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[0:15] 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 has made some of the best Cats memes on the internet that are frequently sent to me, but he also, in 2010 and 2011, was a swing on the US National Tour 5 of Cats. So welcome, Kevin Zak, and thank you for joining me.

[0:35] Kevin Zak: Thanks for having me, Mike.

[0:37] Mike Abrams: I'm excited to have you because the amount of times I get sent when you post anybody going up to the Heaviside Layer or any parody headline or anything Cats related, I always see them, and I love them because they're amazing. You produce really great, high-quality photoshops of these, and they get sent to me so fast and so frequently that I love it. But it sounds like you have some history with Cats.

[1:05] Kevin Zak: Oh, well, thank you. That's very kind of you to say. And I do have history with Cats. I did the tour, like you said, in 2010-2011, and I was basically directly out of college when I did it. So I was sort of thrust into a world. I didn't really know Cats well before doing it. I had, as a kid, seen the VHS and was obsessed that Mr. Mistoffelees could shoot electricity out of his fingers, which I was disappointed didn't happen in the live show. I was a Phantom of the Opera kid, so that was my Lloyd Webber niche. But then when I was in college, there was a senior when I was a freshman named Bethany Moore, who was an incredible actor, singer, dancer, went on to do the Pippin revival, things like that.

And she booked this same tour right after she graduated. And everyone was like, Oh, my God, Bethany Moore is doing Cats. And so when I was able to book it after my senior year, I was like, I'm the new Bethany Moore, which was the stupidest way to think about things in the world. Because I got on the road, and it was, I would say, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It was tough.

[2:35] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So this is first thing right out of school.

[2:35] Kevin Zak: I mean, yeah. Well, the weird part is, I went to University at Buffalo, and in the fall of 2009, I had taken the Megabus to New York and auditioned for Cats and got through all rounds of callbacks and didn't get it. And then I was graduating. I could leave school early because I had finished all my credits, but I decided to apply for an internship at The Ellen Show, and I got it. So the last semester of my senior year of college, I spent on the Warner Brothers lot interning for Ellen DeGeneres. And then that was season seven of her talk show. And that season wrapped. And then I got a call from Cats to join the next leg of the tour. So I moved from LA to New York City and started rehearsals September 2010.

And I really sometimes think that they pulled the wrong headshot when they cast me, really. I don't know if they were just out of people on earth, but sometimes I look back and I'm like, I don't think I was good enough to do Cats, but I did it. And I was a swing. And being a swing on a non-equity tour is kind of like being a traveling mascot that people spit on a lot. So it was an interesting experience, Mike.

[4:03] Mike Abrams: Tell me more about that. Traveling mascot that people spit on.

[4:03] Kevin Zak: Well, I think we were all so young on that tour, right? Because generally, with non-equity tours, you get a lot of kids straight out of theater school. And we're all sort of cosplaying as older people. Our Grizabella was 26. Our Gus was 24. So our Old Deuteronomy was 22. So none of us should have been doing this show. None of us had the life experience behind this, even if we were talented. But you think you get the role and you're like, I'm on a national tour. And to the audiences across America, they have no idea this is the inflatable set tour. They have no idea that we're being paid less than $500 a week. And none of us had the knowledge that it could get better and you could get treated better on first national equity tours and Broadway shows and things like that.

So there were some people that were very big for their britches when they got cast. And God, I can't believe I'm diving right into the trauma part of this. But Cats, we had nine swings, and we were all always on. First show, first preview, I was on as Munkustrap. And I was just thrown out of the thing. And then it was probably two months before there was a show that was just the playing company. And that night, the swing booth was just offstage left. And the swing booth is where all nine swings, when they weren't on, would sing the show so that it sounded full on stage. And the show finished, and we were taking off our headphones. And one of the cats came in front of the swing booth and loudly said, God, it's so good to finally have just the playing company on stage.

[6:10] Mike Abrams: Oh, wow.

[6:10] Kevin Zak: In front of the nine swings who had been saving the show for the past two months and playing several different roles in split tracks. And we were all just kind of like, oh, so that's what we're just not part of the cast.

[6:25] Mike Abrams: That is an aggressive comment for right away. Yeah. It's interesting to hear you say the whole non-equity tour and just in general, how that's kind of like you're grinding, you didn't realize it could be better. Because I've always wondered, it feels like a lot of different types of careers and jobs. You kind of almost have to put your time and effort in. In sports, you play on the single A baseball before you make it to the majors. And you're on a bus and barely being paid and really, really tough life. And in corporate, you got to get the coffees and kind of do some of the low-level work. But it's the most extreme version of that. Because you're doing it on stage. You're going on constantly having injuries. You're doing two or three cities in a week at times. And again, don't know any better that it's going to get better.

[7:12] Kevin Zak: Yeah. Like you said, we played San Francisco for two or three weeks. And then we would have a string of 21-nighters where you do the show, you get up at 5 AM, and your broken body would be sitting on a cheap bus driving 10 hours into another show. And you don't know that this is... Well, first of all, the producers are making enough money where it doesn't have to be like this, right? Cats sell out everywhere. They could pay us a living wage. It could be an equity tour. They could give us proper health insurance. But of course, we didn't really know any better, at least I didn't, that Cats used to sit down in cities for six months to a year at times. And people would be making thousands of dollars per week and be able to afford homes and lives and things like that.

I remember when we played San Francisco, we all went to this piano bar afterwards. And I talked to the pianist there, and he was this nice older man and sounds like he'd been playing there for years. And he's like, oh, what show are you guys here with? I'm like, Cats. He's like, oh, how long are you in town? I was like, two weeks. He's like, last time I was here, I was here for six months. And we were like, oh, okay. Well, we're here for two weeks. And I thought that was luxurious.

[8:32] Kevin Zak: Better than the one night. Yeah, it was like we were all looking forward to San Francisco. But yeah, it was like college on a bus because everybody was hooking up with each other. I mean, there were two guys who were dating the cats that would literally hook up on the floor of the bus on a 10-hour ride when people were trying to sleep. They would be on the floor on top of each other like a sandwich. And it was wild. It almost feels like a traveling summer camp. You're the counselors at the summer camp, and you're all hooking up. You're not sleeping. You're doing this crazy thing. Yeah, it's a wet, hot American non-equity tour. That's what it was.

[9:19] Mike Abrams: I love that. That is fitting, considering that they do some of their musical theater there. I want to go back a little bit because I do think being like, I know you write, you do a lot of writing. And did you at that time, were you thinking about how do you write the story of your characters that you swung for? Because I do think there's such little development for some of these characters. And as a swing, you're just going on trying to not be injured and be in the right spot and get through the show. But did you think through and be like, all right, here's how I am going to play Munkustrap. Here's how I'm going to play Skimbleshanks. And here's their deep story.

[9:55] Kevin Zak: I thought of things like, I mean, we were given analogies like Rum Tum Tugger is like the Mick Jagger of Cats and things like that. So there were attitudes to play. The only one I think I thought about was Skimbleshanks. And as he's like, the gay uncle cat that nobody listens to is perpetually single. I mean, I never went too deep. But now that you say that, I have a faint memory of in rehearsals of our director being like, fill out the backstory of your cat. And I have a faint memory of maybe doing that. I'd be interested to see if I wrote things down, because I'm sure it reads like a serial killer if I did. But I mean, my favorite, though, was Munkustrap. I loved playing Munkustrap. He felt regal and very opposite of what I thought I would be playing in my career.

Like Skimbleshanks and Tugger are right in the pocket for me. Munkustrap was so controlled and so mature and so dignified. And when I went on for him for the first preview, it was almost like a religious experience. It just felt so cool to do that role, because he starts the show. And as soon as he says, are you blind when you're born, the show doesn't stop. I don't know if you spoke with Jeffrey Denman.

[11:32] Mike Abrams: No, not yet.

[11:32] Kevin Zak: He was the final Munkustrap on Broadway. Okay. And he wrote a book about, I forgot what it was called, but it was about closing Cats on Broadway. And then he opened the original cast of The Producers. And it was about that journey. And he was talking about that because he was Munkustrap, and he was talking about the last show of Cats. He's like, as soon as Munkustrap opens his mouth for, are you blind when you're born, that'll be the last show. And he controls when it starts and when it heads towards its finishing forever on Broadway. So I thought about that when I, because I had read the book, his book, before I started the tour. And I thought about that moment when I went on for our first show that year.

I was like, oh, my God, I'm kicking off the tour with this line. So it was a cool moment for a 21-year-old. I went to state school, and I was thrown on last minute to save the show. And then I started at a really high point on tour. And then you go there, and you go from there, and then you realize, oh, the other boys also cover Munkustrap, so you're not always going on for Munkustrap. So it's like, it almost felt like, oh, my character's taken away from me, even though it was never mine to begin with. So it's like, it's the heartbreak of not being chosen every time to go on. It's like we would face our own Heaviside Layer every day, being like, who gets to go on for the role, you know?

[13:13] Mike Abrams: Did you like to play certain, like, did you like playing Munk over the other characters, or did you really like the mixture of being able to go on for different cats throughout the week?

[13:17] Kevin Zak: I liked playing Munkustrap. I liked playing Tugger, and Tugger was the one I went on for most. I was on for him for a full month at one point, which was very, very fun. But in terms of a challenge as an actor, as much as it's Cats, Munk has so much more of a story in the show, so much more to play. He's got a relationship with Demeter. He's got a relationship with Old Deuteronomy. He's got something stronger to play with Tugger than Tugger does with Munk, in my opinion. So I enjoyed, and I didn't get to go on a lot for him, but I enjoyed having the opportunity to have multiple dynamics to play throughout his story in the show. And Tugger was a fun, fun night on stage, but, you know, he's just kind of a rock star jerk, that womanizer, that kind of thing, which was so fun.

[14:20] Kevin Zak: We played Ottawa, and I was on for Tugger that whole week. And there's a point where he goes into the audience, and there was a bachelorette party in the front row. And the bride-to-be, I remember her sash, I walked down the steps to the front row, she pushed me against the edge of the stage and started grinding up on me during that. And all I could say to her was, hey, that's what I'm supposed to do to you. And then I left.

[14:49] Mike Abrams: Wow. That is audience interaction you never know you're going to get, especially on tour. It can be bad on Broadway, but it's even more wild on tour. I'm sure they pre-gamed Cats, because that's probably needed at times. And yeah, they leaned in. Did you play the Mistoffelees-Tugger relationship when you were on?

[15:10] Kevin Zak: Yes, I think I did. I mean, I'm with Will. I'm not a fan of Mr. Mistoffelees. But that shouldn't have informed what I was doing on stage. But yeah, are you talking about the fan fiction relationship?

[15:29] Mike Abrams: Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. That they're together.

[15:33] Kevin Zak: No, I don't think I played that up too hard. I played more the Bombalurina relationship of it all. And that Macavity was taking my girlfriend. But I know we definitely would read the fan fiction on the bus of the Tugger-Mistoffelees romantic novels and sexual escapades.

[15:58] Mike Abrams: It is most of the fan fiction that I found online is around that storyline being aggressively together. And I remember when I did one of the first episodes where I was explaining the characters, I had avoided reading it, because I was like, I don't really want to dig too deep in this, because it's going to be too much for me. And I was like, all right, for this episode, I'm going to go read. And I found a book, not just fan fiction, chapters, 20-plus chapters, thousands of words. And I remember skimming through it being like, let's see the arc of what they're going to do in this book. And I just remember it ended up with Grizabella not being the joke of choice. And I'm like, oh, this is my book. This is here for me. But it was chapters in fan fiction.

[16:48] Kevin Zak: Oh, my God. That was one of thousands I found.

[16:52] Mike Abrams: I mean, the Cats super fandom is wild, and as you probably know, goes so deep. And we had so many Cats super fans come in their own homemade costumes, sitting front row, waiting to meet us at the stage door. And that kind of fandom exists for every musical. But for Cats, it's obviously the costuming part makes it that just more special, if you will.

[17:24] Kevin Zak: Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot, because there's the story part of it where, because there's so many different personality types, usually you can relate to somebody. And then there's the actual dressing up if you are into cosplay. There's a whole group of cosplayers who some of them don't even really care that much about the story or the musical. They just really like the cosplaying of it. And then there's the artists. And there are some incredible Cats artists, some graphic, some very wholesome, and everything in between those two ends of the spectrum that are just, again, it's a really visual vehicle for them to be able to put their spin on it. So it's been really cool to see all the different parts of the fandom beyond mine, which is purely the storytelling of a musical, very loose storytelling.

[18:11] Mike Abrams: Yeah, no, it's incredible. And it's also like, it's incredible, because I was a swing on whatever tour of the Inflatable set, Non-Equity, and it's like, but there are still people to this day, especially with my Instagram that will tag me in, like a tag me in some sort of Cats art. And I'm like, wow, the fandom goes deep. And, and you're right, the artistry of a lot of them, it's incredible. And I'm like, you're using your incredible drawing skills to have like Tugger and Mistoffelees hook up. And I'm like, go and get it. I love it. Do it. Do it.

[19:03] Kevin Zak: That is a perfect description of it. It's like, you have this incredible talent, and you're choosing to use it on this relationship. And that's great. It's great. I want to go back to your Instagram here in a minute. But I want to ask you, do you remember any other crazy non-Bachelorette party Tugger in the crowd experiences?

[19:12] Kevin Zak: Oh, I had a woman. So the Tugger's dance belt is padded to make his junk look extra big, which you may have heard from another Tugger out there. But like, it's specifically a stuffed dance belt. So it looks like an extra big cat dick. And I definitely had an older woman grab it when I put my leg on the arm of her chair, and she just grabbed it like it was like a selection of fruit in the produce section. So there was that.

[19:46] Mike Abrams: It seems slightly problematic.

[19:49] Kevin Zak: Yeah. But I mean, again, 21, not equity tour. There's no HR. There's nothing I can do. And also, I was thrilled to have that story to tell backstage afterwards. I also know that the boots that we wore, the Tugger boots were like the Tugger boots they've had for 20 years beforehand. And the reason I was on for a month straight is that those boots that had been like they're basically ash by the time my tour got to them. Our Tugger had to go home for a month because of the shin splints that those boots caused him.

[20:23] Mike Abrams: Wow.

[20:23] Kevin Zak: And because he had to do a lot of jumping off of stuff and he got shin splints and had to go home. And I'm like, it's because of these boots that are basically made of cheese at this point. But in terms of like the we used to do Tugger drops. Have you heard of this?

[20:40] Mike Abrams: No.

[20:40] Kevin Zak: Before. So during the Tugger playoff, so you finish the number and then there's like three more counts of eight of music as like a wrap up to the Tugger section. And they would do Tugger drops, which is we would give everyone everyone that was in that sort of dance party moment with Tugger after his song, which was mainly the kittens. Would there be a theme like jungle cats or robot cats or the secret agent cats or something? And you'd have to act like a ninja or a robot or a jungle cat during these three counts of eight. But what we wouldn't tell one person and it would change every night is on this count, you hit the deck. So on like count six of the first kind of eight, everyone would be doing this and then everyone would drop to the deck, leaving one person up doing the robot by themselves. Or like one person up pretending to be a ninja. So they looked completely insane by themselves.

[21:40] Mike Abrams: There was a lot of games that we played in cats. I mean, there was there was Mafia. Oh, have you spoken with John Tracy Egan?

[21:49] Kevin Zak: No.

[21:51] Kevin Zak: He was an old Deuteronomy on the in the proper tour in the 90s. And he's, you know, a Broadway star since then. But he he did it. And I think either he did it with Liz Calloway or he did it on Broadway with Liz Calloway. And this could be a, you know, a myth or a fable. But we would play Mafia sometimes in the show. And it would be like someone got picked to be the Mafia and would slowly kill every cat all show. And John Tracy was like, there was one show where nobody was dying. Why isn't anybody dying? And they got to the heavy side layer. And Grizabella is going up on the tire. And she just machine guns every cat beneath her. And so everyone is pretending to be shot. And they realize that because Grizabella is barely on stage, the only time she killed people was right before she died, which is insane. Yeah, you should if you if you have the time, I'll connect you to John Tracy because he's got some incredible stories.

[22:48] Mike Abrams: I love these tours. And he also did in Germany. Yeah. Yeah. I've always wondered how like, what are those different games you're all playing where it's not changing anything, but keeping it fresh and interesting because you're doing this eight times a week and all these different cities and on tour, you have to almost have something. And I know that when I went to the tour back when I filmed with the tour, the most recent one, like I gave them not a game, but like, let me give you just a slight tweak of a character or personality or something to go bring on stage that night. And it was super fun. It was cool to hear. Like, did it work? Did it not work? And but Mafia is a super fun one because you just pick one person. I love the drops to just don't tell anyone. That's like basically every tick tock train right now is one person not knowing that you're doing something else and tricking them into the dance.

[23:36] Kevin Zak: Oh, yeah. And then with cats, the way it's staged, or at least the way it was staged when I did it, is that, you know, you go you get all your you go here, you go here, you do this choreographer, you do this, you sing this. But there's all the in-between time of when you're getting to that spot. And all of that is sort of just validity improv, basically. So there was so much room to basically fuck around. And because you are playing a cat, there was kind of nothing off limits. Yeah, because you're playing a feral animal that licks itself and shits in the middle of nowhere and pees in the middle of nowhere and is horny and things like that. So it's like, I bet so much stuff happened on that tour on stage that would get anybody fired within a second nowadays.

And and I mean, we would do like through Topsy Turvy Thursdays where you threw in as many pirouettes as possible into the show, like even if you weren't supposed to do one, you would just start doing turns. So, yeah, there was games on games on games. And a lot of the times it was the swings who came up with them because they would be the ones watching the monitor and keep, you know, score of who did the most turns and whatnot. So, yeah, it would get it would get pretty wild, especially on your 30th one nighter. You just got to find a way to get through it because your body is like frozen, calcified from the bus ride. And you still have to do like a 20 minute Jellicle ball after the ride after, you know, it's after and then you're like in a city where there's no food anywhere.

So you're eating your thirty fifth subway sandwich of the month and then you go back to some ratty hotel afterwards and get up and get on the bus. I still I got our bus driver's name was Lance Boudreaux and he was from Louisiana. I wonder if he's alive. Who knows? No, no good.

[25:34] Mike Abrams: I want to ask you with with your games, was there two questions on this one? Was there anyone that ever went too far and they were like, no, don't do that again? And also, was there ever a time where someone was like, oh, I caught you all playing mafia or I noticed this thing at the stage door where they kind of picked up on it?

[25:55] Kevin Zak: Oh, no, I don't think anyone at the stage or said that. I don't think anyone ever got admonished for going too far by our stage manager who was I mean, our stage manager was an emotional terrorist, too. So it's like I did not trust this person. And this person kind of terrorized the swings and would play like mind games with us about who got to go on. You know, it was it was pretty unlike another swing. I knew Tori Trowbridge, who, you know, she was on she's been on Broadway, she's on TV ever since. And like the most supremely talented person was just absolutely treated like garbage by management. And it was it was a wild thing to navigate where you're like, oh, my God. Looking back on it, they were playing mind games with us about who would get to go on for what role.

And because there were so many swings and we all covered everything, it was yeah, it was almost like if you pleased the gods, the gods would favor you sort of thing as opposed to like, let's just take turns. We all got hired because we're all talented. We wouldn't be here otherwise. So no one trusted our management. And we had we went through like four company managers and the last one we had was just the worst at her job and apparently still works. And I just don't understand how. But I won't name names now. If we were out of the bar recording this, I'd list all the names.

[27:28] Mike Abrams: Well, we will we'll chat after and then not them on the on the podcast. I mean, I mean, if they're listening to us now, they know who they are. But yeah, if they are listening to us now, then they still have some cats fandom in them. And so I think they're in them. I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation is is that there needs to be an HR department for for the for the tours for all the things both internal within the cast internal with the stage managers and then for the audience because I don't think having you getting groped is probably a good a good thing to happen anymore. But those are the times that we lived through in 2010 when it was a little bit more. It was it was especially with no union to protect you.

I mean, our old Deuteronomy got fired in the middle of the night. He was he did the show. The next day he was gone and there was no explanation, nothing. He was just gone. And we were on the precipice like people had just started getting iPhones. There was no Instagram, things like that. So there's no like extra ways of communicating or trying to get help or being like, hey, I was mistreated.

[28:41] Kevin Zak: It's definitely a fun part of it. I don't think you're putting Arkansas as a destination on your holiday travel, but you get to go see it and probably got to experience kind of a cool part of a town that has a lot of history and closeness that otherwise you wouldn't go to. And they were thrilled that a Broadway – I say that in quotations – a Broadway show came to their small town. It was packed full of people. And the students from the university had all sorts of journalism assignments with us and things like that, and the theater program there. So the smallest towns were the most excited audiences because they'd never got any other show ever. It was Cats that it would always come through because they had made it such a – what's a nice way of putting this – easy-to-travel version of the show.

It could fit into almost any theater in the country. And we had contingencies for when there was a no-fly system and the shoe wouldn't drop from the ceiling. It'd be thrown on from the side and things like that. So they'd make any theater work in the country, like Will said, when we were getting changed at a library, a children's library. So yeah. But again, I was 21, so I was having a ball at the same time and not realizing – I guess the lesson of this whole thing is I didn't realize it could be better. I was happy.

[33:01] Kevin Zak: Yeah. You're happy to be there. Well, let's be honest, the 20-chapter fan fiction that's going to be written in one of those small towns. That's not being written in New York or Chicago. That is someone who saw it during your one night at a formidable age, and then that's all they've thought about since, and then they wrote 30,000 words about it.

[34:13] Kevin Zak: Yeah. And I remember when we did play Ogdensburg, it was the dead of winter. It's right on the border of Canada. We did not have self-service. There was nowhere to eat, but they had the swings do a Q&A with some audience members after the show, and it was standing room only in this small convention center-type room, and they had so many questions. And these are people who do not live far from New York City. They live maybe a four-hour drive from New York City, but they just either didn't have the means to get there, or whatever it is, to be so close to the metropolis of theater, and never experienced it. So many people, this was their first theater experience, seeing Cats in Ogdensburg. It was the first time they'd ever gone to the theater, and I just find that ... And I grew up in Buffalo, New York, so I can't really talk to it, because Buffalo is a six, seven-hour drive, and the first time I went to New York City, I was 17 years old when I lived in the same state my entire life.

The first show I saw on Broadway was Ferdinand Peters and Gypsy. So it's funny to think of, like, oh my God, I've lived in the same state as where Broadway is born, and my family just never ... New York City was not on the radar. Because we also lived close enough to Toronto, where we'd just go up to Toronto and see anything. We saw Phantom there. We saw Les Mis there. My mom took her sister and my oldest brother to see Cats in Toronto while she was pregnant with my other brother. And in the beginning, when they do the green eyes out in the audience, my mom said she almost went into labor. She was so scared.

[36:08] Kevin Zak: Yeah. I believe that. That jump scare got me when I saw it in 2016, the revival. I was very grateful. I was two seats in and not on the aisle, or I also might have gone into labor. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died. I want to talk a little bit, before we get into the rapid fire, about your Instagram and how you come up with who you send to the Heaviside Layer on Photoshop. Because they are hilarious, and you do make a good amount of the catch jokes when it's topical and makes sense. Is it just like it hits you and you make it, or how much thought goes into these?

[36:49] Kevin Zak: No thought. It hits me and I make it. Cats the musical, everybody on earth, whether they're a theater fan or not, knows what Cats is. And they know the general idea that it's a bunch of dancing cats, and the old one gets blown through the roof at the end. So it just always hits people, whether they're theater fans or not. And they totally get what's going on. It's usually someone that has given their life over to some sort of civil service and is being denied the next part of their life, like Biden, or someone where it's like the man has spent his whole life being a civil servant, and we collectively as a country were like, it's time for you to stop, so let's put you through the Heaviside Lair.

So it's usually that. It's like, oh, well, Biden's at the DNC. It's his last speech he'll give at one of these kind of things. It's this up, up, up, past the Rosso Hotel. Let's all thank him and say, the mystical divinity, we'll see you later, Biden. And then Prince, not Charles, but Andrew, I think I did one for it. Yeah. I did one. Yeah. Oh, no, Andrew. He needs to go somewhere else. He's still alive. Queen Elizabeth's husband, whatever his name was. And then I did one which did not go, which backfired in the law, because in 2016, I did one of Hillary finally being guided to the White House. This was well before, it was like April of 2016, when we all thought that Hillary was going to win.

[38:38] Kevin Zak: Yeah. And so I was like, I made this like, you're going to do it. She finally got to the White House and then she didn't. So yeah. But yeah, the cats memes, they just they speak to people. They speak to me. I mean, cats is a part of my life. It's ingrained into my body from doing it. And it was also when we were in rehearsals in New York, we our music supervisor, Kristen Blodgett, who is the music supervisor of Phantom for 30 years, has done everything. She is the most wonderful angel of a woman. And the way she taught us to sing the Heaviside Layer, it was like the first time she had ever taught it, with the emotion she brought to it. And she was so good to me. And when I had my private rehearsal with her to learn all my music, she asked me what was the first big show I saw.

And it was Phantom of the Opera in Toronto. And she was the music supervisor of Phantom of the Opera. So that night, she brought me backstage to the Majestic to watch Hugh Pinero put on the Phantom makeup. And I was just losing my mind internally that I was backstage at the Majestic Theater in the Phantom of the Opera's dressing room, watching him put on his makeup by the woman who ended up doing the makeup for the Phantom the entire run of the show, all 35 years.

[40:01] Kevin Zak: It was the same woman. I wish I could remember her name. There was a big New York Times article on her when the show closed. But she was the same woman who started in 1988, all the way through when it closed last year. And that's how special Kristen Blodgett is, is that she took this 21-year-old lanky, awkward idiot from Buffalo and said, Oh, yeah, come backstage at the Majestic, and I'll show you the Phantom. You can meet him. And it was Hugh Pinero. And he was so gracious and so handsome. But yeah, again, I think I veered off of what your actual question was, but I had just thought of that. I thought it was worth sharing because she, to this day, I mean, I have not really seen her too much. I'm friends with her daughter, Emma. But she's like a guardian angel in a way. She pops up when you really need someone to give you a hug somewhere. And she's just there.

[41:56] Kevin Zak: It's such a cool story, because that's something that's probably so simple for her to do, because of what her experience and her role and what she's been able to do to just, Oh, I can bring you backstage, especially in 2010. And it's such an important and meaningful thing that you're remembering that many years later. And it's like, that is what a really good person, like just a good human does, is being able to have that moment and give you that experience that she didn't have to, by any means, but does. And it's cool to hear those stories about people like Kristen Blodgett, because that's such a unique and simple thing for her to be able to do, but so meaningful.

[42:39] Kevin Zak: And I could be getting this story wrong, but she told us how she got involved with Cats when it first premiered on Broadway. And before she became music supervisor and all that, she played in The Pit. And I could be misremembering this, but she had seen a preview of Cats and hated it, and then was on a bus and overheard someone next to her saying, We just lost a pianist in our pit for Cats. We need one. And she literally went, I'm a pianist. I loved Cats. And that's how she got into Cats.

[42:58] Kevin Zak: I love it. I hope that's true, because that's such a fun, that's such a cool way to get in of like, I want the job. I want to say it is. I'll message her daughter, Emma, and see if that's something I'm just completely misremembering. But I want to say that that happened or something very similar happened to it. But that's how things used to happen a lot of times. Like Ken Billington, the lighting designer, when he moved to New York at 19, he's in his late 70s now, and he's done every show ever. I worked with him on Waitress, but he lit the original Sweeney Todd by basically going to like Hal Prince's office and knocking on his door saying, I want to work on a show. What do you got for me? And like ended up being the lighting designer for Sweeney Todd. It's such a different time, you know, of where.

[43:02] Mike Abrams: You had that hustle and you separated back then by that versus now it's like an AI is going to write the email to send to you to then and like everyone can do it. So there's just such different versions. But I want to go to Rapid Fire. But before we go there, you said that you had a couple questions you wanted to ask me. And so I want to open that up besides the Heaviside Layer question, which I will save to the end. Sure. My question is, is, you know, why this podcast? But I guess that has to do with your answer at the end, probably. But you have so many episodes. You had Terrence Mann and all these people on it. I'm like, and you're a big sports fan, you say. So I'm like, where did Cats come into your life?

[43:44] Kevin Zak: Yeah. So I think some people have heard this and I'll give you a much more in-depth one off the podcast. I'll give you the short, full story. But the short version was, is that I saw the 2016 revival as a preview. I'd never seen Cats before. I had seen some theater, but I just moved to New York for work. So I was living in temporary housing. Like that's how corporate put me in temporary housing in the theater district. And so I knew, I knew about five people that lived in the city at the time. And so I was like, what do I, what should I do? What do I like? I wanted to experience New York being from Indiana. So I went and a friend got me Cats tickets because the revival was just opening. And at that point, you said you saw Phantom.

I didn't see Phantom until like the last month of its run here on Broadway. Never seen any production, never saw Les Mis, never saw all these, like, you know, what a theater person would know. I had seen Book of Mormon and Jersey Boys, essentially, you know, like a couple very basic things. So I was like, let me go. I'm here at the pinnacle, you know, like at Broadway, and I'm living down the street so I can finish work, go to the show, and then walk a block home. Like, how am I not doing this? And I went to Cats, and I did not know what I watched. And I had done a lot of writing. So I was a writer and did humor writing and tried to process the story and couldn't. Just like could not in one set, like one view, really understand everything.

And so I kind of poked fun at it in a story. And but in a way of where I'm like, also, at the same time, that cast had so much talent from dancing, which I don't know anything about. But I kept I was pretty close to the stage. I'm like, how do these people do this? Like physically, they don't get any breaks. It's unreal what they're doing. And but I kind of made a joke. And then I kind of left it for a while. And then it was the 2019 trailer for that movie came out. And it was that day, I had made a joke that said, Grizabella's the wrong choice. The movie is going to set the record straight. Welcome to my TED Talk. And I had this like, I was giving a work presentation. So but I'm on stage, and it looks like I'm giving a TED Talk.

And I posted that. And people at the Broadway Podcast Network, which is a friend of mine, asked me to turn it into a miniseries. And so we did that. And I knew nothing. I was literally if you listen to those first episodes, where their characters like me trying to explain the characters as a novice, I was watching YouTube clips and reading the fan fiction and what I could find online. As I went, like, I didn't know I couldn't imagine the character like the ninth episode. Once I got to Munkustrap, I couldn't have told you anything about Munkustrap until I got to that episode. And so it was kind of this like, very strange, weird. What's this outsider's perspective of the show that so many people know for 40 years?

And so it kind of got a little bit of buzz because of that, because it was just very much a, if you have a very knows nothing person looking at something that so many people know, what's the interpretation, and I was doing it all later, it was just a 1998 movie on YouTube. It's just the VHS clipped on YouTube. And then about halfway through those first 10 episodes, I did an episode with someone who was on tour, as like a Q&A. And I knew like, I still I heard it was Maria. And I still this day, don't think I asked her any proper question. Like it was just like, I could not, I couldn't formulate the questions because I didn't know what I was what I was talking about at the time. And then it was Christopher Gurr, who was the Gus someone.

Oh, yeah. And he came into the studio, we had a studio at the time. And we recorded my Q&A for my Gus episode. And that was kind of the first time where he like explained some things to me. And I was like, I gotta just start asking more questions. Like, why am I trying to interpret this myself? And I, it just snowballed from there. And so it went from a, I knew nothing, like literally nothing to now I probably besides people who have done it and worked on it, and then there's definitely some super fans, I would argue that I know more about the plot, backstories and characters and most than almost anybody. But I still couldn't tell you the first thing about the dance numbers, the songs, like any of the like any of the like musical theater part of this.

But it's been really fun for me, because I get to hear hilarious stories, I you know, people doing it. But I meet the super fans. And they're like, well, have you talked to this person? And if they were anything prior to 2016? I'm like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Like, like, sure. And they're like, they were the original Demeter. And I'm like, great. Yeah. Like, I don't know anything about that.

[48:00] Kevin Zak: That's brilliant. I love that so much. And it was a short, quick story. But, you know, getting this tour out of college to my friends who are like civilians like yourself, that do not work in the theater industry and don't know anything about Cats, they were so excited for me. They thought, you know, I say this in heavy quotations that I had made it right. Yeah. And they all came, I played Syracuse, and I've got a lot of friends in Rochester and Buffalo. So they all drove to Syracuse and saw the show. And afterwards, you know, it's sort of like, oh, my gosh, you did it. You are you are incredible. What the fuck is this show about? What is going on? And they were like, it's it was like, I got I wish it was like, Wicked or something I did.

They at least could follow the story and like or Les Mis or anything, but it was Cats. And like my friend Jamie, she was trying to she's like, I want to try and explain the plot back to you. And she's like, the best I can explain it is there's a cat who owns a bunch of cats and says, this is my cat. This is my other cat. She likes to tap dance. This is my oldest cat. This is my big fat cat. And this one's going to die. And I was like, actually, that's the plot. Yeah, you're right. Pretty close. Yeah, pretty, pretty good. I tell everybody just don't try to follow the plot. Just watch the dancing and singing. And then don't worry about the rest. Just enjoy it. Yeah. Or get stoned beforehand. Yeah. Get stoned or drink. And don't grab Tugger, but enjoy the show and have fun with it.

[50:00] Mike Abrams: All right, let's do some rapid fire. So if you could go on for one night, any cat, whether you could do it male, female, it doesn't matter. Who would you want to perform as?

[50:11] Kevin Zak: Oh, Grizabella, for sure. Get your 15 minutes on stage. Go up. Bell. Yes. Yes. That for sure. Or no, Grizabella. She's my she's my answer. That's my first.

[50:24] Mike Abrams: OK, second guess. I'd love to go on as her favorite and least favorite cat personality wise. Like who would you want to hang out with and who would you not want to hang out with?

[50:30] Kevin Zak: Munkustrap is my favorite cat personality wise. I he to me is like the most handsome cat, if that sounds insane, but also the most responsible and the most giving and the most caring and proper and has manners and all that. Like he's a gentleman cat, really. Yeah. So Munkustrap is my favorite. My least favorite is probably any of the kittens, so possible. Hopefully these. Oh, no, wait, no. My least favorite is Alonzo.

[51:10] Mike Abrams: What?

[51:10] Kevin Zak: Yeah. Like, yeah, he is just like a wannabe Munkustrap, you know, he's got one line and are you cock of the walk? I think was his line. And yeah, I just like what a what a useless character, what a knockoff Munkustrap we've got here. We don't even really need him.

[51:29] Mike Abrams: Did your Alonzo do the lift with Victoria, though?

[51:40] Kevin Zak: Yeah, he did. So I guess we'll get him for that lift. But but in terms of like the personnel, like it's a kind of a personality list. Yeah. In a way. Yeah. OK, that makes sense. Favorite song from the show?

[51:53] Kevin Zak: I love when I don't know what it's called. Maybe it's after Grizabella's first cross in act one. So I think it's right after Rum Tum Tugger. She comes in and just does a cross and then Bombalurina and Demeter sing this really sweet, short duet called I think it's called Grizabella the Glamour Cat. Yeah, it's just the two of them. And it's kind of haunting and mysterious. And I love the lyrics of it. It starts like remark, the cat who hesitates before you, all that kind of stuff. It feels like the most poetic song of all the T.S. Eliot lyrics. Yeah, it feels like a like a poem. So that that's the answer, I think.

[52:48] Mike Abrams: This will be a fun one. I think this might be the second week in a row I'm asking this, but you've done some political memes. This will come out after the election. So we'll be probably in chaos either way of whatever happens in the US. But which cat do you think would be the best politician?

[52:58] Kevin Zak: It's still Munkustrap. He in terms of being a true civil servant, you know, true for the people of the Munkustrap. Now, the best sort of like greasy, oily politician type person, if like if it was like a Ted Cruz, sort of, you know, who became a politician for all the wrong reasons, I would say that would be I feel like Bustopher Jones is is kind of like hoity toity and I'm better than you. I take all the finest caviar. I take all the good stuff for me. So I would say Bustopher Jones would be that kind of like Texas oil politician. I think Bustopher's running the pack like he's paying for all the stuff behind the scenes that he needs to have happen. But no, I agree. I think that's probably the right answer. I do think there would be some fun like this would be an interesting up and coming like version of it, like Skimbleshanks would be kind of an interesting one to be a politician.

[53:58] Mike Abrams: Yeah, totally. There's a lot of ways to go with that. OK, most important question. I've argued that I don't think Grizabella is the right choice. So I want to know, how are you voting and why?

[54:08] Kevin Zak: I would vote for Gus. And I'm sure that's probably a popular answer. Number two vote behind Grizabella. Yeah. And I think it's it's sort of like he's the Joe Biden in a way. He he has had this remarkable career for way too many decades is kind is dying because he has the like he he was we directed because I understudied him to have. And it's in the lyrics, his paw shakes. Right. He's got some sort of he's got palsy. He's got palsy. Yeah. And so I would say Gus is also hoping and willing and wanting to move on. So that's my answer is Gus. I think I think he he deserved a new life more so than Grizabella. I totally get why Grizabella was chosen, though, because it's kind of the Mary Magdalene of it all.

Yeah. The outcast and, you know, probably treated wrongly for just being a bit of a diva or or whatever. She her her prime whenever she was in her prime. So I totally get why it was her. But just I only went on for Gus once and it was truly a gorgeous, gorgeous time. Like, I loved playing Gus and and I and I feel the most sympathy and empathy for Gus.

[55:39] Mike Abrams: That is no arguments here. I agree. I think it's the correct answer if you think about the story the way that I do. And so we're just going to leave it at that. Great. How can people stay in touch with you on social media and all the things? I know you're working on a couple projects.

[55:56] Kevin Zak: Yeah, you can look me up on Instagram. That's kind of that's really the only thing I'm active on. I was at Kevin J. Zak, Z-A-K, and that's where I post a lot of memes and stuff I made. And truly, it has a great following. And it only started because I was trying to make myself laugh. So I'm glad that other people found it funny, too. So and you can always, if I'm doing something, I sometimes post what I'm doing on there. So feel free to check it out.

[56:29] Mike Abrams: Yeah, well, we'll link it to follow. I know there's obviously cool things you're doing in the city. And so post those with the memes so people can can follow along on all the fun parts of your career, too.

[56:39] Kevin Zak: Thanks. I will.

[56:44] Mike Abrams: Thank you. Well, this has been so fun. Thanks for coming on and sharing a little bit of your trauma, but also just the fun stories that came with getting to do this at such a young age and such a unique experience.

[56:55] Kevin Zak: Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me.

[57:00] Mike Abrams: Awesome. And thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast break down the Cats atrophy. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any of us' podcasts. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. And if you still use it, threads at TheWrongCatDied, or check out our website, TheWrongCatDied.com.