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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. She was a swing in the original Broadway production of CATS in 1992, but she also is directing a production of CATS right now this summer at the Shawnee Playhouse. So welcome, Naomi Naughton, and thank you for joining me.

[0:32] Naomi Naughton: Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.

[0:35] Mike Abrams: I'm excited to talk about your directing because I'm excited. I love regional productions, and there is an immense amount of them happening this summer all over the country with all kinds of different themes and some fun stuff. So we'll get to that. But I got to start with, you were on Broadway as a swing. I want to know, what was your introduction to CATS? Because obviously you've been cast into it, but had you seen it prior? What was that history for you?

[0:57] Naomi Naughton: That's a great question. So when I was 15, I took a trip to New York City. I'm from Southern California, so it was quite a long trip to New York City with the former drama teacher from my high school. It wasn't really sanctioned through the school, but he sort of organized it. So we paid kind of a flat fee for our airfare, our hotel, and then three shows were included with that. And then we also went to TKTS and saw as many shows as we could. So I think I saw seven shows in eight days. And CATS was one of the shows that was part of the package. So we went to CATS as a group. And I, of course, knew the score. So that would have been like 1985. So I think the show had been open maybe for a year, maybe a year and a half when I saw the show.

So it was still pretty new. But I knew the cast recording. I knew that it was all dance. And at that time, I was dancing all the time. So a show that was all for dancers, I couldn't wait to see it. So I saw that on that trip. And I don't know the right word. Disappointed is too strong a word. I was so wanting to love it. I wanted to love it so badly. And I didn't love it. And it left me feeling sort of at sea. Like I didn't know I didn't I felt badly for not loving it. Really felt I didn't dislike it by any means. I just didn't have this like I didn't walk away thinking, oh my gosh, that was life changing. I loved it so much. Where I did have that experience with other shows that I saw that week, like I saw some other things that just blew my mind changed my life.

Funny enough, I know you've had her on the show. One of the shows I saw that week was Baby with Liz Calloway. She's a little bit older than me. So I was a teenager, she was a young adult. And when I joined the cast of Cats, you know, many years later, she was my Grizabella. So that was a pretty cool thing to, you know, my first trip to New York, I see all these Broadway shows. And one of the people that I see and I'm, you know, blown over by, I then get to work with a few years later. So my first introduction to Cats was really seeing it on Broadway as a 15 year old. Then my best friend was cast as Pounceville in the first national tour. And I used to go visit him all the time. So by this point, I'm about 17.

So I would go out on the road. And I kind of would hang out in his hotel with him and, you know, ride the bus to him from the theater with he and his friends. And I thought, you know, I was so cool to get to be a part of this, you know, tour. So I sort of felt like I was part of this group of actors. And around that time, I started auditioning for the show. So when I was still in LA, it had big open calls, you'd go, you do, you know, tendu to fourth, double pirouette, and then they would make a cut. So like 20 people in a line, you do a double pirouette, they make a cut. I think my first time, I was maybe about 16. I made it through the double pirouettes, I got asked to stay and learn Copeland from the ball.

And I got cut. I just was not ready. I couldn't keep up. Like I got the first, you know, a couple eight counts. And then I just, it was so hard. I couldn't do it. So fine, whatever. I don't I, you know, don't get to stay. I don't get to sing. One of the times out on the road with my friend Matt, they were looking for a Victoria. And so I got to audition sort of have a private audition with one or two other girls where I got to do the Victoria solo. Didn't get cast that time. But it was kind of a lark. It was sort of like, hey, you're in town and they're having auditions. Why don't you jump in? When I finally did get cast in 92, I had recently, I would say maybe a week or two before had been called in by the same casting director for Les Mis for Eponine.

And then it's the stars sort of aligned. I know you didn't ask me how I got the show, but, you know, I was doing a production of A Chorus Line at Candlewood Playhouse in Connecticut. And two of the people in the show, our Paul and our Cassie, were on a leave from the Broadway production of Cats. You know, one of the nice things when you're in a show for a super long time, sometimes they'll let you go and when you have a lot of swings. So they were both in that production. Right around the time I had this callback for Eponine, right around the same time somebody was leaving the show. So I went to a smaller sort of invited audition for Cats. And I think all of those things coming together, knowing two people in the show, having just auditioned for the same casting director, it all just, you know, came together at the right time. So even though I had auditioned previously, but, you know, mixed luck, that was kind of just the one time that lightning struck.

[5:58] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I want to go back a little bit, though, because, you know, you said that you weren't in love with it after you saw it compared to other stuff you saw. And I'm curious if you remember all those other shows. But my question, though, is more around as you're auditioning for it, and you're like, this is a profession, you audition for all kinds of stuff, I'm sure. But how much was it like, you didn't really love it, you kind of, how much did you want it? How do you like, how do you internalize that as a performer, where it was like, it's a show that you wanted to love, you knew the score, you went and then you kind of were underwhelmed. Maybe I'm putting words in your mouth. You didn't have it, you didn't enjoy it as much. But now it's like, I want this show, I'm going to audition every year I can. What is that like, what was about it that made you really want to do it?

[6:41] Naomi Naughton: That's a really good question. You know, it's a couple of different things. And some of the answers are more artistic than the other. So artistically speaking, Cats is a great show for the performer. If you are somebody who is a dancer and a singer, that is a rare show, especially at that time, you know, in the, you know, late 80s, into the early 90s, where you really could show people everything that you could do. It was a chance to show, look, I'm a fantastic dancer, and I'm a fantastic singer. And this is a show where I get to do both. And also, a long running show on Broadway is a great gig. I mean, I was when I got the show, I was engaged. You know, we we were planning a wedding like, oh, a show that keeps me in town.

That's not closing anytime soon. I mean, that's the dream. That's the that's the job you want. You want that solid job that you know, isn't going anywhere, which also affords you the opportunity to audition for other things and to work on other things because you have that paycheck, you have your health insurance, you've got all that security. But really, as a performer, even though I didn't love watching the show, I knew I would love being in the show, I knew that that would be a great experience.

[7:53] Mike Abrams: Could you pinpoint when you started rehearsing and learning the show what it was that you didn't like as an audience member that you now appreciate as a performer?

[8:02] Naomi Naughton: I can say I mean, a little a little I was a little bit disappointed in the choreography and sounds terrible. Because now, now that I know the choreography, I absolutely love it. But as a young teenage dancer, I don't know what I was expecting. But it was peculiar. It was something I'd never seen before. And so I wanted the dancing to be I don't know, I don't want it to be flashier or more balletic. I don't know what it was. But I was expecting something different from the choreography. And then just in general, I think a common theme among audience goers for the show is, it's hard to follow. The stage is dark, you don't know what they're talking about. You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, my, there was a local production, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago, 16 years ago.

And my kids went to see it and intermission. They said, When is something gonna happen? Yeah, you know, there's just there's there's no, you know, act one ends, there was no big cliffhanger. There was no just, oh, now what is something finally going to happen? So, you know, I thought of myself as a savvy theater goer at 15 years old. But you know, it I don't know if I wouldn't say it was over my head. It just, I was expecting more, but I don't know what I couldn't put my finger on it. It's so interesting.

[9:25] Naomi Naughton: But now, you know, it's interesting directing the show. I have all these insights that even as a 25 year old, when I was in the show, I never occurred to me, I never really thought about I never gave a lot of thought to the deeper message of the show. And I don't know if it's age, I don't know if it's distance, I'm not sure what it is. But I'll sit down and start directing. And I'll start talking to people about things. And I'll start to cry talking about the, you know, the beauty of, of acceptance and forgiveness and being vulnerable enough to open yourself up to accept that kind of forgiveness and all those things like I get very emotional when I think about what the show is really about. Sure.

It's a bunch of grown up people dressed up like cats crawling around on stage. That's weird. But it's a beautiful, beautiful message. And you know, the score is incredible and iconic, right? I mean, those songs, anybody who's, you know, my age ish, that golden era of, you know, mid to late 80s, when rock musicals were sort of becoming a thing, this idea that there was, you know, an electric guitar and synthesizer and all these things that were like, they felt so new and so groundbreaking. But at the same time, these incredible, incredibly trained singers singing the stuff, but it's got this kind of rock and roll edge. And you know, it was, you know, it was very, very, that score is just, I will always love the score for cats.

[11:00] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, though, what I think is kind of beautiful about cats, which is that what bothered you as a 15 year old, I didn't even notice as an honest man, because I'm not a dancer. So like, none of it, it just was, you know, in one eye out the other, I guess that's not the same. But, but I just like I was, I was amazed by all of it. Now, I saw 2016. And first, I saw Andy Boyd, but it doesn't matter, you could have put any choreography in front of me. And I was just like, that's that I can't do that. That looks incredibly difficult. But I had the same reaction that your kids had, which were what, what story am I seeing? And now that I saw it recently, I saw regional production recently.

And I now know too much about the story. And by knowing too much about the story, it actually is really insightful and thoughtful. But your first time seeing it, you don't know, I mean, unless you're a super fan, or you're somebody who like digs in, I go into most Broadway shows blind. I like I like to go into shows blind. I don't like to know a ton. I don't like to listen before. I just want to know the rough plot in the sense of like, am I going to be happy or sad? Or do I need a drink after like, because I've had that mistake a couple times where I've walked into a show thinking it's more uplifting, and it's it's heavy. So I just want to know the like, general theme. And that's it. And I didn't know that about Cats.

And I walked out with the same reaction, I think, as your kids. But now I walk out with like a much deeper. Oh, that's cool how they did this. And they had to do that. So I'm going to ask you some questions about that from the directing. But I want to start with the Broadway side. Yeah, because you were a swing. You covered at least what I have here written Bombay Arena, Cassandra, Demeter, Grizabella, Jelly Lorm, Griddlebone, Rumpelteazer, and Cillabob.

[12:44] Naomi Naughton: Yeah, okay. Did you go on for everybody?

[12:44] Naomi Naughton: I went on. So on Broadway, I went on for everybody except Grizabella. I went on for Grizabella on the road. A year or so after I left the show, I for a month, I went out and covered the Alto in the booth, who was the Grizabella understate while she had a medical leave. And so when I was on the road, I got to do Grizabella three times. But those two plus years that I was on Broadway, I went on for everybody else. Cassandra very rarely, I'm five foot two and three quarters. I'm just not I'm not a Cassandra. And Bomb not as often because they like to have the Bombay, the taller. So you may know this already, and it might not have always been this way at all times. But during my time at Cats, there were basically in terms of swings and understudies.

In the booth, the Alto was the Grizz cover. The Soprano was the Jenny Jelly cover. And then you had the two men who were Deuteronomy, Gus, Bustopher. And then in in room 16, at the Winter Garden, there was the tall girl swing, and the short girl swing, and then the medium swing. And so you had the dancer swings and the singer swings. I was a little bit of a hybrid. And I don't know that this track always existed. I know the girl who replaced me did the same track. So I was the middle girl swing. So I covered the tall girls, I covered the short girls, and I covered the dancers and the singer. So it was kind of a funny track. But because there was a tall girl swing, she went on more often for Bomb Cassandra.

The short girl swings were supposed to go on more often for Rumpelteazer, Cillabub. But there was a lot of overlap with those. I was there for a long time. So it changed over the years. In the beginning, I went on.

[14:33] Naomi Naughton: Anytime Rumpelteazer was out, I was always on for Rumpelteazer. Then it kind of morphed into I was kind of always Demeter. If Demeter was out, I was Demeter. That was the thing I was on for the most. And then towards the end, I was going a lot on a lot for Jelly Lorem, which was a lot of fun after being kittens and being thrown around and doing double cartwheels and all these things. It was great to lounge around, sing some high notes, lounge around some more. You know, not that Jelly doesn't have a difficult track, but it's easier than some of the more acrobatic little kitty tracks. So that was really fun. In fact, when I left the show, I left to do another show. They let me go on for my last day and let me choose who I wanted to go on for. And I chose Jelly just because it's such a pleasure to not work as hard in the ball, to get to sing all that fun stuff in Act Two. So that's what I chose for my final show was to be on.

[15:30] Naomi Naughton: Choose Grizabella? Well, that I wasn't allowed to choose. No. Okay. That wasn't a choice. Okay. Yeah. That was not offered to me for my final show.

[15:39] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Okay. So I want to hear a little bit about, because as a swing, you have to prep for all the different characters. And there's the technical side of being in the right place, do the right kicks, the right motion, and sing the right notes. But then there's also the storytelling side. And I'm always curious about that part of it, of how much did you try to develop the character development when you covered everybody, basically?

[16:05] Naomi Naughton: Yeah. That's a great question. Some of it is dictated to you. Suzanne Viverito, our dance captain, is a phenomenal, incredible person. She knows Cats inside out, upside down, backwards. She put me into the show. And as a part of learning the show, you also learn those relationships and those stories and who each character is to one another. Also, the first thing that happened after I signed my contract is I sat in the stage manager's office and our production stage manager, Bruce Hoover, told me the story of Cats. So not just the plot, but also all of that canon, all of those who likes who, who doesn't like whom, and why, and what all those things are. So you go into it sort of knowing all of that.

And then when you're on for somebody, there's this fine line where you don't want to throw off the other actors too much by doing... And it's not... Obviously, you're going to do everything that has been choreographed and staged for you to do. But those little in-between things, there's a lot of freedom in Cats, right? You need to be here at this point and here by this point, but everything that happens in between, you have some freedom to fill. As a swing, you want to make that your own, but there are also those moments where that actor is used to you tapping them on the shoulder at that one moment. And you kind of... You want to find out from your fellow actors, do you want me to do the show that you are used to Christine doing?

Do you want me to do Christine's show when I'm on? Because I watch the show every night, or a lot of the nights in the beginning. Do you want me to do all those little bits? Or do you want... Should we make up our own stuff? And everybody's different. Some people are very like, I want to go on stage and I want my show to be exactly the way I expect it to be. So if there's a swing on, I want them to do all those moments. But for the most part, most people, you relish having something different when you're in a long-running show. If somebody's gone there and they're giving it a little bit of a different take. So you find your moments and it's different depending on who you're on with. And every... What day was it?

No, I can't remember. Every Tuesday, I think, we had understudy rehearsal. So every, whatever day of the week that was, and I do think it was a Tuesday, we would be told at the top of rehearsal who we were going to be that day. So every swing, every understudy, we just ran the whole show and you were somebody different. So during those rehearsals, you kind of develop some things, but you're not on with those same people when you go on all the time. So you just, you kind of, you feel it out. You get the sense of, can I play around with this person? Or does this person expect me to do it exactly the way they expect it to be? And you just kind of, you have respect for that and you get your chance to goof around and not goof around, but play around, play with those.

There's so many moments where you get to bring your own thing to the show. I will say, I don't know if it's the most fun I've had on stage is Cats, but as a performer, it's the most creative I've got to be during a performance where there are absolutely things that are prescribed 100%. You need to do this. And then there's all this filler, all these little things where you just need to be in this place and tell this story, but do it in the way that makes sense to you, that feels good to you. And it can change over the course of two plus years that I did it. It grew and changed and was quite fun.

[20:01] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I think it's a common theme I hear a lot is that there is some freedom because it's Cats and the story is pretty loose and there's a lot of those moments. And there's also so much happening that I think a lot of people miss, not miss, but your eyes aren't always on every single Cat at every time. So you do have some of those times where you could be a little bit more mischievous because you're not going to pull away, especially with certain characters. It's almost expected and wanted because that's their personality. My friend Dev would be very mischievous on stage and he wasn't pulling focus. He wasn't out of character, but he was definitely screwing around. He would grab my feet and drag me around the stage, things that nobody told him to do that.

None of the swings had that in their books that at this point you're going to be very silly, but you can get away with it. Plus, nobody can see your face. So it's not only can you get away from it from the standpoint of there is freedom, the stage is very dark, there's a lot going on, people aren't following. But also when you have face paint, when your entire face is painted, you feel bolder. You just feel like you can try things that you wouldn't try if it was your own face. I don't know. It's dangerous.

[21:31] Naomi Naughton: Yeah. And I think some of it too is you do this whole cat school in a lot of scenarios and that to me is a cat won't care about what's happening around them. I think there's almost a little bit of teaching that freedom. I remember somebody said, and I forget who this was a long time ago, and I think it's very core to Cats is that the audience is just there because you all have decided you'll let them watch the ball, but the ball's not for them. It's not for the audience, it's for the Jellicle Cats. And so it's like, you're lucky to be there and we're just letting you and we don't care that you're there. And I find that very cat-like. That's very much a, yeah, I don't care that you're around. That's fine.

[22:14] Naomi Naughton: 100%. And that's by design, right?

[22:17] Mike Abrams: Yeah. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died.

[22:22] Mike Abrams: Okay. I want to talk about your directing now of this because you did it for years, obviously have close ties to it. What's it like being on the other side of the table, like now being in charge of telling that story and sitting down with people and teaching the choreography and kind of doing everything in between to put this on for multiple weeks in the theater?

[22:43] Naomi Naughton: It's a lot of things. It's terrifying. It's also very sentimental. Cats was a really happy time in my life. So revisiting these movements and this music and this story brings back incredibly happy memories and sadness for friends that I've lost over those ensuing years. That part of it is really fascinating. But as I touched on before, I'm discovering things about the show that just never occurred to me. I was joking with somebody yesterday. I was 24, 25 when I did the show. And I thought I was a big grownup person because 24, 25 felt old to me. Now I am quite a distance from that age. And I realized how much I didn't know and how much I didn't, how uncurious I was. I knew what I needed to know about the storytelling and I never gave too much more thought beyond that.

So when I have these young actors asking me questions, I'm sort of realizing the answer as it's coming out of my mouth. Or as I'm giving certain direction about what story we're telling, I'm discovering things about the show literally as I'm saying them. And it's very cool. And I think it makes it easier. I always like to tell people why they're doing something. And I like when a director tells me why. So that makes it, I think it makes for a richer story, even if the audience still is like, I don't understand what just happened. But anything that we can do to make that easier, anything that we can do, that I can do as a director and as my actors can do as performers, to help tell that story as clearly as you possibly can when you are working with lyrics that come from poetry from quite a long time ago, very, very British, right?

A lot of these words are not words that we use in life. Whatever we can do to make that story come across. So the more we understand why we're doing it, I think the easier it is, even if it just makes it a teeny bit clearer to the audience. But I'm loving the experience of, it's also great. This is such a stupid thing. But I never, since moving to the Poconos 20, 21 years ago, for a long time, I didn't really talk about my career. I didn't want to be like that person who was like bragging, right? Yeah, this is a space where I get to tell all these stories, because they're relevant. Me telling all my Broadway cat stories, these people, they want to hear them. And it's helpful. And it's really fun for me to just like let loose and tell all these fun stories and experiences. So I'm loving that part of it too, where it's not self-aggrandizing. It's not embarrassing to watch me like, oh, no, she's, you know, reliving the glory days.

[25:56] Mike Abrams: Exactly. Those moments. Is there anything, because it's interesting to hear you say that when you did it, you thought what you need to know and a little bit, obviously, but you didn't go into the depth of that. And I think that some of that might be even, I feel like when I've talked to people who've done it in the 90s, and really pre-social media time, there wasn't so much of these theories being thrown into your face like there is now, where there's just so much kind of constantly creatively coming out like my this show and all these other like incredible artists that do stuff that I know happened in pockets, but it was much less. So is there anything that you've like, what are the things that have kind of been the aha moments as a director? That's like, I didn't think about that at all as a performer. And now that I'm saying it to somebody, it really is sticking out as a core part of the show.

[26:45] Naomi Naughton: I think for me, and I touched on this a little bit at the beginning, this really came out when I was working with my Grizabellas. And I think Eric told you that we're we have 16 different Grizabellas for this. Yes, I have. I've had these two separate sessions where we've talked about the story of Cats, who Grizabella is within that story, and then you know, get them on stage. And it was while talking that through, where I really understood why, at least in my, what I have come to understand what I have come to believe why Victoria finally touches Grizabella at the end and why everybody else feels like they can touch her. And when she first enters, she doesn't quite know what to expect. You know, she knows she's not welcome, but she doesn't know right away how they're going to react.

And the first reaction is very visibly, physically, you are not welcome here. You know, Jelly Lorem shoes the kittens away from her. MonkaStrap stops her in her tracks. It is clear immediately. And she, in that moment, puts on that false pride that you can't hurt me shell. And you know, she exits that scene with that sort of false, and there's that bitterness, there's a little bit of anger there. And so she's, she's, she's closed herself off in that moment. In little memory, when she enters again, and they say, we're just leaving, she gets to have some vulnerability in that moment, because nobody else is there besides Old Deuteronomy, as far as she knows, nobody else is there. So that's the only time she's vulnerable.

What she's shown them before, is that, that tough exterior that that bitter, what sort of what they're expecting from her. And it isn't until big memory, where she just, where she allows herself to be vulnerable, where she opens up, I never really thought about, that's when she says, open up, enter in, I never thought about the fact that those lyrics, she's literally saying, okay, I'm letting myself, I'm opening myself up to accept that forgiveness. And I think that's just, I think up until talking that through with the Grizabellas, I really just sort of

[29:37] Naomi Naughton: Go ahead, let's accept her back in and he makes it very clear from the beginning that that's not gonna happen. So that was really revelatory to me that it's not just that they soften to her. Obviously, I knew that meant the big memory was pivotal and the things that she was saying touched them in some way, but it never occurred to me that it was because she opened herself up and exposed herself and says, I'm, you know, I think you know now we have the words for speaking your truth, right? That wasn't something that that wasn't a phrase we had back in the 80s and 90s. But she chooses to speak her truth, lay it all out there, take me or leave me. I've said my piece now, I'm leaving and you can live your lives, whatever.

Like this is, I've left nothing unsaid. And because of that, I think, you know, the kittens always want to touch her. They're always interested. Victoria starting it, it's like the floodgates open and the permission is granted for anybody whose heart has been softening, whether it's throughout the show or not until big memory when they hear that for the first time. The floodgates open and it's just that I get goosebumps and I get teary-eyed when what, when Victoria, when the touch happens, the trumpets start and then that first group of people just flock around Grizabella. I just, I love that moment so, so, so, so much. I did it and it means more now to me, yeah, lived more life.

[31:28] Naomi Naughton: Dad definitely, you kind of referenced some of the one of the questions I want to ask you, which is you had multiple Grizabellas and I've been fascinated by the regional productions. Like everyone's taking a slightly different tweak ever since the, I don't know if it's the Jellicle ball, the ballroom cats that kind of started it. But there's circus cats in Aurora, Illinois. There's amusement park cats in Lancaster at the Fulton Theatre, at the Paramount with circus cats. There's somewhere in Texas is doing a cowboy cats. Are you like how much are you tweaking anything and to kind of like have some of this like a 16 Grizabellas is a lot of Grizabellas. Like that's a very unique spin on it. You truly are making a different Jellicle choice every night. But is there anything else you're trying to tweak or are you saying pretty core to the show?

[32:12] Naomi Naughton: Not only am I staying true to the show, I'm staying true to the 92 to 94 version because like even the Broadway show, obviously when a show opens, you know, it locks, you can't change anything. But that doesn't mean you don't make tweaks throughout the years and things. You know, different musical directors have different dynamics that they bring in and Jillian and Trevor would come back every few years and when they did, I was there for one of the times that Jillian had, you know, a rehearsal with the whole cast and she made just this, the tiniest little changes, like something that used to be on seven is suddenly on eight. A focus that was up now is, you know, suddenly stage right, like these little bitty things.

So I keep telling the cast, you know, go ahead and watch the 1998 movie, that's what I call the movie. I don't talk, I don't call the movie. Well, yeah, we'll stick to 1998 and you know, whatever they're watching. I keep telling them that's fine to watch those. It's great to get the feel, but understand that when I teach it to you, I am teaching you a very specific moment in time. The choreography, the beats, the storytelling that I'm giving you is what I personally know. So I'm being very pure to that to an extent, you know, that I also have a very mixed group in terms of their dance training and their dance abilities. So I don't have, and I have a big cast. I have 31 people in the show and a very small stage.

So there are, you know, I've got, I have a Jenny Any Dots who is an incredible dancer. So her number I've actually turned over the choreography to our Mistoffelees who is a wonderful tapper. It really features her whereas, you know, historically Jenny is kind of fake tapping. Everybody's tapping around her, but our Jenny is a really, really good dancer. She's also doing boys ballet in the ball because she's a lovely dancer. So I am, I'm being untrue to the story with some of what I've done in the ball so that I can highlight everybody's strengths so that everybody who is featured feels comfortable doing what they're doing. So that, you know, that means that maybe people you're used to seeing do certain sections of the ball are doing different sections of the ball and that does impact storytelling to some degree because all those moments are there for a reason.

So I've justified them in my own way. I'm trying, I'm not making them arbitrary, you know, every moment has a reason, but with the Grizabellas, not only is it 16 different Grizabellas, but they are also different genders. You know, we have a handful of what you would consider a typical Grizabella, a, you know, 30 to 50 year old, you know, mezzo who's singing Grizabella as you would expect. We have a gender fluid performer, we have a drag queen, and we have two cis hetero men doing Grizabella and they are playing Grizabella male there. And they're, you know, both trying to sort of find who their Grizabella is, why he left, why the other cats have sort of shunned him. So it's been really interesting talking to them, sort of giving them the story I need them to tell in terms of that redemption and forgiveness, but letting them decide for themselves, all 16 of them, what, where has Grizabella been?

Is it, is it an addiction story? Is it a, what exactly is it? Why has she fallen away? Why has she come back? You know, one of them said, why does she come back now? Like is she recovering and like, you know, gone through the 12 steps and is looking for forgiveness? Has she hit rock bottom and she has no other place to go? Has she been trying every year and, you know, what, what, what is it? Why is she here tonight? And I'm letting them all kind of find that for themselves and let that come through in their own characterization of her. But in terms of what that means for the other cats and you, you know, you touched on the fact that it really is a different choice. It also is, they're not rehearsing with the rest of the group because there's no clean way to have 16 different people coming in for sure.

So when they arrive on stage for their night's performance, all those other cats are genuinely reacting to that new person. And that Grizabella also is not getting a put-in with all of those people. I've told them, you know, you're only gonna get as far on stage as MonkaStrap allows you when a kitten reaches to you, you're gonna reach back. So they are really reacting to what is genuinely happening to them in that moment. You know, you need to get stage left by this point and you need to get here by this point, but everything that happens in between there is going to be dictated by what these other cats are doing to you, how they are responding to you. That makes for a really, really interesting experience for both the Grizabella and for the other Jellicle cats.

[37:25] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it makes it really true though, and I've heard a few examples of directors in, I forget which productions I've talked to too many, but where they like purposely held out the Grizabella from the rest of like the rehearsal process. So that way there was some genuine like discomfort and yeah, this is a new person to us. Like we're a family have been crawling around together in rehearsals and we've built those bonds and now here's this newbie. And it's almost like you're having that kind of same moment probably a little bit out of need, but also probably out of being able to kind of build that into like it's gonna be a very genuine moment on stage when they get to that big memory, especially to where that's going to be the only time or the first time that they have that.

And so there's gonna be a separation of the Jellicle cats who have been doing this many times and the Grizabella, which is the story. And so there's, it's such a cool thing to hear. It's like, it's like a very method in its own way of like, it's like this is a version of method acting, but by need. And I love that you have, I mean, it's cool. You have 16. Are they each getting like two performances or one?

[38:35] Naomi Naughton: One each.

[38:36] Mike Abrams: One each? Wow. Okay, yeah. That would really ruin my argument of trying to have a different Jellicle choice because I would feel very bad of like, it's your one time doing this show.

[38:44] Naomi Naughton: For really interesting and it, you know, you touched on something too after being in the show for two plus years where every time I was on, I was getting to play with all of my friends for two and a half hours. And then when I went out on the road and when I got to finally do Grizabella, who's on stage for eight minutes, it was so lonely. Like yes, you get to sing the big song that everybody wants to hear, you get the longest loudest applause, everybody wants your signature when you come out the stage door because you sang the song. But it is, I would much rather roll around on the stage with my friends than sit in my dressing room, come out, have people dislike me the few times I'm on stage. Like it's really a really lonely track, lonely, lonely.

[39:31] Naomi Naughton: It's also funny you talk about the method acting and, you know, and a company that did that on purpose, but it's also also so unnecessary too, right? Like when I think about Liz Calloway, who was our Griz, who is the warmest, funniest, lovely little, you know, and her dressing room was right at the top of the stairs. You walk up the stairs, her room's open. She's, you know, we had no problem shunning her on stage and then, you know, loving her offstage at all. Yeah, it is a way performers like you're acting today. If you can't, if you can't do that, like then you're in the wrong profession. So yeah, it is interesting, odd, something really interesting. It does add a element. And so I asked, and you do have a different, I mean, you have, it's not the cowboy and circus and amusement park cats, but like that is a very different angle and having a different, you know, I've never heard of a male Grizabella, at least to my knowledge and all these other parts. Like that's really cool.

[40:32] Mike Abrams: So when my one question before we go to the rapid-fire though, it's because I'm very curious about this for, I'm gonna say the average Cats fan. So that's, I'm not gonna take, I'm gonna take like a me out of it and our super fans that listen to it out of it. If someone has watched the 1998 movie two or three times, like they've seen it, they understand it, they know cats are not going in cold. How much, like how much will they notice of difference between 1998 and your 1992 to 1994? Like is there stuff that's like really obviously different or is it no average person? It's gonna be what they're used to.

[41:03] Naomi Naughton: Yeah, it's to me, it's obviously different. Like I, you know, in preparing for it, I'm watching it. Oh, why are they doing those arms right like that? It's very definitely things that only somebody who's done the show at a particular time is gonna go, oh, that's weird. Why are they doing it that way? But no, okay, things that are cut, you know, that little things are cut from the '98 that I don't know why they're cut, you know, things like that. But no, it's pretty true to that very basic story. All those characters are the same type of character. All of the songs, the choreography is very, very close to the same. It really is subtle differences that, you know, only make me twitch because to me, I mean, I will often say to my cast, well, if you watch that number, it's wrong. That number is wrong. Now, of course, it's Jillian's choreography and Jillian was involved, but to me, it's wrong. It's not what I learned. So to me, it's, it's wrong.

[42:06] Mike Abrams: And that is an interesting piece of this, the Cats fandom to me is as someone who doesn't know choreography at all, you could put any of it in front of me and it would be to me, I know the story and other characters under the plot and I understand like what's coming in what order and I'll notice those like, look, I'm like, oh, they're not supposed to be friends, like that type of stuff. But there are some purists of like the fandom in terms of choreography of like Andy's was blasphemous as talented as Andy Blankenbuehler is, you know, brilliant choreographer, that was not Jillian's. And so like there is this kind of almost that thing. And so I am curious and maybe if you're one of the listeners because I know I have some listeners, I probably know this, if you're one of the listeners that hears this and you know, you know the difference is between '92 and '98 and vice versa, like you can like pull those out. I'm curious like what stands out and so I'd love to hear, shoot me a message. Yeah, y'all know how to reply. I get, I love everyone who sends me notes. So.

[43:01] Naomi Naughton: Because that's such a girls with me when they come in. I'll be very well. I will.

[43:41] Mike Abrams: Who would I love to hang out with?

[43:43] Naomi Naughton: Oh my gosh.

[43:45] Mike Abrams: Oh, this is hard.

[43:47] Naomi Naughton: Tugger.

[43:49] Mike Abrams: Love to hang out with Tugger.

[43:51] Mike Abrams: Who's the one that's going to bug you?

[43:53] Naomi Naughton: Oh my gosh. Pounceable.

[43:57] Mike Abrams: OK. Favorite song in the show.

[43:59] Naomi Naughton: Oh no, that's impossible! You can't ask me that.

[44:03] Mike Abrams: Give me a couple.

[44:05] Naomi Naughton: I'll let you have a couple.

[44:07] Mike Abrams: Alright, let me flip this for you. Who's the one stuck in your head right now most often?

[44:11] Naomi Naughton: The opening.

[44:13] Naomi Naughton: I love the opening.

[44:15] Naomi Naughton: The opening to vocal songs for Jellicle Cats.

[44:17] Naomi Naughton: That's a frickin' great song. I mean, it really is a great song. I also really, really, really love Gus. I mean, as a Jellilorum, of course. It's great.

[44:27] Mike Abrams: OK, I love the idea of the gender-bending Grizabella a little bit here. So if you could pick a male Broadway star to be a Grizabella, who would your dream cast be?

[44:42] Naomi Naughton: Wow. That's a really good question. I'm so bad at remembering who I like or what I like about them. I mean, my favorite male voice right now is Norm Lewis.

[45:02] Mike Abrams: OK.

[45:04] Naomi Naughton: I would love to hear that rich but a little bit of sassiness. That would be gorgeous. That would be really interesting.

[45:10] Mike Abrams: And then my million dollar question.

[45:14] Naomi Naughton: Uh oh.

[45:16] Mike Abrams: You're doing this a little bit to almost make it challenging, but I've argued at length I don't think Grizabella is the right Jellicle choice. So I want to hear, Naomi, who is your Jellicle choice and why? And you are picking a different person every night, so I don't know if I count that as a win.

[45:30] Naomi Naughton: You know, I don't... This is a very good question for me right now as I'm discovering what the show is more about. Like, is it... is the Jellicle choice based on what they have shown that night? Or is it based on something else? Right? So, you know, if it's based on what you have seen as an observer that night, it's probably Gus. Because he's... there's such a melancholy to his story and his reflection on where he's been. And you want him to be able to go back and relive it, right? Like there's, you want that for him. But at the same time he had that life and that's wonderful. Does he need redemption? He hasn't done anything wrong, right? There isn't anything. So if it's a matter of who needs that redemption, I mean it's Grizabella. She needs it.

[46:33] Mike Abrams: Yeah. You're asking one of the most important questions, but I think the other most important question is what's the Heaviside Layer? Like what does it mean to be chosen? I don't know. Here's a quick story for you that I've told my cast too. My youngest son and I have been for the past few years, we've just been going through Broadway cast recordings. Whenever we're in the minivan together, we start at the beginning of a show and we listen to it as long as it takes to get to the end. And when we got to Cats, he'd never heard it before. We're driving around, he's asking me questions. And you know, I explain that one cat gets chosen to go to the Heaviside Layer. And he, at this time he's maybe 10 years old and he says, Oh, so she dies.

And I said, No, no, no, no. No, nobody dies in Cats. He's like, they just get to come back again. He's like, so at the end of the show they kill somebody. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. And as he's saying it, I'm realizing what did I think happened? I never gave it any thought. She goes to the Heaviside Layer. What does that mean? What does it mean that she comes back? Does she come back to this tribe? Does she come back as a kitten? Does she come back as who she is now? What is it? I never gave it enough thought. It just was. Yeah, of course. Grizabella goes to the Heaviside Layer. She gets another chance. What does that mean? I don't know. I have no idea. If the Heaviside Layer is Heaven, but she gets to come back. I don't know. Is it a place where she goes and transforms to a new kitten who is going to be at the ball next year? I don't know what that means.

[48:20] Naomi Naughton: If you're just talking about what does Monk say to you? If you're just talking about what is she doing for you? It's a different life. It's a different life. It's a different life. It's a different life. It's a different life.

[48:51] Mike Abrams: I don't know who, so obviously the title of your podcast comes from not thinking it should be Grizabella, so you must have an opinion about who you think it should have been. I mean, the title of the podcast is, the first thing is I think your son and I have identical views on this show as a reaction because I said the same thing, I was like why'd they kill that cat at the end of the show? And that was my first reaction. So the show started on the joke that I saw Leona Lewis and I thought I saw a very weird X Factor. And so to me, the Jellicle choice was like an X Factor, like an American Idol singing competition and you're judging because they each come out and they do their thing and you get a little back story and you get the package before and then you pick one. And I think Grizabella's compelling, but to me, I was going to put Tugger and Mistoffelees together as a boy band and send them up because those two songs really were entertaining.

[49:47] Naomi Naughton: They're the ones you remember?

[49:49] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I had a blast in those two. Those two were super fun in very different ways. The more I thought about the question of the Heaviside Layer, and this is where I have seen some creative liberties that I think really turns this on its head. I've seen a Grizabella in the Circus Cats where, I think it'll be over by the time this comes out so I won't spoil it, but she goes up to the Heaviside Layer and then a younger performer of a Grizabella comes back down and so it doesn't feel so finishing like she's rejoining the tribe because my gripe with her choice mostly is that she has this redemption arc, which I love. You get this welcome back to your family and then it's like, cool, we're going to nap.

And so it's like, let her go next year. Give her one more year with the family. Let her have some birthday parties and some fun and she finally has that acceptance back. And I think the only counter to that would be if you don't think she's going to make it a year and she's on her deathbed and you have to, but I would pick Gus and I would send her next year. And I like the idea of somebody a long time ago told me that they think that every year there's like the last year's choice is now reborn as a kitten and the new one in Victoria was actually last year's jellicle choice and now she's entering back into the tribe as the youngest. And so I like if you're thinking about it from that angle, then sure, maybe you could then put Grizabella because then she's coming in as a young kitten back into her family with like number six of her nine lives or something like that. But that's been my case. But you never really gave me your answer. Is it Gus or Grizabella? What am I marking you down as?

[51:23] Naomi Naughton: It's Grizabella.

[51:25] Mike Abrams: It's Grizabella. Okay. But that's an interesting fact. The Victoria thing, because I was... So Victoria's the belle of the ball, right? Victoria's going to mate for the first time. She's the most beautiful. If she's last year's choice, that doesn't work in the sense that I was always taught that Grizabella was the Victoria. When she was younger, she was the belle of the ball. So does that mean that Grizabella just keeps going round and round? She's the belle of the ball and then she gets shunned?

[51:59] Naomi Naughton: Could be.

[52:01] Mike Abrams: So that's where I think the world building of Cats is so fascinating to me because you could say that Grizabella's a warning to Victoria of don't go down my path. And yes, I could see that world where Grizabella was the belle of the ball and was the jellicle choice. And you do this, you get nine versions of this before you're done. And it's where you are in that cycle. And it's kind of fascinating. I do think the Victoria theory comes from the newer movie though because they kind of threw her in in the beginning and she kind of is the eyes and the narrator in a weird way.

[52:39] Naomi Naughton: And so it kind of feels...

[52:41] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I don't... stick to 1998.

[52:45] Naomi Naughton: So I think that that's where that idea came from at least. It is kind of a unique thing because you could fill in a lot of these different things and again, they're not material to the arc of what you're seeing in the two and a half hours. But you could add to a lot of this and you could have different versions of this and you could fill in a lot of...

[53:01] Mike Abrams: So I love hearing you say, you let your Grizabellas figure out where they went because they could come back and say they were in their 12-step program or I had always... one of my jokes is I really thought she was like the bald Britney Spears moment. Like she was at that point in her life and she had her redemption, although I'm not sure if she's going back. But there could be that version. There's a lot of ways you can kind of play with what happened. And again, none of it really makes a difference besides maybe a look here or a movement there or something that's going to, again, what I think allows you to build into your own performance which I love. That's very fun.

[53:43] Naomi Naughton: It really is. It's interesting when people ask me questions and I realize I don't know the answer because you ask me questions, my cast ask me questions. Some of it and that's art too, right? Like sometimes there isn't a definitive answer to what is the Heaviside Layer. There's not. And I kind of point back to this because there are so many, like I've interviewed so many different cast members and there are some that like Mungo and Jerry, are they Mungo, Jerry and Ruppel Teaser, are they together? Are they siblings? Are they related? Like there's not a definitive answer to that. There's not a definitive answer with Bombalurina and Demeter. There are like a few that are very clearly spoken out, like this is for sure happening.

And then the rest is really open to cast members and interpretation. And so there's like, you could ask a bunch of different people who have done variations and they're going to give you a different answer on a lot of those things that somebody might say like, oh it's core, I learned it this way. And I still, I always go back to, I made a joke a long time ago, I made a meme about Bombalurina and Demeter being lovers. And I angered a lot of people because half the group was like, they're sisters, they can't be lovers. And the other half was like, no, they're best friends. And then so like, I put a poll out and I got a dead 50-50 split between the two. And so, and it was with performers too, like people who've done the show, I still had a 50-50 split. So there is some stuff where I can always think like, it doesn't matter.

[55:15] Naomi Naughton: My fellow castmates, you know, we have a group chat on Facebook. And when I was starting this process I was asking them some questions like, when we were having our first, we didn't have a read-through because there's nothing to read, so I told everybody to start. And I wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten any lore. So I gave a list of things that I knew to be true. And like, some of them were like, oh, well, I heard it this way. Now, we all were in the show at the same time. It just depended on who was the person who gave us, you know, who was the stage manager at the time. You know, one of them said they, I was like, were MonkaStrap and Grizabella a couple? Some were like, oh yeah, definitely.

And others were like, oh no, never. And, you know, some say that MonkaStrap and Tugger are Deuteronomy's sons. I'm like, I've never heard that in my life. Oh, that's with Macavity. Those are the three sons. Never heard that. That was new to me this year with my friends telling me. I also thought that I'd been taught that the ball, that Victoria was going to be chosen. This was her night. She was the belle of the ball. But I think I got that misconstrued with it's her night because she's going to mate for the first time. I think I just got all that a little mixed up. I also was not a Victoria, so I didn't learn all of, you know, her little lore that, you know, everything that's happening for her that night.

[56:41] Naomi Naughton: She has a different show.

[56:43] Mike Abrams: Well, this has been so fun. I'm so glad that you're getting to relive it, too. That's awesome. I'm getting to kind of do your moment-in-time version. I love the creativity of the different Grizabella every night. That's such a fun twist to this. It's got to be such a cool experience for them, too, to be able to all go out. I can't even imagine their family and friends in the audience every night.

[57:05] Naomi Naughton: They know that that's their night. That's got to be really cool. I have to give credit for this to our producer, Midge McCluskey, who runs the Shawnee Playhouse. She came to me with the idea and asked how I felt about it. She chose the Grizabellas. She knew that she wanted it to be very diverse and different. She came up with the idea and then I, as the director, kind of came up with how do I make that work with this cast and with these people. I want to make sure she gets the credit for the idea. I'm running with it.

[57:33] Mike Abrams: Amazing.

[57:37] Mike Abrams: Well, I hope everything goes amazing. This will come out after, so we'll all be celebrating by the time people hear this. I hope many people get to go see it, too, and get to experience it live.

[57:49] Naomi Naughton: Awesome. This has been a great conversation. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it.

[57:53] Mike Abrams: Thanks for coming on, and thanks everyone for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of the cast atrophy. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any of us on podcasts. Follow us on social media at thewrongcatdied or check out our website, thewrongcatdied.com.