either enthralled or very confused.

[12:51] Mike Abrams: Why aren't those people no middle? There's no middle. Exactly.

[12:53] Speaker 2: I love that. I always say that to be in cats. You know, some people love it, some people hate it, but cats is so much more fun to be in than to see. I every night, I look forward to doing it, whether it was, you know, starting 50 feet off the side of the stage and getting a running start and hitting hitting the stage and sliding all the way across the stage on your knees, or doing all of that stuff. It was so much fun. And then I never felt with Gus, especially because I had that personal connection to it, that I it got old or it got stale. I always felt like it was a challenge. It was something that I could make statements with, but also it was challenging me as an actor. Yeah, you'd get a little

[13:47] Mike Abrams: freedom in the show, because you get a little moments and interactions with the different cast members that you can change. So it's, I think it's a little bit less stuck than some other shows, where you really are, like, hit this mark at this point, at this time, and nothing else. But it does feel like I've talked to 100 plus cast members at this point. And it almost feels like I kind of jokingly would say it's like the Jellicle it's like its own cult, like everyone who's been in it is, like enthralled and loved it. And, you know, their experience was great, and they're just, you know, they're, they're tied to it. So it's like they almost were, became Jellicle Tribe members themselves, and have left, and you know, so are thrilled to talk about it, which is why, you know this podcast is still here, yeah, 100 plus episodes later, is that everyone loved their experience,

[14:29] Speaker 2: the connections that you make with the other performers. Because especially on tour, on Broadway, it was great. And the connection is there. But on tour, because you don't know anybody else in the city, your whole day is basically absorbed with the cast. You're going to the gym together, you're eating together, you're going out after the show together, and my jelly Loram Alice Lynn was she had been doing it when I came in, so she had already established herself in the tour. And. She welcomed me with such open arms, and to this day, I look at her as one of my dear friends, and the relationship that we've developed, not only offstage, but especially on stage, her jelly lorim Taking care or and then becoming brittle bone, but her jelly lorim Taking care of old Gus was so tender and so warm that, you know, how can you not love doing that every day?

[15:23] Mike Abrams: Yeah, yeah. I think that's so true with the with the tour you you kind of are, you're on a, probably, a tight bus, and you're going city to city, you know, nobody, you're in a hotel altogether, yeah, it's, uh, yeah. I mean, it's like, you're, it's your whole family at that at that point, absolutely,

[15:40] Speaker 2: it was interesting, because when they I started, they gave me some ideas and suggestions, and one of the things was get a snuggly. I went, what exactly get a snugly for on the bus, because it was a bus and truck we flew to the major cities, but a lot of times we were in a bus, so we would get on the bus, and everybody would lay down on the floor across the seats or wherever their spot was, and they all had some sort of stuffed animal that they could snuggle up to to sleep during the tour, during the sometimes long bus rides. So eventually I got myself a stuffed tiger, obviously for growl Tiger, and joined the thing they said, to avoid homesickness, you have to have a little piece of home with you, and you have to have a snuggly that you can feel like you're, you're, you know, there's somebody there for you, yeah, yeah.

[16:35] Mike Abrams: Just I, I grew up playing travel hockey, and it was the same thing. We were in cars all the times together as a group and and I predate as you iPads and everything else to like easy. So it's just a different life when you're doing that and you're doing it all over the country for a full year plus at a time. So I'm sure it's, it's a it's interesting. I love asking, though, because of the craziness of tour, what are some Do you remember any funny stories or crazy stories of things that happened while you were out on the road? Oh, so many

[17:09] Speaker 2: different things. But one of the things that I talk about is be careful, because karma will get you. We had we had one of our mystopheles was a beautiful dancer, unbelievable, gorgeous dancer, but he couldn't walk. He could dance, but every single show, at some point in time during the show, he would step on his own tail, slip and fall on his butt, and then get up, and it was like, You're this incredible dancer. How can you be that klutzy? So the I never said anything. And then, of course, the one day I finally said, What is going on with them? He kept walking them. That night, I stepped on my tail and boop bone down on my butt. There guys. So from then on, I said, Okay, be careful about it, because karma will get you. Another interesting thing is, is how you make such great friends. But people talk about how cycles sort of coincide. My understudy, who got got married to the bomb ball, urina, and then the two swings, they got married, and then my wife and I were married, and all three of us had kids within a like a month of each other was so we all

[18:32] Mike Abrams: all from the same show, basic my

[18:35] Speaker 2: I had already left the show, but these the cycle had already established itself, so now we all have kids, and they're all almost the same age,

[18:45] Mike Abrams: okay, but you didn't, did you meet your wife on the cat?

[18:50] Speaker 2: No, I met my wife at Jones Beach and the muni opera doing grease. She was cha cha Orio to my kaniki, but she so we were already together, so I went and I opened in, was it she's here? Louisville? Right? Yes. So I opened in Louisville, but had two weeks of rehearsal to go, so I was away doing rehearsal and really getting in. She came for opening night. She took one look at me and she thought, Oh my God. Are you sick? What happened? Wherever? But she looked I had dropped like 20 pounds, because the show is that physically demanding. Yeah, you just sweat buckets during the show. So she took one look at me and she thought, Oh, my God. What happened? What happened? What did they do? So I said, No, this is just cats reality

[19:45] Mike Abrams: I have enjoyed there. Seems like there's a lot of couples that come out of cats, which makes sense this very physical show. You're kind of all rolling on top of each other and but it's always really interesting, depending on who the pairings are, what they were together. And so I've heard, you know, a Tugger and a bomb by arena. I'm like, Oh, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Then you hear somewhere like, Wait, these two cats should not make sense. But it's like, oh yeah, they're actors, you know, like, they're not there, but it's super fun. There's a, there's a lot of it that does come out of that, which is, which is part of, I think, tour life in general, yeah,

[20:17] Speaker 2: yeah. Touring, you get so close to people in a way that you really don't even when I was on Broadway with it, you get close to the people, but they have their lives. They go to their places, and they have to go and they have to do the wash or whatever. On Tour, you just spend every waking moment together, so the bonds are so indelible by the end. So let's fast

[20:46] Mike Abrams: forward to the Broadway. So you get called in 9019, 90. It's like, right after tour, right that you end up going on tour and you're joining the cats chorus. So, yeah, that's such a, I mean, it's such a new piece. I didn't know that existed until cat so that there's an entire it's so physically demanding that there's an entire group singing in a pit the song. So what was that experience? Was it just like you finished tour and they immediately called you? Or how did that had that happen? Well, the

[21:15] Speaker 2: reality of that is I heard that there was the opening, and I wanted to get back to my wife at that point. So I said I would really like to move off the tour. I'd been on the tour for a year, somewhere around a year, but more or less. And I said, I want to get back to my wife and my life, so I would like to come in and join the Broadway cast instead. And they said, Well, no. And I realized I talked about it afterwards to friends of mine, and I said, Yeah, a producer to put you into the Broadway company. It costs money with rehearsals and all of that stuff, and then they have to do some again, rehearse somebody to replace you on the tour. So there's two sets of rehearsals that they have to pay for. So it's much cheaper for them to just hire somebody new for the Broadway thing and leave you where you're at. They only have to pay for one set of rehearsals. So that's when I said, okay, but I really miss my wife, so I think I'm gonna give my notice for the show, unless you and so then they said, Okay, well, I said, either way, you're gonna have to pay for the two rehearsals. So this way, at least I'm already halfway there that can be put into the Broadway show pretty quickly, because I already know the track pretty much, which was not true, because it's very different. But so then they said yes, and they let me to come into the Broadway one, amazing.

[22:43] Mike Abrams: So what's that like? Because it is different, you know, you add in the twins, and you have some the rank tweaks too, yeah, the break stage, yeah, all this other stuff that goes to it. Yeah,

[22:54] Speaker 2: it was interesting getting used to the rate, because you're doing double. Because I went on for Gus, I also went on to old dude, for old dude a couple of times. Wow. Old dude was one of my best friends, Ken Primus at that time. And he was, he was playing old dude, and he called out for one, one Wednesday. So I did, I got to play old dude twice. And I was like, this is such a great track. You sit on a tire, you sing a little bit. People come over and love you very much. And then you go up on the tire, and you sing again, and then you're done, and you get the big dressing room. And I was like, well, that's kind of cool.

[23:31] Mike Abrams: Did you do intermission, too? Oh yeah, sitting on stage during intermission, sitting on

[23:36] Speaker 2: stage and just going into your zen moment and all of that. That was fun. I really enjoyed that so but getting used to the rake stage was crazy, because I've been doing all of the dancing now I admittedly, I danced a lot less on Broadway because of the different track, but even the little bit that I did it was amazing, because you do a double pirouette, and you'd find yourself falling into the thickness of the rake, and you had to completely readjust your alignment. And I heard that for the people, the regulars on stage, like especially the mistopolis, during the turns in second, said trying to dance on a flat stage was so completely different that they had a hard time getting off of the rake. Also on the tour. Gus at the growl, Tiger at the end, jumps off the back of the ship. And they had a big crash pad for me. And you throw yourself under this pit. When I did it on Broadway, you jump off the back of the ship, and there was this steel frame, about five feet by two and a half three feet, and the net that catches you, and that, if you were a little bit off, you were just like, bam, it is the steel frame. So they would teach you, okay, you have to Pike into this position. And put your hands across your chest, and then just drop into this thing. And it was like, oh, okay, before it was fun with jumping into a crash pad. But this is like, I'm taking my life into my hands. Every time I jump off the ship, it's

[25:13] Mike Abrams: so it's so strange. I mean, it's like something that should be so similar, but has enough differences because of, you know, stage, yeah, and all the back, you know, back end stuff. And I think even on tour, you probably have a little bit of slight nuances, because each each theater is a little bit different, a little bit size wise. Oh

[25:30] Speaker 2: yeah, we played everything we played where, okay, on this theater, we don't have quite the width, so the flooring had to be chopped off, so you didn't have all and a lot of times your spacing was set by the marks on the floor. And it's like, okay, that Mark doesn't exist anymore because it's a small state. And then we played arenas, 10,000 seat arenas with big screens on either side so that people could see what's actually happening. And there it was just huge amounts of space that you could just play with.

[26:04] Mike Abrams: That's it's such a it's such a strange and fascinating piece of this because, like, I have only seen on tour twice, the most recent tour in DC. And I grew up going to theater in Indiana every once in a while, whatever came. But those are really big. One of them was like a huge theater, and then the other one was kind of small. And so you just have all these different variances. And a show like cats, where the set's so elaborate, there's so much happening there that it kind of does tweak it all. But I'd love to hear a couple more, if you have any more fun tour or Broadway stories, because I know you had a couple you said you had ready.

[26:41] Speaker 2: Let me see. Oh, on Broadway there was one guy, Ray, I won't, I won't give a last name, but I admired him. He's a fabulous performer, but we would all get there at least a half an hour before. You know, you have to be there half hour. But the makeup you you get trained the first day they go in, they do half your Meg, your face, of the makeup, and they say, Okay, you do the other half. You do it. And they said, Okay, you're on your own. That's it. And then you do all of your own makeup. So some people would get there 45 minutes, an hour before sometimes, right start, I mean, start their makeup. And I would start mine right at half hour, start putting it on. And I'd look at Ray, and he's walking around talking to everybody, having a great time, and all of that stuff. He'd get into his costume for the most part, and just have it rolled down. And then they'd call places, and he's had still no makeup had started, hadn't started the makeup. They'd go, they basically go, or maybe they say three minutes to places or whatever. And he'd sit down and with nothing but sponges. We're all, you know, all these brushes and painting and doing all this stuff, nothing but sponges. He would go, bap, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, and every night, be there perfectly on time for places. And you'd look at his makeup, and it was great. Because, like, how the heck did you do that in such a short amount of time? I got better and faster in it, but I never, never got even close to, right?

[28:12] Mike Abrams: I mean, three minutes might be a record. So from what I've heard, when there was a regional production, they were saying it took an hour ish every night when they were trying to figure out, and I've heard from most of the cast members as 20 to 30 minutes, yeah, when you're used to it, yeah. Is that? Is that about

[28:27] Speaker 2: right? Yeah, I would pretty much start right at half hour. Mine was fairly intricate because of lots of stripes and all that stuff, but it always took me at least 20 minutes to half an hour to do rage in three, and Ray did it in three. And I was always looking at you. You are the God of cats makeup, right?

[28:49] Mike Abrams: Ray needs to teach, teach a course Exactly, yeah. That's, uh, yeah. It's a part of the show that also too, like, you know, you're drenched, sweating from working out so physically demanding show and doing it in that makeup. So I'm like, sitting here going, did Ray even, did it? Did it stay? Did he get it? Did he actually get it through?

[29:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he did. Because he would, you know, at the end of it, like all of us, just hit it with powder, a lot of powder on that, because, you know, you were gonna sweat trying to think, Oh, interesting thing happened. I got once you're in cats, you're always in cats. So I did it, and then I did Broadway, and then twice they called me up and somebody got injured or got sick or something, they needed replacement. So they called me up twice to come in. So I one time I got a chance to do it, and my daughter had been born, and she was old enough, sort of, except that I kind of Probably not, because she came to see the show, but beforehand, she came backstage, and there's everybody with their makeup on and just the wig caps. No, yeah. Back hair, yet the wig caps and all this makeup and all these crazy people looking around, and my little daughter looks up. From then on. She was terrified of all animals because she had a phobia of all animals, until finally, she's 30 now, finally, about five years ago, she she now has a dog went, it instilled such a terror, because to see those people gearing up for battle like that is crazy.

[30:30] Mike Abrams: Yeah, the age dynamic of the show is such a fascinating part that I've kind of jokingly argued with, but I know it's such a kid show because it goes over the head. But then, you know, you spent two days learning the plot, and when you learn the plot and the backstories and relationships, there's some darkness and some like over sexual parts to the show that I'm like a 12 year old, if you, if you figure that out, shouldn't be seeing this most likely

[30:54] Speaker 2: bomb ballerina and Demeter come with, yes, yeah, their whole story, yeah, that's that was intense. I said, Okay, I don't know how much you want me to go into that, but basically, mccaviddy had bomb as a sex slave until he he finally, after a while, saw his her younger sister, Demeter, and decided threw bomb back and took Demeter as I'm as his sex slave, and then

[31:26] Mike Abrams: told to you, right? Like that is part of the story you're told in the two days.

[31:30] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah. And then she escaped, and that's why Demeter is always the one that's kind of really skittery and always because she had just escaped Macavity, whereas Bob was more worldly and had been away for a while, but, but also, the two of them were sisters, yeah, so that's why their their costumes and are similar,

[31:54] Mike Abrams: but interesting. So are they sister? Because there's a big debate about that, and I don't have a clear answer, yeah, sister,

[32:00] Speaker 2: sisters, and that that he threw over the older sister for the younger sister. But, you know, interesting,

[32:06] Mike Abrams: yeah, because it's, it's, there are so many different things I think through I call it now the cat's telephone. Yeah, so many people over the years have said it where the more recent group doesn't think their sister thinks they're like best friends or, or, potentially just maybe related, but net, not sisters, yeah. And then I've heard that they are sisters. And I did a poll on this on Instagram a little while ago, and I got a 5050, split, like, from like, straight down the middle of Nobody. Nobody has a clear answer. So I'm like, I wish somebody, maybe this exists somewhere, but I wish somebody recorded those two days of you backstage learning the story from, like, the original group, like, not, you know, it's been passed along, and there's, I'm sure, a lot, but I don't think there's a perfect answer to so many things, and maybe that's intentional. That's what I love about the show, because it's what gives you so many open ended opportunities, one as an actor to, you know, portray this slightly different every night, but also as a fan, and especially the super fans who all have, again, very strong opinions about this, yeah, but even someone like me, who can say, well, if you take this and assume that that's true and this and assume that's true, then this can be kind of funny as a as a byproduct of that, which has been the angle I've kind of had fun with, yeah,

[33:21] Speaker 2: yeah. And I think part of it is Whoever tells you the story, you know, whether it's Trevor or whoever's in charge of the production at that time. Yeah, like you say, cats telephone by by the time they get to the story to relate to you, maybe it's been shifted or changed a little bit. Yeah.

[33:38] Mike Abrams: All right, any, any last stories before we go to rapid fire.

[33:44] Speaker 2: Last stories? Is there anything else that is, oh, the one, one thing everywhere you go, because you sweat so much in the show that there's communal bottom bottles of water everywhere. And it's these days, you know, they'd say, What do you mean? Do you can't share about you would just spray it in your mouth. You wouldn't drink out of it, but you would just have a little spigot, and they would spray it in your mouth and grab and run. But the bodies of the daily cats were like gnarled tree trunks because there was no water in their bodies. So the understudies would go on in the very revealing costumes. You can't hide anything in those costumes, and even though they were in brilliant shape, amazing physical specimens to the common eye, you could always tell the difference between the regular cats person and the understudy, or the person that just came in because their bodies hadn't been squeezed out of water, yet

[34:46] Mike Abrams: interesting. I would have never thought that, because it's, you know, there's especially the more recent, or a lot, I mean, the swings are on all the time. There's just so much, yeah, kind of happening to, I probably to preserve to i I wonder if there's some of the eight. And 90s, where it's just like, Yeah, I'll just go and deal with it, type of thing. And now there's probably a little bit more consciousness to, oh yeah, protecting the body. Oh yeah. Nobody fascinating. Nobody ever called

[35:11] Speaker 2: out. I remember the first time I called out. I was I had been running it probably for six, eight months or something like, I'd never missed a show. And then we were in some time someplace down south, and I had some catfish that was bad, and got food poisoning. I couldn't lift my head up without getting sick, so I finally had to call in. But it was a different mentality back then. Nobody ever called in unless you were basically at death's door. Yeah, yeah,

[35:41] Mike Abrams: that's different, different era. And also, I mean, I Who knows, it's just such a different thing, but you know, I also love those catfish is what you've been

[35:56] Mike Abrams: we're gonna take a quick break, and then we back for more of the wrong cat died. Okay, let's pivot to some rapid fire. So, okay, um, first one is, you got to play a handful of different characters, but forget male, female vocal range, whatever. If you could go on tomorrow, one character, one night in the show. Who would you want to be on for Gus? You still want to go for, but go back for Gus. I

[36:20] Speaker 2: still want to, I still feel like there's more that I haven't found in Gus. I love all of the characters. Probably the other one would be Tugger, just to see if I could, you know, muster up that sort of

[36:36] Mike Abrams: the first audition. Yeah, back to the very first

[36:38] Speaker 2: audition, see if I could pull that one off too. Right. Full circle for you, yeah, but, but, Gus, I still feel there's, there's more story to tell. And also, the fact that they changed the song drives me nuts, because when I did it, it was the ARIA, and it was so much fun to sing the Aria. Then they went to this Irish drinking song, and then they were and in the movies, they just cut the songs all together, or whatever it's like, but I loved that Aria, and it was so much fun to sing.

[37:07] Mike Abrams: Do you know why they cut it? Because I've heard different things. I've heard that some of it was just the couple performers didn't have it in their repertoire, and that's part of why they cut it. And then I think growl Tiger got canceled because of the Siamese twins. Yeah, there was cut it completely, but

[37:25] Speaker 2: I saw a recent version of it, and I watched it because I just wanted to hear it again. And they sang, they sang it, and they just changed the words a bit. And okay, and if it was now, and the Siamese they, they climbed a board, as opposed to the racial slur, and it was like, Oh, that, you know what? Why didn't they do that from the beginning, that part of it was the time period and all of that stuff, but, and also, TSL, yeah, trying to be true to him.

[37:55] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's interesting because they've made tweaks. It's been running for 43, four years at this point, like they made tweaks to a lot of things, but some, I've kind of been like, Oh, that makes a lot of sense. And I was like, Okay, that's a change, you know, like, there's, there's differences I didn't see, I've still never seen, besides the 1998 movie, what I would call kind of more of the original, like the original choreography, everything else. I got introduced to the show in 2016 so I was introduced to Andy blanken Bueller's kind of like reversion of it. Yeah,

[38:26] Speaker 2: revised, yeah. Jillian was very, very fun to work with, but she was, she was a pistol. She was crazy, crazy fun and sexual, and not afraid to include that into the choreography that was, that was a lot of it like, like Victoria's solo in the beginning of the show, when the white cat who does that, that slow develop a and all of that stuff. According to Jillian, it was her discovering her own sexuality. She's a kid that is, she's discovering her own sexuality, and all of the male cats are around, are sniffing around and but it that her whole solo is her exploring her own sexuality. Yeah,

[39:13] Mike Abrams: I've heard some really crazy stories about Jay and Lynn's kind of like interpretations and saying of and it's, I, yeah, fascinating, but, yeah.

[39:22] Speaker 2: Some of the directions I can't say, but, but, but they were very graphic, but also apt, yeah,

[39:30] Mike Abrams: yeah, we can say I'm here. I've recorded a couple, and then I've thrown a couple of them up on tick tock, and they're immediately removed, just immediately taken. So I've heard a couple, but Okay, who are? I'm gonna take Gus off the table for this question. So what are your favorite and least favorite characters from

[39:47] Speaker 2: the show? You know, it's funny. We're avoiding Grizzle Grizabella, but she's there's a wonderful story there too. But I also the. Counterpoint of syllabub is also an interesting character, sitting that she sings the little memory beforehand and yeah and that she's she's looking at Grizabella with idolizing her in her eyes, as opposed to the other cats who all want to rip her to shreds. She's an interesting character too long as trap is the one that I find probably the least interesting. I feel like, I feel like he's as much as he's the, you know, pseudo leader of the tribe and all of that stuff. He's, he's also basically the narrator. Yeah, no, no, real interest in taking on that role. I love

[40:41] Mike Abrams: it. I love it. What's your favorite song from the show?

[40:44] Speaker 2: Well, the one that they can't the Aria. The Aria, moments of happiness, is interesting to me, having been able to sing it a couple of times too. It's, it's trying to figure it out. It's, it's a little bit obtuse in the lyrics, but if there's a lot of depth in that as well. And of course, you know, memory is everybody's favorite but, but it's funny because now I hear it and I can't, I can't hear it done generically. I've heard it done with amazing people, and I've had great Liz Callaway and lilius White and such wonderful people, wonderful performers that I got a chance to do it with and hear them sing it. So now I'm very particular, like, if you do it, you better do it. If you if you're just gonna sing it, you know, go away. I don't want to hear it, yeah, yeah, there

[41:42] Mike Abrams: are some incredible performances of memory, for sure. Yeah. Okay, my fun question. So I was introduced to you by from a former guest of mine, Jamie Alan Benny, who said you got to talk to Mr. L. So I want to ask you, which cat do you think would be the best teacher, since I know you were her teacher and our teacher,

[42:01] Speaker 2: unfortunately, probably manga strap, but, but the No, no, the reality, I think, I think jelly Lorem, Jelly Lorem, oh, Jelly

[42:10] Mike Abrams: arms, a good answer, yeah, skimble Shanks,

[42:15] Speaker 2: yeah. Skimble shakes would be a fun he would be a fun PE teacher. But I feel like jelly has got the empathy to reach into people and give them what they need, none, and to hear and supportive as opposed to just informing them,

[42:33] Mike Abrams: yeah, yeah. I thought the first answer I thought of when I kind of wrote this question, was Jenny annie.so then it's written in her song, yeah. And then I kind of thought skimble Shanks was like, Well, you know, you got to be prompted on time and keep the bell going. Yeah. But I love Joey Lorem. I didn't think about that, like, the the empathy she would bring to the classroom to be able to, like, get the best of everybody, yeah, is, I think that's the best answer.

[42:54] Speaker 2: And she tells the story. She tells Gus stories so nicely.

[42:59] Mike Abrams: Okay, million dollar question, and I believe that you're gonna agree with me, so I'm ready to hear your defense. But yeah, I've argued at length that I don't think Grizabella should be the Jellicle choice. So do you want to defend Grizabella or pick somebody else?

[43:12] Speaker 2: Oh, I'm picking Gus. Gus should be Gus is beloved by everybody. He's done a service for years and years and years, he's fading rapidly, and who better to go to the heavy side layer and have a new Jellicle life? I love it. I you know Grizabella. I get it. I get it. But what did? What has she done for anybody else but herself through her whole life, whereas Gus gave to to the the masses. So gusto, choice. I

[43:46] Mike Abrams: want to ask you, you got to go on, you said for Old Deuteronomy twice, yeah. How hard was it to sell yourself on her as a choice, having been Gus for so many other performances,

[43:57] Speaker 2: you know, it's funny because there, I think there was a little slight change in the back of my head. It's like, okay, Grizabella, but Gus, Yeah, you sure next, yeah, you're

[44:09] Mike Abrams: next. Yeah, that's fine. Because I've always thought, I do still think there's a world where you could do this differently, but I, but I just can't even imagine you. You almost as Gus, have to prepare yourself, like you are the choice until she comes back, and then you have to sell her as like that you're okay with it, yeah. And so just knowing that you're gonna switch for a couple performances to be on the other side of that, gotta be hard mentally to Yeah, to do that. Yeah,

[44:32] Speaker 2: it was, it was a little bit of a twinge. It's like, but really, I'm gonna let you go this time, because basically you, you sang that song, but yeah, person deserves it is the one with the handshaking over in the corner.

[44:50] Mike Abrams: Did your cast Ever think about that question? Like of that, was she the choice, or should have been you? Or does that is anybody else even in the running?

[44:59] Speaker 2: You know, I think. Getting when I saw the name of the podcast, I was like, Oh, finally, somebody's actually posed the question. I think we've all bought it, and some people have slightly mentioned it, but it was never really deeply discussed, and I'm glad it's finally being discussed. And the the the service that was getting shown to Gus is coming out.

[45:22] Mike Abrams: I Yeah, so it's so interesting now, because now I know it's being discussed and on all these regional productions in the tour, yeah, I'm like, is that purely because of me, or, like, is was this just something that's always been happening and, and it's a fun piece of this now, because it's, you know, this all started as parody, and, yeah, and the poking fun at it. But I do think it's an interesting debate, because it opens up so many questions to the story. And I love you saying in the very beginning of today, is, is the story that you were told that we don't need to know? Like, that's it's okay. They all don't need to know this. I'm like, well, we want to know. A bunch of us want to know those things. And so we'll get to ask those questions and pose it. And

[46:01] Speaker 2: there needs to be some, some codifying, codifying of the story, because obviously there's just different interpretations. Are they sisters, or are they, you know, friends, or what? Yeah, yeah. I think it makes it much more poignant as sisters, though,

[46:17] Mike Abrams: for sure, I do think there's I. Part of me wants them to just be together, like, just have them be dating, yeah? Because I think that's another different angle too, that could be really fun, because that song is so sexual, and they're on stage together that, like they're they could do a very different version of that song together.

[46:31] Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, that's true, that's true, but that's been their whole lives, you know, since there were kids that basically there were sex slaves, so that that's all they really know. Is sexuality.

[46:42] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's a again, and this is probably what scarred your daughter as a young child, being backstage with the human cats and but hopefully it goes over everyone else's head who brings their children to the show, because it's a lot of the audience. Yeah, any parting words? This has been super fun. Oh, well,

[47:04] Speaker 2: thank you. No, this has been great. Reliving the memories is it's always a joy. I have pictures of myself in the role that I hardly ever see, but every time I look at nice I don't see me. I just see Gus. Good memories come back so and not just of Gus, but also the whole the whole production, the whole experience, whether it be on the tour on Broadway or in some of the subsequent ones, where they would bring me back and which happened twice, I think that I would pop in and meet new actors, a whole new set of actors, but all telling The same story and having the same kind of experience. It's, it's nothing but joyful.

[47:45] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's, hopefully, if you can maybe share some of those pictures, we'll, we'll throw them on the social media with this, with this particular episode. So sure, this has been super fun. Thank you so much for being an amazing guest and sharing your experience.

[48:04] Mike Abrams: awesome. And thanks everyone else for listening to this episode of the wrong cat died the podcast. Break down. The cast atrophied. To follow along. You can subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, tick tock and threads and the wrong cat died. Or check out our website, the wrong cat died.com. You