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[0:15] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of Catastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another amazing guest who is also part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Robert Bannon is the host of a podcast called The Roundtable, which sits down with the best and brightest artists to have an in-depth fun and craft-filled chat with Broadway stars, stage, screen, and social media members. Robert also is a Cats fan who I hear has some hot takes, so I'm excited to have him on. So welcome, Robert, and thank you for joining me.

[0:42] Robert Bannon: Thank you so much. I love that. Can you be my writer, editor, copier? Can you? That was good. I'm here for that intro. Let's go, Mike! We'll cut this out. We'll just put that in the beginning of all your episodes. Thank you. Hired. It's nice to be here. Thanks so much for having me here. I love talking to other Broadway Podcast Network people because it's fun because I always joked, I know that you like kind of joined in on the literature that's been going on for five or six years now. I was in the beginning and that was the extreme end of the spectrum of the types of shows they had for the parody. So it's always fun to meet kind of all the different shows that we have, and so we'll get to your show, but this is a Cats podcast, so we got to start with Cats. So I want to hear, when you first saw the show, your introduction to it, your fandom of it, why we're here today.

[1:31] Robert Bannon: Okay, so listen, I'm from New Jersey, Mike, and so I had access to Broadway. I lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey. I was across the George Washington Bridge, and I had parents who liked theater, and they were cool with me going to theater. I was a theater kid. I was going to musical theater class, like all good Jersey theater kids at the mall, because that's where you go learn to dance. And Cats was running at the Winter Garden, and my parents had seen Cats on a date before we were grown, right, like before they had children. Date night at Cats. Date night at Cats, where groping is, you have to ask for consent. So, well, my parents decided that they weren't going to take me to see Cats, because they had already seen it, and they weren't going to spend the money, at that time was probably like $40, and now it's like $500, to go see Cats at the Winter Garden.

But I was shifty, because it was my parents' 15th wedding anniversary. I was like 14 years old, and I had told my aunt, who's my godmother, that my parents really wanted to see Cats, and we should get the family ticket. Surprised them. I love it. So my aunt said, sure. She got a car service. We booked Tavern on the Green. This is back in 1990, and we were going to take them 96, and we went to see it, and surprised them. My parents did not ask to see Cats. I wanted to see Cats, and I conned my way into the Winter Garden on the back of my parents' wedding anniversary, so that I got to experience Cats in person. And I was in awe and floored of the makeup, the costumes, the set, so much so that years later, when Cats closes the Winter Garden, I went to the Broadway Cares flea market and bought pieces of the set. They're in my attic at my dad's house, because it was such a moment for me as a kid to hear the music and see it, that I fell in love with the music of Cats. I conned my parents, Mike.

[3:22] Mike Abrams: I love, I love, all right, there's so many questions. I have so many follow-up questions. Let's start with the, what was your parents' reaction? Were they angry at you for forcing them to go see it again?

[3:31] Robert Bannon: You know, my brother is not a theater person at all. He is a sports nista. He plays basketball, football. He doesn't do theater, really. He fell asleep, because he fell asleep at all the great shows of the 90s, Les Mis, King and I, Miss Saigon. Like, Sean slept through every show we went to. So Sean slept. My mom loves it, because my mom is just happy to be with her kids and see something and be together. My dad had a good reaction. He enjoyed it. You buy him some peanut M&Ms, and you give him a Diet Coke, and he's going to sing along. So it ended up being great. But it was definitely shifty. And it was definitely my, my way of getting him to see this. I had no money. I had to go see it.

[4:11] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So your brother, you didn't get like scared during the beginning Green Eyes, like he was asleep from the moment it started.

[4:19] Robert Bannon: 10 minutes in my, he might have been up for that. But 10 minutes in my brother had sleep, my brother, that is literally a joke in my cabaret show is that my brother slept through the greatest shows of the 90s. Because he even to this day, he will be like, he did not get this gene. He did not get the theater gene at all. I have fallen asleep during shows before I'm more like your brother, I'm now very into the theater world. But before, I used to go to a couple after I had played, like three hockey games in a weekend. And it's like, we have matinees tickets for Sunday. And my mom was like, we're you're still going. And so I have fallen asleep through a couple shows from those scenarios where I was like, yeah, I'm still pretty tired. I don't care how great this show is.

[4:54] Robert Bannon: But how do you sleep through cats? Mike, they're literally in the audience back then. I had never seen cats until 2016. So I read that I did not sleep through cats. I was fascinated, which is why the show started in 2016. But okay, I got more follow up question.

[5:07] Mike Abrams: Sure. You conjure way and I love it. 14 is kind of a formative age. Did you catch all the sexual nature of like, what's happening?

[5:16] Robert Bannon: No, I know. I know you have cat super fans. And I love the cat super fans. And I love Andrew Lloyd Webber. And I love the people who have been in cats. I still don't know if I know what the show is really about. But I loved the music. And I loved the look. And I love the whole story. But I did not get any of the sexual nature. Okay. And I don't own a cat. I don't think I'm a cat person, Mike. So but I like their behavior as an actor. I was fascinated by the way they acted. But I definitely did not catch the sexual nature. Nor did I think she died at the end. I think it went right over my head, to be honest. All of it.

[5:48] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Yeah, just seeing the dancing and you know, the unitards.

[5:54] Robert Bannon: Exactly. Okay. I love it. Did you did you walk out being like, I need to be in this show?

[5:58] Robert Bannon: Well, you know, I'm not a I can't dance. But I love but I remember going to the tavern on the green. I remember being in the gift shop. I remember meowing. I remember being obsessed with the idea of the cat. I still can, you know, get into a mirror. But I think cats and meowing is funny. So doing it on stage and getting paid for it is hysterical. And I funniest interview I've ever done, Mike. And I, I remember wanting to sing it. And I remember then going home and being obsessed with memory and listening to the Streisand version and the Manilow version and all of the I just saw Il Volo here in Detroit. I'm in Detroit now. And I was in Detroit the other day, I saw the opera group Il Volo and they do a whole lead up to singing memory and singing cat because that song was so haunting to me. And as someone who loves a ballad and someone who loves a big giant sweeping musical number, I that was the big takeaway is that I wanted to sing the song.

[6:53] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Have you seen it since? Or is it a one time cats experience for you?

[6:57] Robert Bannon: I saw the Jellicle ball. I sure did. And see that is a is a moment in time people that is something as a as a as a gay as they come person. I had the best time seeing that show. I love that people that I know in that show and what that show is doing. I hope it comes to Broadway. I know there's rumors of it coming to Broadway. I hope it does. And, and the movie, regardless of how the theater people feel about the movie, I had an amazing experience of the movie as well.

[7:22] Mike Abrams: Okay, we'll come back to the ballroom cats. But tell me about the movie experience.

[7:26] Robert Bannon: So I went opening night in Times Square, I was in, I was in acting class. And I went with my friend Kyle Ball, who was an actor who does not do musicals, but needed to see the movie. And the movie, like the, the parody of the movie, like the way people felt about the movie, and the way that they went into the movie, it became like a singalong Rocky Horror, like yell back at the screen, meowing, singing, clapping, dancing. I laughed and clapped and cheered and meowed for the whole two hours. It was such a fun Friday night in New York City. It was epic. I've not seen it since, but it was a moment that stands in time.

[8:06] Mike Abrams: So it's, it's funny you say that, because it's like, you went in with the right mindset for it. And I feel like a lot of cats, people's cats opinions depend on how you go in either to the stage show or to the movie. Because if you go into the stage show with a, just go in and take it for what it is and enjoy the dancing and singing, you're gonna have a great time. If you were like me, and you walked in thinking like, I'm going to see this beautiful story. I spent, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was going on. But it's what led to me having all these theories and thoughts. But the movie was that exactly that. I went to Alan and I, Alan Seals, who's the, you know, co-founder of the Broadway Podcast Network, has his own show.

We both know, obviously being part of the network. We went together because this was like what sparked this whole podcast was the trailer for that movie. And so we went to one of the, not like, not openings, like it was a pre-show. It was like a press viewing a week before it opened. So it was kind of like the, not the red carpet one, but definitely one where it was all industry people or friends or family. And about halfway through everyone's laughing. And I'm like, this isn't supposed to be funny. And that was kind of our cue of like, Oh, this, this is going to be a thing. Like this could be, because then I was, I was rooting for it to have the Rocky Horror style show, because then it's like, you go into, you have a good time and you walk out with a good time, but that's definitely not, I don't think their intention.

And so we kind of were in that weird middle side of where there was like, all right, this is supposed to be a very easy crowd of people who should be there. Pro cats rooting for it. And it still kind of had that reaction.

[9:42] Robert Bannon: Yes. And, but I don't, but I think we could separate things. I think we could separate the show and the, you know, at the time, the longest running show on Broadway and the incredible people that were in it and how hard it is to dance and sing and wear a leotard and not eat carbs for years and do eight shows a week. And then I think you can see that the movie with the star power and the weird CGI and the whole thing that they tried to do with the look of the cats didn't necessarily work in the way they wanted, but there's joy in that movie as well in its own way.

[10:10] Mike Abrams: I still think there's a good movie there if you reedit it because there's such incredible dancers and singers. Like the cast is, is incredible. It's stacked. You take the, including the celebrities, but you take like the big name people out. There's like the French twins, there was the, um, the ballet dancers. Like there's so many really incredible dancers that are in the show and you can't see anything they do because of the way it jumps around and cutting. And I had, um, uh, Sophie Carmen Jones on my show from Moulin Rouge. She's now in Chicago and she was in the McAvity number there. And I just remember like I watched to prep to see and it jumps around so much. So I'm like, I think that was her. I think this was her. Like where she's an unbelievable dancer and you just don't get to experience enough.

[10:55] Robert Bannon: So I think if they took all the footage that they shot and just zoomed out a little bit and didn't move the camera angles around so much, you probably have a really cool movie.

[11:04] Mike Abrams: You know, and, and the McAvity song is like my fave because this is Bob and I, it's amazing. And I, I think that that's true. I w I don't know if the whole roaches in the, in the refrigerator scene works. Can we cut it? There's some choices. There's definitely was some choices there. And we're not going to make it perfect, but I just think we didn't do all these incredible dancers justice on what they were doing. And the choreography is great. It's Andy Blankenbuer. It's, it's there. It's just not there for the movie because you don't get to see it.

[11:40] Robert Bannon: She's the wrong cat that dies as she flies into the air in a tire or whatever. Can we just talk about?

[11:45] Mike Abrams: Okay, I know this is not my show and it's hard for me not to be the host. But can I just talk about Jennifer Hudson as this Grizabella moment?

[11:53] Robert Bannon: Yeah, let's hear it. You know, I have to give her credit because I'm gonna get in so much trouble, but I don't care 'cause I've done shows with other Broadway BPM people where I talk about Ben Platt and all sorts of stuff. So I don't care, Broadway people, you can come for me. You could DM me, you could be mad at me. It's okay. You know, she's a very great singer. All right, she's an amazing once-in-a-lifetime singer. Sometimes she's not always the greatest actor and she gave snot and face and literally tears and sweat. Sometimes I think it's just too much, Mike, and I waited for this whole moment. I wanted this big giant moment and she's singing, but I just felt it was just, it made me sad. Where are the other famous Grizabellas? Where's Betty Buckley? Where is that new nuance of it? Because Jennifer just sings her face off and can just sing, but they kept us not in. They kept not in, Mike. Just close your eyes and listen. Okay, that's what I should have done.

[12:53] Robert Bannon: I've only seen it with that viewing with Alan, and then during COVID, my parents, we were like, it ended up on Netflix or ended up on one of those streaming services. And you're at the point where you've watched everything, and so I was like, all right, do you want to watch this? And they were like, yeah, we'll start it. And then about halfway through, they go, does it get better? And I'm like, it's pretty much this level the whole way through. And they both were like, I'm good, and they turned it off and went left. Oh, so I didn't even get to Grizabella's part of that viewing though. Are you a Swifty?

[13:26] Mike Abrams: I mean, I don't understand people who do hate her. I like her music. I didn't go to the Heiress tour. I wasn't spending that kind of money, so I wouldn't say I'm a diehard Swifty. But like, yeah, I mean, of course, she's incredible. She's incredible, and I think she could do anything, and I think she's amazing, and I love her too. I would love to see her do more things like a musical movie or a stretch. I was here for it. I made a meme—we were talking about this before we started recording—but I made a meme about how she did a hundred and something Heiress tours and didn't once sing "Macavity." Do you think she's like tries to hide that part of her career?

[14:07] Robert Bannon: I don't think she hides it, but I do think a lot of people stepped away from like they'll acknowledge it because I did have somebody on the show who came in full cat to the Heiress tour in New York, and it went viral on TikTok because she acknowledged it. It's not like she was ashamed; she made a little cat meow kind of towards him, like with a claw. And so I don't think she's gonna avoid it, but I don't think she's gonna proactively be talking about it.

[14:33] Mike Abrams: Okay, if she goes on tour again in the next few years, I would like to go with you in full cat and forget it. I'll call the guy back who went. We'll all go in full cat. We just gotta get tickets.

[14:46] Robert Bannon: Okay, I'm in. Now, let's talk about the ballroom cats. Yes, because you came back for that incredible experience.

[14:53] Mike Abrams: I did a ton of episodes with them. They've been like the best people to work with and also a different show that kind of got a lot of Cats haters to like Cats because of the storytelling. So what was your experience there?

[15:05] Robert Bannon: I have had interviews with people like Antoine Hopper and Jonathan Burke, and I have known them for years in New York and in theater scenes and stuff like that. I was very excited about—I mean, Andre De Shields, but you got an interview with him. He doesn't say yes to me, but he says yes to you. That's a lot of work time to get that one on camera, I believe that for sure. And I went in thinking like I love ballroom. Ballroom has become a thing, especially within the gay community, as it always has been, but after Pose and after all of the stuff that has been going on about how they're gonna do it. And I thought at the least you'll hear the music and you'll get to see some fun dancing, but what—and a creative new take.

But I love that Andrew Lloyd Webber was open enough to doing it because you could take something that is, you know, one of his jewels in his crown and made him a lot of money and give the liberty to open it up. But I again, I like the idea of the storytelling. I think in the context of a contest and in a ballroom scene, I think it adds a different layer that it didn't always get in the junkyard of the Cats musical, etc. And they were—this cast is so freaking talented, and my knees hurt so bad just watching them. They're so good. They were all so good.

[16:19] Mike Abrams: I love that they infuse ballroom people and theater people and really kind of brought those two worlds together.

[16:26] Robert Bannon: And you're exactly right. One of the biggest things when I heard about it was I was actually surprised that Andrew Lloyd Webber was kind of willing to let such a creative take happen. Kudos to him for seeing it for what it was and seeing it to be—I mean, it sold out like within minutes, for two extensions, and I mean maybe I think three extensions, and hopefully has a future life. But that's a different show in the same show all at once, and so it is cool to see him kind of—I don't know if I would say take that risk, but at least allow the evolution of something that has been so well known is really cool and awesome to see for him as someone, you know, again, who's a legend in his own right.

He could take it very seriously and not let people touch his stuff and want it to be done in the way that he had originated it, but I also think in terms of Broadway history, it was at a moment where he had that Cinderella just was off-Broadway, his show The Phantom was closing. You know, he didn't have something that was running on Broadway per se at that moment, so I think for him it was time. You know, he's open to reinvention, and I think that's what makes great artists is that they're gonna take something from the time in the '80s when they did it, and then they're gonna switch it and flip it and make it modern, and I think that's what they did, and they did it brilliantly, so I'm here for it.

[17:41] Robert Bannon: I will say I love Bad Cinderella though. You know, I had Savvy Jackson on my show the other day, and I was talking to her about it, and I love Bad Cinderella too, and I loved the music, and I think it was fun. I think we all need to like chill out and have some fun. It was—if you went in with the right mindset, same thing as we've been talking about. It was entertaining.

[17:58] Mike Abrams: Yes, and it had an incredible cast, again, really, really talented people. It's some wild songs; like some of those songs are horny. Like some of those songs are straight-up like odd.

[18:10] Robert Bannon: Well, she's Bad Cinderella. She's, you know, oh no, I think there's a whole song that's about the mom doing a whole song about the other prince's son. Yes, like that sounds a lot. The show was a lot, and I think that people go in thinking something different, and sometimes we need to be open. You know, your whole idea of your podcast—I mean, there's a joke in the title. There's fun in every episode that you get to do where we get to talk about the show, and I think we all need to be a little bit more open to different types of art, and we don't have to take art so seriously all the time. Can we just have some fun?

[18:46] Mike Abrams: I agree. It was entertaining. I never walked out of that show angry that I spent time at that show.

[18:50] Robert Bannon: No, and so I think that that's what I hope. I have felt that way at certain theaters where I'm like, that wasn't for me, but maybe it was for other people. And so that's why I don't understand there's a lot of people that trash it, that trash musicals and art in general, and I'm like, no, it just wasn't for you. Someone else might love it. But I want people who trash musicals to try to dance, sing, and act at the same time. It's totally not as easy as—

[19:15] Mike Abrams: Yeah, oh.

[19:16] Robert Bannon: It's very rare that anybody—at least for me, I walk out of every, especially musical, sitting there going like I might not have loved the story or I might not have loved some of the way that they put it together or some of the artistic choices, but every time I'm like, you know what? Those performers, like that's a feat to do that eight times a week too. Like I can't even imagine, and Cats is the extreme version of that. Like the dancing that they're forced to do, they're never offstage. They get a break during "Mongolian Rumple Teaser" and intermission, and that's about it.

[19:39] Mike Abrams: Right, and not everyone gets a break. The original show on intermission—that was my favorite part as a kid, getting to go walk up on the Winter Garden and just be staring. And I interviewed Cam Page, and you've interviewed a lot of Cats people, and it's always fun to talk about. Okay, I saw you had Liz Callaway on.

[20:01] Robert Bannon: Yeah, like when you hear their stories and you talk to them about their experiences, it's definitely something that is monumental in everyone's career that makes it to be in the show is something that they remember for sure.

[20:14] Mike Abrams: We're gonna take a quick break, and the way back for more of The Wrong Cat Died.

[20:18] Robert Bannon: All right, let's talk. You mentioned some of the people you know. Let's talk about your show.

[20:22] Mike Abrams: Okay, I know your show started on YouTube, right?

[20:25] Robert Bannon: So yeah, it was a YouTube show, and tell me about how it kind of came to life and where it is today.

[20:31] Robert Bannon: It started over COVID. I was putting out music. I have music out that's available wherever people want to be put to sleep or bored. No, I'm kidding. It's very jazzy and Broadway-esque, and you could listen to it wherever music is heard. We were putting out an album, and a little boutique label president at that time was like, "Hey, everyone's putting on shows on YouTube or podcasts during COVID, and it would be a good way to promote my music of my artists." So we had Jessica Vosk on. I was in my basement. I didn't know what I was doing, and that turned into a year's worth of shows every Thursday, and then that turned into something called the Broadway Cast Reunion Series, which it became a business that I never dreamed of, that we were gonna reunite Broadway cast and sell them to touring houses around the country to engage Broadway people.

We just didn't think that this was a thing, but it became a thing, and then it ended. I just remember talking to a friend, Robbie Roselle, who is a cabaret singer and a director and stuff, and he said, "Why don't you keep doing the show?" And I said, "Nobody will come on. I don't know anybody." And the show has lived on, and then it became a part of BPN, which was super exciting, and I love being a part of BPN. Now it's on Fridays. There's an exclusive chat on Broadway World homepage every Friday as well. So it's just kind of grown, but the part that's weird about my show, Mike, and that is that it's not only Broadway, so it's all sorts of artists. So, you know, we have like some NGL Choppa, 18 million follower rapper on next week.

We could have Sherri Shepherd on. We could have, you know, we could have Lunel the comedian, and then we have, you know, I don't know, your next Broadway Nista on as well. So like we run the gamut of all sorts of guests, and I just call it, you know, it's a place where artists talk about art, and we have fun and chat.

[22:15] Mike Abrams: That's awesome. And so you started on YouTube, and you were not part of the Broadway Podcast Network because again, so why? And then let's hear how did you get involved with the BPN?

[22:28] Robert Bannon: People started, you know, people—I see people online talking about their podcasts, and I just thought, I don't know anything about a podcast. I didn't—I don't know anything about a microphone. I don't know anything about a light. I don't know how to make a YouTube video. I never knew how to use iMovie. I'm not—I didn't work at Google, Mike. I don't know anything. I'm lucky I know how to use my iPhone. So, and then when the idea came that I had all this content, and it's like, it becomes the problem to me. It's like, how do you get the audience? I know there's an audience out there, and they want to hear this, and how do I get to them? And I know that the platform opened, and I know that we started doing red carpets.

When I'd asked to interview a person on Broadway, they were like, "We can't get them to do a virtual interview because they're in rehearsal, but would you come to opening?" And I would stand next to people that are on BPN, and I would be like, "I think I have a show that could be our podcast." So I cold emailed Alan Seales. I just sent an email like, "Hi, I'm Robert. I have a show."

[23:19] Robert Bannon: I conned my way into the Winter Garden on the back of my parents' wedding anniversary so that I got to experience CATS in person.

[23:49] Robert Bannon: I remember sitting there, just completely mesmerized by the whole experience. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

[24:13] Robert Bannon: The music, the choreography, the costumes—everything was just so vibrant and alive.

[24:37] Robert Bannon: I think I was about ten years old, and I just knew that I wanted to be part of that world somehow.

[25:05] Robert Bannon: Fast forward to now, and I’ve had the chance to see so many different productions of CATS, including the 2019 movie.

[25:29] Robert Bannon: I have a lot of thoughts about that film, especially regarding how it compared to the stage version.

[25:57] Robert Bannon: One of the things that struck me was how they adapted the material for a film audience, which is a whole different ballgame.

[26:27] Robert Bannon: I mean, the stage show has this magical quality that’s hard to capture on screen, but I think they did their best.

[26:57] Robert Bannon: Jennifer Hudson’s performance as Grizabella was definitely a highlight for me.

[27:27] Robert Bannon: She brought so much emotion to the role, and her rendition of "Memory" was just breathtaking.

[27:47] Robert Bannon: I think it’s one of those songs that can really resonate with anyone, regardless of their background.

[28:17] Robert Bannon: And then, of course, there are the other characters in CATS that I feel deserve more recognition.

[28:47] Robert Bannon: Each one has their own unique story and struggles, and I think that’s part of what makes the show so special.

[29:11] Robert Bannon: I’ve even managed to acquire some pieces of the original CATS set, which is a dream come true for any fan.

[29:41] Robert Bannon: It’s like having a piece of Broadway history in my home, and I cherish it deeply.

[30:05] Robert Bannon: I think that connection to the show is what keeps fans coming back, whether it’s through the stage productions or the film adaptations.

[30:17] Robert Bannon: There’s just something about CATS that captures the imagination and stays with you long after the curtain falls.

[30:47] Robert Bannon: And I love that we can have conversations about it, dissecting what works and what doesn’t in each version.

[31:17] Robert Bannon: It’s all part of the experience, and I’m grateful to be part of that dialogue.

[31:42] Robert Bannon: I think it’s important to keep the conversation going, especially with a show that has such a rich history.

[32:12] Robert Bannon: Whether you love it or hate it, CATS elicits strong feelings, and that’s what makes it so fascinating.

[32:41] Robert Bannon: I’m excited to see where the future of CATS goes, and I hope to be part of that journey in some way.

[33:11] Robert Bannon: It’s a show that continues to evolve, and I think that’s a testament to its lasting impact on audiences.

[33:25] Robert Bannon: So, whether you’re a die-hard fan or just curious, there’s always something new to discover in the world of CATS.

[33:55] Robert Bannon: And I can’t wait to share more of my thoughts and experiences with everyone.

[34:21] Robert Bannon: Thank you for having me on the show today; it’s been a pleasure to talk about something I’m so passionate about.

[34:59] Robert Bannon: I conned my way into the Winter Garden on the back of my parents' wedding anniversary so that I got to experience CATS in person.

[35:29] Robert Bannon: I remember sitting there and just being completely mesmerized by the whole thing. The music, the choreography, the costumes—it was all so magical.

[35:53] Robert Bannon: And then, of course, the moment when Grizabella sings "Memory," I was just like, "What is happening?" It was such an emotional experience for me.

[36:23] Robert Bannon: I think that’s what makes CATS so special; it evokes such strong feelings. You either love it or you hate it, but you can’t deny the impact it has on you.

[36:43] Robert Bannon: I’ve seen all the productions, including the 2019 movie, and each one has its own unique take on the material.

[36:56] Robert Bannon: The movie was definitely a departure from the stage version, but I appreciated the attempt to bring it to a new audience.

[37:21] Robert Bannon: Jennifer Hudson’s performance as Grizabella was particularly striking. She brought so much depth and emotion to the role.

[37:41] Robert Bannon: I think her rendition of "Memory" was one of the highlights of the film, even if the overall execution had its flaws.

[37:56] Robert Bannon: It’s interesting to see how different actors interpret the same character. Each brings their own experiences and emotions to the role.

[38:11] Robert Bannon: I’ve also had the chance to acquire some pieces of the original CATS set, which is just incredible.

[38:33] Robert Bannon: Having a piece of that history in my home is something I never thought would happen.

[39:03] Robert Bannon: It’s like owning a little piece of Broadway magic.

[39:13] Robert Bannon: I think that’s what keeps the spirit of CATS alive, the connection fans have to it.

[39:23] Robert Bannon: Whether you love it or hate it, it’s a part of Broadway history, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

[39:33] Robert Bannon: I mean, just look at how many productions have come and gone, yet CATS remains a staple.

[39:43] Robert Bannon: It’s fascinating to see how it continues to evolve while still holding onto its core essence.

[40:03] Robert Bannon: I think that’s a testament to the strength of the material and the talent behind it.

[40:23] Robert Bannon: The Jellicle Ball is such a unique concept, and it really allows for a variety of performances and interpretations.

[40:43] Robert Bannon: Each character has their own story, and that’s what makes it so rich and layered.

[41:08] Robert Bannon: I love diving into those backstories and exploring what makes each character tick.

[41:18] Robert Bannon: It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion; there’s always something more to discover.

[41:38] Robert Bannon: And that’s what keeps me coming back to CATS time and time again.

[41:58] Robert Bannon: There’s always a new perspective to consider, a new interpretation to explore.

[42:18] Robert Bannon: I think that’s the beauty of live theater; it’s never the same experience twice.

[42:38] Robert Bannon: Each performance is unique, and that’s what makes it so special.

[42:58] Robert Bannon: I’m just grateful to have had the opportunity to experience it in so many different ways.

[43:18] Robert Bannon: It’s a part of my life now, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

[43:38] Robert Bannon: I think that’s what makes being a fan so rewarding; it’s about the connections we make and the memories we create.

[43:58] Robert Bannon: Whether it’s through the music, the performances, or the community, CATS has a way of bringing people together.

[44:18] Robert Bannon: And that’s something truly special.

[44:38] Robert Bannon: I can’t wait to see where the journey takes me next.

[44:58] Robert Bannon: There’s always something new on the horizon, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

[45:18] Robert Bannon: So, here’s to CATS and all the magic it continues to bring into our lives.

[45:38] Robert Bannon: I’m looking forward to sharing more stories and experiences with everyone.

[45:58] Robert Bannon: Thank you for having me on the show today!

[46:18] Robert Bannon: It’s been a pleasure to chat about something I’m so passionate about.