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[0:15] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of Catsatrophy. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another amazing guest. She was a swing and alt of Grizabella and covered a bunch of different cats in the Hamburg production for over five years. And so I'm very excited to have her on the show. So welcome, Nancy Leach, and thank you for joining me.

[0:36] Nancy Leach: Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me. I'm always fascinated by the German production, especially as someone who I don't, and maybe you are a German native speaker, but learning a show in a totally different language. So we'll get to the production, but I always like to start, gotta start at the beginning of your Cats history. So when you started in the show in 1995, it had been around for years at that point. What was your introduction to Cats?

[0:57] Nancy Leach: My introduction to Cats, and now I'm really dating myself. I was a junior in college, and I was majoring in musical theater. And our professor was kind of opening up the room to discussion saying, "Cats is opening in London tonight. You know, what do we think about this show and the evolution of, you know, people dressed up as cats?" And, you know, that was how I kind of discovered it. And I was, I didn't really have an opinion at the time. And, you know, of course, eventually, it came to Broadway, and I moved to New York, and I saw it, which, and I enjoyed it, but I'm primarily a singer, I would say a singer who moves. So for me, I was so focused on Les Mis. That was the show. It's everybody, what's today, it's Wicked, or it's Hamilton, or something else.

But oh, it was Les Mis, Les Mis, Les Mis. And so when I got this audition for Cats in Hamburg, I was like, oh, I have no idea. Okay, you know, and it turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

[2:02] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's interesting, because I feel like Cats was the dancer show. I hear a lot of people that it was their dream show, if they were a dance first, who sing, you know, who might sing, but as a singer first, who moves, it's kind of the opposite. And so did you have kind of that thought when you got the audition of, huh, this is a dance-heavy show? Like, how is this going to work?

[2:24] Nancy Leach: I guess I knew enough about the show to know that the singers, that there were a few roles for strong singers, and then that they were kind of woven in and out of the choreography. So I figured my first thing, my first obstacle is just to get the job. And if I get the job, I'll figure the rest out. You know, ultimately, the dance, for me, was fine. It wasn't, what I had to do was absolutely fine.

[2:53] Mike Abrams: Yeah, there are roles where it's like, there's lifts and turns and stuff. And there are some where, yes, you can, I don't want to say, you have to still have dance skills.

[3:03] Nancy Leach: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I studied.

[3:04] Mike Abrams: You have to be still, yeah.

[3:05] Nancy Leach: I started late, though. I mean, I started, I think, like my junior year in high school, when I knew I wanted to be a performer. And I have to confess that there was a remedial tap class that they had in a couple of the evenings during the rehearsal period, and I was relegated to remedial tap for the Gumby number. But I got through it.

[3:29] Mike Abrams: You have to learn it.

[3:30] Nancy Leach: You have to.

[3:31] Mike Abrams: So at this point, you said you were in New York. Were you, like, what's your mindset when you get a, you know, the call that, hey, we're going to go to Germany, I have to learn this in German? And it's a show, like, you have to learn a show from scratch to begin with, but now you have to add in the barrier of a different language.

[3:48] Nancy Leach: I wasn't really thrown by the language, because my vocal training involved singing in other languages. And I had done some Schubert, and I had sung in Italian and French. And so I was like, I think I can handle that. I was more thrown by the whole idea of living in Hamburg. I was not, there was no internet, you know, so you couldn't just go, oh, that's cool, you know, to go out and get guidebooks. That was the big processing piece for me. I knew that I wanted to do it, but I knew that that was the thing I was trying to get my head around. I was married at the time as well. So we had, you know, that to sort out, like, how are we going to do this?

[4:36] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's a big move.

[4:36] Nancy Leach: It's a big move. And at the time, we had year contracts. And we were given, like, sort of an out after five months, if for some reason, you know, it wasn't your thing. And so my thinking was, well, you know, I'm going to go and if it's not my thing, or if it causes friction in my marriage, I mean, I guess I can take the out. And then, well, two things. Well, number one, I got there, and it just opened up my whole world. Because up until then, I had been so focused on New York, and Broadway, and it has to be this way. And if it's not, I'm not gonna be happy. And I don't know, you just be careful if you want something that much, because you can miss out on other things. And it just opened up my world to so many things.

Not just, you know, being able to do what I love for a living. But the whole experience in Cats Hamburg was, I mean, it's a tribe of the Jellicle cats. But we really were a tribe, because we came, they did these castings all over the world. They cast in, you know, New York, Toronto, obviously, LA, and then London, Sydney, Moscow, St. Petersburg, really all over the place. And so, we would all come together, and we would form huge bonds that I think, from my friends who have gone on to do that show, or other shows on Broadway, obviously, they're close to their castmates and everything, but it's not quite the same. You know, in New York, you just leave when you're done. We would go down to the canteen and, you know, throw a few back and talk. And there's no reason to go home straight away, because we were kind of all each other, all that we had for each other, as far as, you know, the friendship and the bonds.

[6:32] Mike Abrams: Yeah, you probably don't know as many people when you're moving there for this. So, you add the layer of being a cast, and being in a show that kind of forces you to be very close to begin with, you're kind of crawling on top of each other. So, you kind of have that part of it, too. But I've heard that, and I think the tours are the same way, where you get closer, because you don't have the, like you said, in New York, you go home, you've got your life, and you're settled a little bit more than when you're in a foreign country that you're moving for, for that job. So, walk me through, or what was it like, what do you remember of the process of like, hey, the rehearsal process, the storytelling?

Like, this is, at this point, it's not new. Like, this is 10 years into the world, it's clearly gone global. So, there's a little bit of lore past this, but it's not, you know, it's the pre-online internet going crazy, and having all the like, you know, now there's a bazillion things that you can learn from about the show. So, what was your introduction to the story, and the characters, and all that development?

[7:40] Nancy Leach: Well, we had, our creative team consisted of a resident dance captain, an assistant dance captain, then we had a resident director, who was German, and the resident director was kind of the one who taught the singing roles, the singing sort of acting roles. I shouldn't say it that way, because the dancers were acting, too. Everybody had specific characters. Everyone's doing everything. But I would say the choreographer, not the choreographer, the dance supervisor, and the dance captains were focused on the dancers, and their character, and character development. Resident director focused on us. And then, of course, we had our London team that would come in every few months, and, you know, do a little quality control, a little tweak here and there where needed.

But I remember going down to the canteen, and having a coffee with the resident director. And she sat me down, and we started with Grizabella. And she told me the story of Grizabella, at least a little bit of a backstory. And then, a lot of it was left for me to fill in, which was great. Just, I mean, what you see on stage is someone who's been through it. We're not sure exactly why. She's been shunned by her tribe, and now she wants back in, and nobody wants anything to do with her.

[9:01] Mike Abrams: So, what was exactly told to you, and then what did you add?

[9:07] Nancy Leach: I think I was told that she was exceptional, that she was talented, that she was beautiful. And so, she just went off to see how far that would get her, to explore other pastures, and that kind of, you know, angered her other people in her tribe. I kind of brought it to, now, of course, you read online, and there was one theory that she'd gone off and become a prostitute. And I was like, she did not. That was one of my theories. That was one of my early theories. The default apocalypse, she became a prostitute. Now, my theory was that it was harder than she thought, and she became an addict or something. Like, she started doing drugs, and lived in the street, and that's how it all came about.

And so, that was sort of my backstory, in that she just kind of wanted to do it all over again, and do it right, and just sort of make amends. And so, she comes back, and she's like, please, please let me back in. I still really think the most direct parallel I have to this was, she was Britney Spears, and you had the bald Britney Spears moment, you know? Like, that's the moment that you're like, right before she comes back to the ball. And then, we had a little bit of a reckoning with her, too, where she wrote the book, and I'm like, oh, maybe this is the Grizabella moment. But she's kind of gone off a little bit again. But that was always my parallel. I did think the prostitution part, but I thought of it as a, after trying to become successful first.

Like, it was a, we tried, we tried, we tried, it failed, and now I ended up, like you said, an addict, or I went down a dark path after. I mean, you could equate it to Fontaine, as well. Same, it's like you're just trying to survive at one point, and I guess it's up to the actor to decide how far that goes.

[10:50] Mike Abrams: And did you have to kind of try to draw in, I mean, like, such an emotional song. And you, like, as Grizabella, you're only on stage for, I think it's like, 16 minutes total. Like, you know, it's like, you're in and out, kind of on those parts. And so, did you, like, as a performer, do you go in and think like, all right, I'm about to go sing Memory. I'm going to go think back to her hard time. Like, are you getting yourself in the mindset, or is it at some point, it's just muscle memory, because you've done it so many times?

[11:16] Nancy Leach: That's a really good question. I primarily, I had my little rituals for each role that I covered. The thing I would do with Memory is, I would go in one of the, the Werkstatt, it's where the, where they repaired the set, I would go in there, because there was never anyone there during the show. And I would go through all my lyrics, and the blocking. But then in terms of the emotional moment, that would kind of happen when I came on stage. Just the music and the lights and the other characters looking at me brought me to that state very quickly.

[11:54] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess you have, like, the way it's built is they're all staring at you. So, you kind of end up with some of it. And that first time you did it, what is it like? I mean, what was that experience like?

[12:07] Nancy Leach: It was extraordinary. I was a cover. And the girl who was coming in as Grizabella, I think you know how it works in Germany, you come in, there's a cast change every year. Some people from the previous cast will stay. So, they'll mix it up, but there'll be a lot of new people. So, there was a very large group of us. And I was a cover, Grizzy, and I was at that time, just covering Gumby. And I knew that the first role that I would go in was as Grizzy, but not until the first girl went in, who is the first cast. Well, she got sick. And so, I got thrown in instead. And it was fine. I was pretty psyched about it, actually. And it was a matinee, it was a Saturday matinee. And I still remember it. It was just great. It was one of those...

[12:56] Nancy Leach: It started in 1986, I believe. 1986 or 87, because I know we celebrated the 10-year anniversary, I think, after my first year, perhaps. So it must have been 87. And then I was in it on and off until 2001, so I got to do it for the last show.

[13:27] Mike Abrams: Yeah, so let's go through that. You did it for a couple years on and off, and then you took a break to, you said, do Les Mis.

[13:34] Nancy Leach: Yes.

[13:35] Mike Abrams: Okay, in Germany.

[13:36] Nancy Leach: In Germany, yes.

[13:37] Mike Abrams: Okay, so another full German production in German. Are you fluent in German now?

[13:43] Nancy Leach: No, but I practice it. I've been back a few times, and I have to do a lingo now, and I do it every day. I just like speaking it. I would say the Les Mis, that was a lot more text, and that cast was largely native German speaking, be it either German, Austrian, or Dutch, who are fluent in German. So there was a higher expectation in terms of what we did in terms of phonetics. I got the score a couple of months before I went into rehearsal, and I started working on the phonetics while I was still doing CATS, because, I mean... It's got to be totally different if you're speaking. There's not a spoken word in CATS, and I've now had the fortune of hearing it in a lot of different languages, either from records or bootlegs of different productions all over the world, and at its core, it's the same.

It's really similar, but it's slightly tweaked, and so it is one of those things that you hear, and it's kind of fun. Did they rename any of the CATS or have any other kind of fun, I know I was fascinated by a Mexico production, they fully renamed a few of the CATS.

[15:00] Mike Abrams: Really?

[15:01] Nancy Leach: And just to, you know, like Bustopher Jones was basically essentially called Fat Cat in Spanish, and so I just, you know, since this one went for so long, did they have any of those tweaks?

[15:10] Nancy Leach: I think they did, now that you're saying that. Bustopher Jones was Bustopher Meux, and I don't know why, except that it rhymed with dure. Bustopher Meux is nicht grade dure, so he's not thin.

[15:22] Mike Abrams: Okay. Is it just Bustopher Jones they pick on in all these shows? I was like, that's the common one I've heard every time.

[15:27] Nancy Leach: Yeah, I think there were some shows that Tumble Brutus had a different name, but ours was Tumble Brutus. I think the rest of them were the same.

[15:34] Mike Abrams: Okay. Yeah, it's always fun to hear the kind of like tweaks in other languages. What was the, when you kind of like went and you did a show, then you came right back, was it really easy to slide back in, or was it a, all right, I got to get back into my CATS, feline, Jellicle mindset?

[15:49] Nancy Leach: Well, I was thrilled to be back. I'll say that. I loved Les Mis, but we were doing that in a city called Duisburg. It's kind of a working class city that was a suburb of Dusseldorf. A great company, and it was a wonderful experience, but that's a hard show to do. That's a hard one to do, you know, four show weekends and things like that. I felt that more sort of mentally, spiritually draining than CATS was physically draining, put it that way. So, I was excited to not have all the layers of clothes, because I was a swing in Les Mis with two principal covers, but when you're a swing, you basically put on every single outfit for the first half of the show or whatever, and you take, it's like, Joey, could I be wearing any more clothes? You're just taking off one layer after the next, depending on which scene and which character you are. So, when I got back to CATS, I'm like, oh, I'm only wearing a unitard. This is so comfortable.

[17:06] Mike Abrams: Yeah, the one unitard. Yeah, definitely.

[17:08] Nancy Leach: Yeah, I had to get my stamina back up, though, for sure, in a different way. We ran around a lot. But CATS, of course, it's very specific.

[17:15] Mike Abrams: We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died. I want to pivot a little bit to fun stories from on tour, not on tour, but from being in Germany, because I love capturing some of this, like, you did this for multiple years, and stuff goes wrong, and you get some fun audience experiences. So, what are the things that you'll just never forget from your time doing it?

[17:38] Nancy Leach: There was one time when I was playing Gumby, and Grizabella was also being played by an understudy who was a very good friend of mine. And, you know, Grizabella comes on stage, and, you know, first it's, you know, Gumby first, and she kind of blocks the kittens from visiting, from saying hello to Grizabella. Well, somehow, I ran downstage, and I blocked her, and then I kept going, and I made it all the way to the edge of the stage, and kind of waved my arms, like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then I came back, and I composed myself. So, I go back to the kittens where I'm supposed to be, and one of them looks up at me, Victoria, and she's like, are you okay? And I was like, and then the other one, Cillabub, goes, she starts laughing at me in whisper tones, because we were on stage.

Yeah, a lot of the stories that come to mind with me were things that we did outside of the show. Like, we did tons and tons of promotions and things, because, I mean, it was, Cats was, at that time, there was Phantom, there was Cats, I think we had Buddy Holly, there was Starlight in Bochum. And, yeah, we would go off and do TV shows, and it was, you know, I was kind of having my 15 minutes there.

[19:06] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So, tell me some of those stories, because that's like what's not captured, and I've seen some, like, there was a Vogue photo shoot one time, and there's all these, like, really interesting, unique pieces. So, where did you go promote?

[19:20] Nancy Leach: I would always sing Memory, no matter what it was. There was one year we went to Chemnitz, a former East Block, to do, it was called Winterfest des Volksmusik, so it was, like, just a winter show, and it had lots of Schlager singers, so those are the pop singers, and then I was there. An all-day affair. It was, I would say, Chemnitz was really interesting, because I really, this was not that long after The Wall came down, and so, it was so different from Hamburg, and I remember going in on a break to a restaurant, and, like, the waitress was sort of comedically diabolical towards us, like, cartoonishly rude, and I was so appalled, and, but my, the resident director was with me, she said, but think about it, like, their whole world has changed so drastically from one day to the next a few years ago, and I think they miss out, now they know what they were missing out on, number one, and number two, when The Wall was up, there was no incentive to be nice, there was no tipping, you were assigned a job, it didn't really matter.

So, that stood out to me, for just from sort of, like, a social aspect, but we did Christmas markets, we did lots of things downtown in the Rathaus, we did a couple of shows, oh, we did a wonderful AIDS benefit one year, where I got to play Grizabella, and she went through all of the, she was looking for a new show, Grizabella's always looking for something new, she was looking for a new show to be in, and she went through all of the shows that were currently running in Germany, and there was, like, a character for each show, and then she sang a song, it was just stuff like that, that happened, that was just magic at the time, it just did things like that, that I don't know that those opportunities existed in New York at the time, I think now you see lots of fun stuff going on, because people have other platforms, there's social media platforms, and people are doing all kinds of cool things.

[22:23] Mike Abrams: Yeah, with the expansion of platforms, it's gotten, kind of, almost too much, potentially, I mean, I'm an example of that, I have a show completely devoted to the plot of Cats, and so, you know, it's like, there's a lot, but that's, I think, the cool part of that, did they send you in, like, Grizabella full costume when you did this, or were you going and singing maybe the makeup plot only, or?

[22:44] Nancy Leach: Oh, no, full costume, and I got so good at putting on my makeup, I could just put it on with, like, a little compact, and we all got our makeup lessons, you know, at the very beginning of our contract, and some people were better at it than others, and I got pretty good at it, and I did get to the point on promotion, where all I needed was, like, a little handheld mirror to put on the whole face.

[23:09] Mike Abrams: That's impressive.

[23:10] Nancy Leach: Oh, another memory did come, memory, did come back to me just now, that the then, I don't know what his title would be, he was the head of the production company, he was the Geschäftsführer, he was the CEO of Stella Entertainment, and he was having a big birthday party, and he wanted me to sing at his birthday party, and I was like, okay, whatever, that's fine, and so they pulled out all the stops, I got to take the costume, it took the whole thing, the wig, I had someone from wardrobe helping with the wig, and then he wanted me to sing it in English, because he thought it might be too hard for me to sing it in German. I was like, no, please, I sing it in German every day, I don't want to sing it in English.

[24:01] Mike Abrams: Yeah, probably easier to sing it in German.

[24:03] Nancy Leach: Yeah, and I remember eating a big plate of pasta and having a brandy before I went on. It's like, one of those weird memories, it's just...

[24:12] Mike Abrams: For this party, come on and sing at the party. Is it, I do find it fascinating that, like, memory is obviously the iconic song, but it doesn't feel like a birthday song, like, it's a very kind of, like, emotional heavy, and so it's like, it is the one that I understand for the winter fairs and stuff where you're trying to promote the show, but was there ever kind of the, like, oh, we're going to go do the tap number for Gumby, or is it always Grizabella?

[24:34] Nancy Leach: No, actually, sometimes they would bring more than one of us, and it would be Mungo and Rump, so they would do Mungo, Jerry, Rumpel, Teaser. Well, actually, with the birthday party, I had Tugger with me, and I think we did sing Happy Birthday at some point. So yeah, they would bring out some of the other numbers. The easiest one is Mungo and Rump, because if you do the tap number, you kind of, you need your little army of cockroaches.

[25:02] Mike Abrams: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you mentioned Tugger. I want to talk a little bit about what Grizabella relationships that you played. So did you, like, what was the family tree for Grizabella that you established or thought about when you were there?

[26:22] Nancy Leach: Doing something cool, and he's surrounded by people who think he's great. But Grizabella is still kind of poisoned there. She hasn't redeemed herself yet. So it never occurred to me that they would have a thing at that point. Maybe in the past, maybe in the past, but I never thought of that.

[26:39] Mike Abrams: And what about Old Deuteronomy?

[26:41] Nancy Leach: Old Deuteronomy, father figure, mentor.

[26:46] Mike Abrams: Mentor, but not dad. Not father, but father figure.

[26:51] Nancy Leach: Yes, exactly.

[26:53] Mike Abrams: Okay. And then Bustopher Jones. Was he funding your career?

[26:59] Nancy Leach: Was he what?

[27:00] Mike Abrams: Was he funding your career?

[27:03] Nancy Leach: Funding my career?

[27:04] Mike Abrams: Yeah, because when Grizabella left to go make it big, was he the one funding all of that?

[27:11] Nancy Leach: Oh, maybe, yeah. That's a very interesting plotline. Have people come up with that before?

[27:17] Mike Abrams: That's why I think that might be me.

[27:19] Nancy Leach: That he was bankrolling her.

[27:21] Mike Abrams: Bankrolling her, but I started it with more of the dark side. Like, he was bankrolling her for the negative stuff. He was pimping her out, and then he was going to buy lots of food with his... Because I don't understand his plot. His story doesn't fit for me very well. It just kind of pops in and pops out. And so, as someone who tries to add and write too much to this plot, that was a tie that I was like, I could see this. He's either bankrolling Macavity's crime, or it could be bankrolling Grizabella's life outside the Jellicles.

[27:49] Nancy Leach: I think I like that. See, now I want to go play the role again, because I hadn't thought of that before. And that's a really good one, that he discovers her and says, hey, I can get you out of here, and I can make you a star. And then it all goes south.

[28:03] Mike Abrams: It goes south, yeah. But he's made his money. It doesn't matter to him.

[28:07] Nancy Leach: Exactly. That's my goal, is I'm slowly trying to influence by either adding plotlines or connecting stuff together. So that way, when a regional theater or a tour... Right now, it's on a real Caribbean cruise. The international tour just started. They just started, at least when we're recording this international tour, which is going back through Germany. And then there is a bunch of regional productions. There's one in Chicago right now, or just outside Chicago. There's one going in Pennsylvania soon. There's another one in New Jersey soon. So there's a lot. There's a whole lot of them coming up. And my goal is to throw a couple nuggets their way to see if they can pick some of these different storylines up.

[28:46] Mike Abrams: I love that it's still being done. I listen to the Broadway channel all the time with Seferdeski when I'm driving or whatever. And he tells a story about how... And it's a very good point that we're all just used to Cats, and people will go, oh, Cats, blah, blah, blah. It's been done too many times. But there was one point when it was absolutely avant-garde and new, and he was having a hard time getting backing for it. And he actually took a second mortgage on his house to help get the show produced.

[29:18] Nancy Leach: So I love that people are still thinking about it and talking about it and finding new ways to tell the story.

[29:24] Mike Abrams: Totally. It's such a wild concept that I cannot fathom. I wish I could be a fly on the wall in the beginning, like at the pitch meeting of like, here's my idea. That was actually the very first time I saw it. I walked out and that was what I said to my friend when I was talking about it. I was like, how did they pitch this? How did you say, hey, I got an idea for a show, and they're going to be in cat's costumes, and we're going to name them off? Now, I didn't know about the poetry at the time. I went in knowing nothing about it. And I was fascinated by that point. And then now it's 45 years later. And it's been, again, running forever, and it's still currently running in four places. And it's just one of these things that like, it has its fans, and it has its haters, and it's got everything in between. But it's commercially successful beyond belief. Haters gonna hate, you know?

[30:18] Nancy Leach: I've yet to find anybody that actually has a thoughtful reason for why they hate it.

[30:24] Mike Abrams: I'm trying to, because I actually would love to have somebody on the show that has real critique of it. And so, the critique is that it's weird, or a lack of story, or maybe it's not your musical style or the dance numbers, but there's not real actual, oh, this is what's wrong with it. Most people are just like, it just wasn't for me. And a lot of those people actually converted if they saw the Perlman Performing Arts Center version, the ballroom version recently.

[30:56] Nancy Leach: Yes, yes.

[30:56] Mike Abrams: Because it told a little bit more of a clear story. And they realized it wasn't the music, it wasn't the... It was just the fact that maybe the cat's costumes, or maybe it was just like, again, too weird for them. But a lot of those, the cat's haters love that production, which means that they don't hate Cats. They just are not open to it, or they saw it once and never really gave another chance.

[31:18] Nancy Leach: Yeah, yeah. I just think that's a brilliant reinvention of Cats. It was so fun.

[31:21] Mike Abrams: Did you see it?

[31:23] Nancy Leach: I didn't get to see it.

[31:23] Mike Abrams: I went a couple times, did a ton of stuff with them, did a bunch of episodes. It was really cool to get to hear also how they were thinking about it, and the idea from start to finish, and how they really, I interviewed a bunch of people from the ballroom community who did it, and it was so cool to hear their spin on it, and their take, and how they brought their authentic selves to this thing. And it's a piece of art, but also really related to the ballroom community, which was really cool to see.

[31:48] Nancy Leach: Unless you have any last stories, I want to pivot to some Cats rapid fire, but I'll see. Do you have anything else that popped into your head?

[32:01] Nancy Leach: Actually, I do have one amusing story, and I was struggling there to find something that happened on stage. There was one time I was playing Grizabella, and at the end of the Jellicle Ball, she comes out from under the car boot, that car trunk, and I come out, and my tail got stuck. I tried to work it into the character that made me even more emotional, and I think I finally just yanked it, and kept going. It worked out okay, but a fan wrote me a letter and said, you seemed really extra upset on the performance yesterday. Are you okay?

[32:45] Mike Abrams: That was really sweet.

[32:48] Nancy Leach: I also love that that's the modern DM, is you got a letter. You got a mail letter, and they noticed it. And that's, again, a cool part of live theater is, you know, that the super fans are going to know, hey, something was off, but the average person is just going to be like, yeah, that was a little more emotional today than I was expecting.

[33:09] Mike Abrams: Okay, let's do some rapid fire. If you could go on for one night only, it doesn't matter, male, female, if you could sing and dance it, which cat would you want to perform as for one night?

[33:18] Nancy Leach: For one night, I would like to be Mr. Mistoffelees, but I'd like to be able to do it.

[33:23] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I can't do any of them.

[33:25] Nancy Leach: Oh my god, if you could do that stuff, to do those fouettés and the jetés, I would just love that. That would be my choice.

[33:31] Mike Abrams: Who are your favorite and least favorite cats characterized? Meaning, who would you love hanging out with, and which one would kind of bug you?

[33:40] Nancy Leach: I think I would enjoy hanging out with Tugger, for sure. He's super fun. I would like to get to know him better, because you want to know what lies beneath, you know? I think, even though I played the part, I think Gumby would really get on my nerves.

[33:59] Mike Abrams: Yeah, okay.

[34:00] Nancy Leach: A little bit bossy, a little bit controlling there.

[34:02] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Favorite song in the show?

[34:07] Nancy Leach: I think I really like Skimbleshanks.

[34:09] Mike Abrams: Oh, it's great.

[34:10] Nancy Leach: Such a happy song.

[34:12] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's a bop. It's just really fun and upbeat.

[34:14] Nancy Leach: Yeah. I know, and I think on your social media, I saw that you are a painter.

[34:19] Mike Abrams: Yes.

[34:21] Nancy Leach: Which cat do you think would be the best painter?

[34:24] Mike Abrams: Oh, that's a good question. Painter. I would say either Old Deuteronomy or MonkaStrap.

[34:35] Nancy Leach: Okay, those are good answers. I thought Demeter, because...

[34:39] Mike Abrams: Oh, hers would be very abstract and emotional.

[34:41] Nancy Leach: Abstract, yeah. Painters usually have been through some stuff, and I feel like Demeter has been through some stuff.

[34:47] Mike Abrams: That's true.

[34:47] Nancy Leach: I spent way too much time thinking about this after I wrote the question. But I like Old Deuteronomy, it would be the moon. He'd have the moon in all of his paintings.

[34:57] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I think it would be very photorealistic, but very beautiful, because he's lived for so long, and he's seen the same thing so many times.

[35:05] Nancy Leach: Yeah. Okay, so my million dollar question is, this whole podcast is on the debate that I don't think Grizabella is the right Jellicle Choice. So I want to hear you. You've played the role, but you've also played other roles, and you've seen it from many different angles.

[35:19] Nancy Leach: Yes.

[35:19] Mike Abrams: But you, Nancy, who is your Jellicle Choice and why?

[35:23] Nancy Leach: I think that Old Deuteronomy should go.

[35:27] Mike Abrams: Okay.

[35:27] Nancy Leach: And I think he should pass his crown on to Grizabella and say, you can do this. This is her moment of redemption. So instead of her moment of redemption being going to the Heaviside Layer and being reborn, she gets to sort of redeem herself in this life and become the mentor and the loving presence for everybody. And then I know MonkaStrap is supposed to be next in line. He can take over after her. But I would say he'll do it.

[35:55] Mike Abrams: Well, if they were together, they could rule together.

[35:58] Nancy Leach: They could. See, I would love it if they got back together. That would be good.

[36:03] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So I've had a similar thought in the sense of, I always thought it should be Gus, but more in the sense of, like, I saw a lot of younger Grizabellas more recently on tour and everything, they're younger, so they don't feel as great as they are as performers. They just don't feel as ready to go. And I'm like, let them spend a year with their families. I like this, like, this stay in this life and kind of come back into the Jellicles. I like the idea of like, no, now you're taking over. Like, I'm going to go, now you can take my job. And then adding in, like, they'll partner with former lover or whatever of MonkaStrap. And the two of them can take over together.

[36:39] Nancy Leach: Exactly. I think that's a beautiful ending.

[36:42] Mike Abrams: If that's the case, who would you be as Grizabella? Who's your first pick the next year?

[36:48] Nancy Leach: Ah, okay. Oh, I like that. I think I would give Gus a chance then. I think he's been, I mean, he deserves it. He's been through enough.

[36:56] Mike Abrams: He's been around.

[36:57] Nancy Leach: Yeah. And then after that, then it's kind of open. Like, there's a lot of choices after Gus.

[37:02] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Maybe Gumby would be ready, you know.

[37:05] Nancy Leach: At some point, you got to give him a cavity.

[37:07] Mike Abrams: Yeah, he's got to go, but he's not, I feel like he doesn't deserve it. He needs to.

[37:12] Nancy Leach: Yeah. Well, he's got a couple years now. Now he's got to learn from Grizabella and Monk.

[37:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah, yeah.

[37:17] Nancy Leach: I like this theory. I think this is a new one we can go with here. I like that. She comes, she sends Old Deuteronomy up and then she ends up, you know, you just reverse the two, that like classic image of Grizabella and the tire, just reverse it. And we're good.

[37:31] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And she could have that moment where she's like, no, no, no, I can't. I'm not, I could never do what you do. And he's like, yes, you can, my child. Yes, you can, you're ready.

[37:40] Nancy Leach: Full redemption arc, same story. I love it. I'm here for this. Well, this has been so fun. How can people stay in touch with you on social media and the other stuff you work on?

[37:50] Nancy Leach: Follow me on Instagram, nsleach717. I am a voiceover artist in addition to some other things that I do now, aside from being able to do musical theater all the time, but I have a vocal studio and I do audiobooks, voiceovers, jingles, all of that good stuff. And the link is in my bio.

[38:10] Mike Abrams: Amazing. We will link the Instagram page and everything. And this has been super fun. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm glad we got to do this and hear some new stories and kind of reminisce on the fun journey of your life.

[38:27] Nancy Leach: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.

[38:29] Mike Abrams: Awesome. Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown to catch that feed. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or this podcast. Follow us on social media at The Wrong Cat Died or check our website, thewrongcatdied.com.