This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Mike Abrams: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. And the wrong one died. And the wrong one died.

[0:15] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's atrophy. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another great guest. Today's guest is a fellow Broadway Podcast Network host for the show, Broadway Nation, and also recently published a book titled Broadway. I'm very excited because there is a lot of cats history discussed in this book, and we're going to dig into it. So welcome, David Armstrong, and thank you for joining me.

[0:36] David Armstrong: Thank you. It's a great pleasure to be here. So fun to be on this podcast, which I've listened to on a number of occasions, especially when you have people that I know as guests. So that's always fun. Even just the other day, I listened to the Kim Criswell episode who I went to college with. So that was fun to hear.

[0:55] Mike Abrams: Okay, yeah, it's so fun. I mean, I think some people we've talked about this on this show before, because I've had a few other BPN hosts. And during the pandemic and early on, we did a lot of these like happy hours and just like chatting on virtual, we used to do monthly meetings. And I got to know and learn about so many shows because of that. And so I've been very familiar with your show, the podcast version of it. And I was really excited when I heard that you were probably not turning the podcast into a book, but leaning on some of that and making it into a book.

[1:22] David Armstrong: Absolutely, definitely an evolution of the work that I've done. It really is a, the podcast itself was an evolution of the course that I teach at the University of Washington. So I teach a course on the history of the Broadway musical. Since about 2019, I've taught that course. And the podcast was an outgrowth of that sort of a popular, public, general public version of the what I teach in the course. And then the book has then been an outgrowth of that same course related and picking up on so much of what I've been able to do with the podcast as well. And people that I've talked to, all of that fed into the book. They're having the opportunity to meet so many authors of other books about the history of Broadway, as usually with specific, either about Noel Coward or the very specific elements of the Broadway musical history, that all has fed down into the book as well.

[2:22] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So when you decided to tackle this book, was it because it was a, hey, we have class to podcast, and now there's all this stuff there? Or was this always a passion project of being able, like wanting to turn this into a book at some point?

[2:36] David Armstrong: I always had the idea that it was great subject matter for a book. And this particular approach, how immigrant Jewish, queer, and Black artists invented the Broadway musical, was a very specific lens to view the history of the Broadway musical through and to center in that story. But then I was really thrilled that a publisher, my publisher, Dom O'Hanlon, from Bloomsbury Publishing, which is Methuen Drama, is an imprint of Bloomsbury. And that's a publisher that anybody who has theater books probably has some books, especially plays, they've published for, I don't actually don't know when they started, I think like a century ago, they've been around as a major publisher of drama and books about theater.

[3:27] David Armstrong: So, he called me, approached me to ask if I would be interested in turning the idea of the course and the idea of the podcast into a book, which was thrilling. I was so grateful to have that. I thought about maybe I'll make a book and I'll self-publish it and all that kind of stuff. But to have it happen this way with such a great publishing company was really fantastic.

[3:52] Mike Abrams: That's amazing. It sounds like required reading for your course soon here for all the college students.

[3:57] David Armstrong: Yes, we haven't gotten to it. I'll teach again until spring quarter. So, this will be the first time that the book exists at the time that I'm taking the course. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do that yet.

[4:07] Mike Abrams: How do we even end? Yeah, I love the angle. And I've only got to go through some of it. We chat about this. So, I'm excited to read the whole thing, but I definitely got to read a bunch of snippets about it because I was able to put my way through to a lot of the cat stuff. And there were some things I did not know. I feel like at this point, I'm surprised when I don't know something about cats. But there were a couple of things I was really interested in. So, I'd love to hear a little bit from you about the parts that you tackled specifically that involved cats with the mega musicals and that era of time and how you weaved it into the broader part of your book.

[4:42] David Armstrong: Absolutely. It was really interesting because cats actually crosses over into several really important themes and important—I wouldn't call them eras, although they're parts of eras—but kinds of musicals, especially in the modern history of the Broadway musical, what I call the modern era of the Broadway musical. So, first and foremost, I do a big section on concept musicals, on what is a concept musical. Is there such a thing as a concept musical? Some people will dispute, don't particularly like that particular term, although I think it's very useful to describe what it is. And that's something that starts largely with Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim. Some people, I can hear them now in the background going, what about Love Life? And what about—yes, there were things that came before it that were very much like a concept musical or were early one-off iterations of what would become the concept musical. And in fact, probably more strongly than something like Love Life is to go back to the thematic reviews of the 1930s, which Irving Berlin and many writers worked on, which were basically, we're going to take an idea and create a whole show around it. Probably the one I think is most fascinating is called A Thousand's Cheer, which took the idea of a newspaper. We're going to do a review based on a daily newspaper, and every number is going to reflect a segment of the newspaper. So, there'll be the front page, there'll be the marriage section, the marriage announcements, there'll be the weather report, and especially a lot of topical things that were going on. So, that was a very famous show that used a review format to talk to sort of illustrate this concept, to bring this concept to the stage.

[6:36] David Armstrong: And that is remarkably similar to what's happening then in the 1970s with shows like, ultimately with Cats, but before that with Company, with A Chorus Line. And A Chorus Line is a key element in the history of Cats, which I don't think has often been talked about or sort of noticed.

[7:04] Mike Abrams: Yeah, that was actually the part that I dug really deep into in your book, because I've obviously heard there's parallels to it, because there's a lot of like, choice, choice, choice, and then someone gets picked. And so, the theme is kind of similar, but your book was really the first time I had, and maybe someone had mentioned to me in the past, but I had really seen that there is a lot of how that was a big part of what made the beginning of Cats.

[7:39] David Armstrong: Yeah, I mean, some people might say Cats is a ripoff of A Chorus Line. I don't know that I go that far, but it's remarkably similar. I think it is sort of a doppelganger of A Chorus Line. And what's really interesting is, even before that, the reason Cats exists is because of A Chorus Line. A Chorus Line became this big, giant mega hit on Broadway, and of course, they wanted to take it to London. And they were going with a London cast, because the shows, they assumed it was going to run a long time in London, and they went to cast it. This is a year or two after it opened on Broadway, and they couldn't find the dancers that they needed, who the triple threats that they would need to do a show like Cats that you could find on Broadway. And it's just because in the history of musical theater, that was not a strong suit for British performers prior to this. They just didn't have enough people who could sing and dance and act in equal enough measure to play all of those parts. So they quickly determined that they were going to bring an entire American cast over to open the show in London, which they did, but British Equity, the actors union, would only let them stay for six months. And then they had to be replaced by British performers. So it started this movement, basically, to we have to now train British performers to be able to take over these roles, to be able to play Cassie and Morales and all these characters. And that happened. And the show ran three years, I think, in London. So there were multiple people that there was a, it wasn't just one set of cast members that had to do acquire these skills. And it substantially raised the level of dance ability among British performers during that time, it was like a sea change, which, you know, the British theater has benefited from ever since.

[9:37] Mike Abrams: Yeah, that would not be a problem later with, you know, most shows. And what I discovered is that then Andrew Lloyd Webber noticed this was happening, and appreciated this idea. And one of the things that came out of his, you know, idea that we need to showcase this new level of talent that we have was to write Cats. So he said, Okay, we need to get these triple threat, big kind of mega musical. And my first idea for that is the let's put them in cat costumes.

[10:12] David Armstrong: Well, I think he wanted to show the for dancers. And now maybe I don't know exactly what order this was going on in his brain. Did he already think I think I should make a musical out of this poem, this TS Eliot series of poems, you know, what was I suspect it was all just sort of swimming around and the idea that, well, if we're going to be cats, there probably need to be dancers. Or did he just think, we've got this opportunity to showcase these newly danceable British performers, and I'm going to make a show directly for them. So somewhere it's in there, I believe.

[10:49] Mike Abrams: Yeah, well, and then I mean, there's also then the parallels of like, the show is, like you said, doppelganger, like, it's very similar.

[10:56] David Armstrong: It's a paraphrase in many, many ways. You have a and now instead of a chorus line, you now have a stage full of dancers in tights dressed as cats, but basically in the in similar skintight costumes on stage, who are now all competing to be chosen by an authority figure.

[11:19] David Armstrong: It's Zach in a chorus line, and now Old Deuteronomy.

[11:24] Mike Abrams: Old Deuteronomy. Exactly. Thank you. I just couldn't think of his name off hand.

[11:28] David Armstrong: Old Deuteronomy in this to be selected to move on to the next phase.

[11:35] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[11:35] David Armstrong: And in the chorus line, of course, it's to be chosen to be in the musical that they're auditioning for and you get a job. And in Cats, it's to be, you know, put on a tire and sent through the roof of the Heaviside Lair, whatever that is.

[11:51] Mike Abrams: Yeah. It is really fascinating that like, how much of all shows influence other shows. And then, I mean, it kind of leads to the second part I was curious to hear a little of your take on, but you also referenced a little bit about how the like, six is almost in the similar, same vein, like another example of that, the evolution of that.

[12:11] David Armstrong: It was another contest. And, you know, people talk about, of course, I really do think when you look, we didn't think about this back in the day, but it's like the first reality show. It predates all the reality shows. I talk to my students sometimes about this, and I say, you don't understand, there were no reality shows before this. That idea did not exist. And I think you can attribute A Chorus Line to putting this idea out there because it was based on, especially because it was based on characters, people bearing their souls in order to win the contest, even though it was fictionalized here, it was still the real words of real people in A Chorus Line, sometimes playing themselves and sometimes playing other people. But it was, it ties into, you know, what would later start with the real world and all that kind of stuff and just overwhelm entertainment the way it has. And I think so that contest element of it is right there in A Chorus Line and then right there in Cats, which you talked about on one of your podcasts that the contest element can either be noticed really strongly or not so strongly, but that is the plot. The plot, what little plot there is, is someone's going to be chosen as what the jellicle cat, is that what they call it?

[13:29] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Yeah, the jellicle choice.

[13:33] David Armstrong: The jellicle choice, that's what I meant. Yeah. And we'll get to, based on this one authority figure's decision.

[13:45] Mike Abrams: I do find it really interesting of like, because it is the plot and it's the way I think about it, but I also know the way I was introduced to Cats, like for my whole life, was 2016 and I saw Leona Lewis. So I was going in saying, I'm watching an X Factor performer. That's how I knew her. And this is then I felt like I watched the weirdest X Factor in the world. It's like, I was already thinking about a contest style reality show, and then I watched one. But I do wonder if I didn't see, like the second time I saw it, I saw Mamie Pearce. If I saw Mamie first, if I would have not walked in the theater thinking about X Factor, would I have felt the same way? And is that where there's some like loose interpretation of maybe I would have gotten deeper into the characters or the story or other parts of this, like maybe the religious aspects that are in there instead of this competition element that I honed in on purely because of Mike Rizzabella?

[14:48] David Armstrong: I mean, I would suggest that it probably just helped you to see what was there because you were coming from that standpoint. And granted, Cats is not the clearest show. It's sometimes very confusing what the hell is going on or what it's about. But so I think that just seeing it through that, you were seeing it in the reverse of me seeing it, which is seeing it for the first time without reality shows being in the zeitgeist, being in the world.

[15:14] Mike Abrams: Yeah, true.

[15:15] David Armstrong: Yeah. So that couldn't influence my thinking because they didn't exist, basically, then.

[15:20] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I also have never seen a chorus line. And so it's just not a show that's been, I mean, my Broadway experience has been since I moved to New York and beyond with a little bit of tours before that. It's just never been something that's popped into Indiana when I was younger, or it's not been in New York until they had the recent anniversary one night 50th year anniversary show. So I'm waiting to get to a version to where I could go see it.

[15:47] David Armstrong: Yeah, there was a revival probably maybe just before you moved to New York, it was like 10 years ago or something like that.

[15:50] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So yeah, that's interesting. And then you were talking about six and that same contest thing, they're competing to be the, again, I don't quite understand what they're competing for, but somehow they're competing to be the best of the worst, the best of the worst, or the best of the dead, or I don't know exactly what, but somehow there's a competition. It is like a TV reality show.

[16:18] David Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. They lean heavily into it. Before I saw six the first time, when it was very all the rage and popular, I got a message from a former jellicle performer and someone who's been on this podcast that just said, you need to go see six. It's exactly what you've been asking for. It was like, they were like, this is exactly what you want cats to be. And so then when I saw it, I was like, oh, this is the competition element. And they lean heavily into it. And it is so interesting how that all plays into each other and how much of theater is built off of it. And what your book does is tackles that in a way of being able to show all those iterations.

[17:00] David Armstrong: I try to tie everything together, because that is the way I think about the history of the Broadway musical, even over more than a hundred years. It all relates to each other. One thing feeds to the next. It's a continuum that continues all the way through. So there are so many, and people have remarked about this when they've read the book, that they've responded to that. I relate the pieces of shows from the past and shows from the present and try to demonstrate how they're related to one another. And they're more interesting when you know about the show from the past or the show from the present that is feeding off of it, or the writers are somehow responding to mostly consciously, but sometimes I think unconsciously, subconsciously, they have created something that's so similar.

[17:45] David Armstrong: I mean, Six is a great example of it. It also connects to Chicago, which happens that same year as A Chorus Line. So that's kind of interesting that Six is totally influenced by these two shows from 1974, I think. I may be wrong with the year there. Because the other thing that Six does is every song in the show is a reference to a specific pop song, a specific star who sang that pop song. And each of those characters is based on Beyonce or Adele.

[18:30] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's again, it's fascinating to see. And I love, you know, the thing I was excited about when I saw that you were doing a book is that you have the academic side of it, but then also with the podcast, you have the kind of way to turn it into a very entertaining and digestible way, and mirroring those two things together. So that way, it will be a great book.

[19:00] David Armstrong: When I tried to, that's the way, even though I think it's a very academic book in its substance, and everything is very well documented, and all that kind of stuff inside it, but I don't particularly like academic speak. So I don't tend to talk that way. I don't write that way. So I tend to shy away from, you know, jargon, academic jargon. I always think when I read a book, like, why can't you just use a normal word? Why do we have to have this highfalutin word that means the same thing as a word that we all know? So I've tried to keep it very, even though the publishers are counting on it and have marketing in it to be adopted as a new textbook for the history of the Broadway musical, I didn't write it as a textbook per se, I wrote it to be a book I would want to pick up and read a popular history of the Broadway musical.

[19:53] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And I think some of the best academic textbooks I've read are the ones that don't read like a textbook. And so that's going to be great. We're going to take a quick break, and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died. I do want to talk a little bit about your actual cat's experience, though. How many times have you seen it? What's your history with the show?

[20:13] David Armstrong: Well, the first time I saw the show was during its previews during its original run on Broadway. So I had moved to New York not that long before that.

[20:26] Mike Abrams: What year was that? What year did it open on Broadway?

[20:26] David Armstrong: 82 or three, I think.

[20:33] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I was going to say two, but yeah. So I, as a young, struggling performer, choreographer, theater person at that point, I was working for Theater Refreshment Company, which is the company that runs the bars in the Broadway theaters.

[20:47] Mike Abrams: Okay. So I'd been working for them for a while. And one of the perks of that job is not only did you get to see the show that you were, the theater you were stationed at, you would also be able to pop into other theaters and see other shows or parts of shows, anything you want, sort of at will.

[21:01] David Armstrong: Wow. But, which I didn't know, because I hadn't been there that long, was, so I did that with the cats. It was in previews, it was the talk of the town, so I went over to the Winter Garden and just walked in the door and stood in the back and watched the show for a while. And now I get kicked out because, and somebody said to me, oh, yes, you can do that, but not when the show's in previews because everybody's too nervous and tense and they don't know who's in. There was a lot of concern about somebody saying something about the show before they were ready for people to see it. This is pre-social media days where it's even worse now.

[21:48] Mike Abrams: Totally pre-social. Yeah, to now, I'm sure you couldn't do any of that because you didn't have your phone and all that kind of stuff. So that was my first, I saw parts of it. I saw one segment of it during the previews before it opened.

[22:11] David Armstrong: That is exactly right, and I did not know what the hell was going on.

[22:14] Mike Abrams: Yeah. But it was impressive, obviously. It was that original production at the Winter Garden. Of course, they had gutted the whole theater, and you're just walking into there, really not knowing. We knew the show had been a big hit in London. We kind of had some sense of what it was, but most people back then didn't really understand what it was going to be until you sat there or stood there in the back. So that was my first experience, and then I don't know exactly when I sat down in a seat to watch the whole thing, but sometime during that first year of its run.

[22:46] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Do you remember what songs you saw during that preview? Do you remember what parts of it that you got to catch?

[22:51] David Armstrong: I remember Rum Tug Tugger. I remember Terrence Mann. And so that is very strongly embedded in my head because he was just so dynamic, and it was so clear that he was doing Mick Jagger, which was fun but somewhat surprising. So I'm pretty sure I probably didn't see the opening because I probably came in after I closed the bar in whatever bar I was working at at that point.

[23:25] Mike Abrams: Oh, okay. So you left your show, came in.

[23:30] David Armstrong: Yeah, so I missed the overture. Once the show starts, you got nothing to do for an hour or more, an hour and a half, until intermission, until you have to set up for the intermission run. Then you got to come back.

[23:39] Mike Abrams: Okay.

[23:39] David Armstrong: So that's when you could go and pop in into other theaters and see shows.

[23:43] Mike Abrams: So you probably didn't make it to the ball. You probably had to do it before then.

[23:46] David Armstrong: Oh, no, I didn't make it that far that time. I'm sure of that. I'm sure of that. And I got booted, probably.

[23:49] Mike Abrams: You saw two or three songs.

[23:55] David Armstrong: No, I think I saw like a half an hour of the show or something.

[23:57] Mike Abrams: Okay, okay.

[23:58] David Armstrong: Because I think at first they didn't notice I was there and everybody's concerned, and you're just sort of standing in the back. There were a bunch of people standing because it was previews, and then finally somebody said, who are you?

[24:09] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[24:11] David Armstrong: But I definitely remember Rum Tug Tugger. I remember...

[24:16] Mike Abrams: It would have been Bust for Jones after that.

[24:18] David Armstrong: Yeah, is that the train? I remember the train.

[24:21] Mike Abrams: The train's at the end.

[24:22] David Armstrong: The train's at the end. Maybe I just remember that. Maybe I don't remember it from that time, but that's something that sticks in my head from that original production, because it was Trevor Nunn recycling something he'd done in Nicholas Nickleby. So it was like, oh, we've seen that before, Trevor. That's the moment where Nicholas Nickleby gets in the carriage to go off to London. So it was very similar as taking the pieces of something and assembling them into another thing for a big event.

[24:51] Mike Abrams: Okay, okay.

[24:52] David Armstrong: So that was interesting. So that I remember from the original production, but probably you're right, probably not from that night.

[24:58] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And then do you see when it comes to town, did you see the U.S. tour when it was traveling? Or how often do you... Is it something you try to seek out when it's around?

[25:08] David Armstrong: I've seen it a number of times. I think maybe the next time I went to see it, and I don't know exactly what the order of this is, but a friend of mine worked with John Napier on the set design. And when they broke the record for the longest-running musical, they had a big gala event at Winter Garden. And right before that, they had refurbished everything about the show. And my friend Nancy, who was the one working on it, every light bulb was replaced, everything that had been faded. This was, I don't know how many years in, but 15 years after it opened, or maybe more, she was responsible for refurbishing the whole set and making it look better than new, like it wasn't opening night. So she took me as her guest to that sort of gala event, which was really fun. And I don't think I'd seen the show since I saw the original cast. And I know that night they shot fireworks off the marquee out front, and it was a whole big kind of pretty fantastic event. And the show was very dynamic that night because, number one, it looked like they'd replaced all the costumes. They had really just redone it all. It was like a brand new production of the show on Broadway.

[26:27] Mike Abrams: And so that's the second time. That was very exciting and fun. And then my friend Michael Gruber, who I've done a lot of shows with—he's actually from Cincinnati, where I was. We did shows back in college days. He was MonkaStrap in the video, the video capture of the show.

[26:46] David Armstrong: Yeah, the 1998 movie, yeah.

[26:47] Mike Abrams: Yeah, exactly. So I don't exactly remember the first time I saw that or when, but I was very much aware and saw that show, that video early on and often because I knew Michael so well. And he's a star of it, basically. He's really sensational, and I think he hasn't quite got the credit for being how great he is in that video capture.

[27:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah. One thing I didn't know until I interviewed Jacob Brent about it is that that's not just like a pro shot. They went and made a movie, and they pulled some people out of the show, and they cast some other people. So it's its own separate process to make this whole thing into a movie, and it was not like a one- or two-day thing. It was months.

[27:38] David Armstrong: No, it was more like a movie shoot. I remember Michael talking about it, and he was so thrilled to be—they were choosing the best of the best from all these different companies and different things. And so he, of course, was thrilled to be in it. Then I've seen that over the years multiple times because I assign that to my students as one of the shows. Not every year, but very often that's in the list of, like, 13 musicals that they have to watch, because I try to find things that are video captures that show—

[28:09] Mike Abrams: Yeah, accessible.

[28:11] David Armstrong: And it's the theater show. It's not a movie of it. You're seeing the sets and the costumes, and that's fairly close to that, even though it was not done in the theater itself.

[28:20] Mike Abrams: It feels like it. I mean, honestly, I watched it and didn't know until I talked to Jacob.

[28:25] David Armstrong: Really well done. Of those kinds of things, that's a model for how to do that, I think.

[28:32] Mike Abrams: Did you see the Andy Blankenbuehler revival version?

[28:36] David Armstrong: I did not see that. I did not see that.

[28:38] Mike Abrams: Did you see the interesting 2019 movie version?

[28:42] David Armstrong: You know what? I watched it last night for the very first time.

[28:47] Mike Abrams: To get ready for this.

[28:48] David Armstrong: Knowing that I was going to be on here today, and I thought, I've never seen that movie, and maybe I should watch it.

[28:55] Mike Abrams: How'd you feel?

[28:56] David Armstrong: You know, it wasn't as horrifying as I thought it was going to be. I went into it because I'd read everything about it and heard everybody talk about it and all that kind of stuff. So it wasn't nearly as weird or glitch-filled or all the things that people have talked about. I know they fixed some things along the way.

[29:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah, they definitely did. I still think there's an OK movie available if they didn't jump cut everything into oblivion that you can't see the dancers, because the cast is incredible. Especially the dancers. They got some incredibly talented dancers, and you can't see them.

[29:36] David Armstrong: Yeah, no, the people are really, really good. Mostly, I was kind of bored.

[29:41] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I just think it's a worse wrap than it deserves. And a lot of that's because the launch was really bad. I mean, there just was a lot of errors, and there was some, you know, the noise around it was bad. And then it was also, you know, it competed with some other big stuff opening the same weekend, and they spent a lot of money on it. But I'm glad you watched it. I feel like people should still see it.

[30:06] David Armstrong: Well, what was the best element of that movie is still the score, which is undeniably engaging. It's sort of mind-blowing how it's never been my favorite show, never will be my favorite show, but you can't not be engaged by the music and the way he set those lyrics to the music, even when you don't know what the song's about or what's going on, which sort of, in most things, I would think that would be such a deal-breaker for me because I want to—story is sort of the first thing I'm interested in. But somehow, that works in spite of the fact. And then what annoyed me more in the movie or what I didn't like about the movie was them trying to explain the story. And it's like, no, it was better when you didn't quite understand it than you telling me what these things are.

[31:11] Mike Abrams: That was, I remember, I forget exactly who, but I was talking to somebody from the 2016 revival when it was coming out. And they said, the first thing they said was, I don't really know what I'm going to love or hate about it, but the fact that they're adding dialogue in a show that has no spoken dialogue, it's all sung, is almost diminishing some of the story in itself.

[31:32] David Armstrong: It's like, they almost felt like they needed to dumb down the story because there's the loose plot. Whereas I think they should have played more into the competition element, which felt almost lost in that story. So, it was an interesting choice to use Victoria as the arc to learn what's happening, but—

[31:47] Mike Abrams: A way in, the representative of us, yeah.

[31:51] David Armstrong: But it was, it missed some stuff, I thought, because of that, too.

[31:54] Mike Abrams: Yeah, and I thought the villain didn't work at making him this sort of supervillain, just didn't work at all.

[32:02] David Armstrong: Yeah. Well, he's not supposed to be a villain. That's the other thing, too. It's fun because the lyrics also make it kind of comical and easy to poke fun at for jokes. But he's also the brother of a couple of the cats, and he's in the tribe, and he wants to go. And so, I don't know, it's like they tried to make him way too mean. But let's do some rapid fire here to get to the million dollar question, because I got to ask you. But first is, if you could be in Cats, which cat would you want to perform as?

[32:29] David Armstrong: I have a snarky answer, and I have probably a real answer. My snarky answer is I want to be one of those Siamese cats that got cut, so I don't have to do it.

[32:42] Mike Abrams: Oh, so you don't have to be in it at all.

[32:44] David Armstrong: So, I don't have to be in it.

[32:46] Mike Abrams: Okay, so you want to be one of the characters cut. Okay, who's your other answer?

[32:50] David Armstrong: I think my other answer would be Gus.

[32:54] Mike Abrams: Gus.

[32:54] David Armstrong: That was my favorite part of the show. I guess I probably saw that, because that's fairly early in the show, isn't it?

[33:00] Mike Abrams: No, it's in the second act.

[33:03] David Armstrong: It's right after Moments of Happiness in the second act. So, it's the first big song after Bring You Back In.

[33:09] Mike Abrams: I think that was always one of my favorite parts of the show. So, I think that probably would be the thing. My other snarky answer is people used to joke about they were in Cats, they were playing Jock-A-Strap, which I don't know if you've probably heard that joke before, but...

[33:28] Mike Abrams: Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Who are your favorite and least favorite cats in the show? And I usually ask this from a personality standpoint, but if not, just in general.

[33:40] David Armstrong: I mean, probably Mungo Jerry and Rumble Teaser are the ones I just want to get off the stage as quickly as possible.

[33:44] Mike Abrams: Okay, okay. Who are your favorite?

[33:50] David Armstrong: Mungo Jerry.

[33:51] David Armstrong: Gus, probably. And again, it makes no sense. Why is that Mr. Mastoffele's number so engaging and effective with a character that just sort of—I mean, not all the characters sort of come out of nowhere, but in a way, it's just like this big tour de force number that he has. And part of it is the music. The music is just really engaging. So I would probably say he's a very appealing character, just in his little vaudeville turn.

[34:30] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Favorite song in the show?

[34:33] David Armstrong: I mean, that's probably—it could be that one, could be the magical Mr. Mastoffele's.

[34:41] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I'll say I'll go with that one for now. I'm not a big memory fan. I know people always say, that's the song, that's the song, that's the song. I was like, what the hell does that lyric mean?

[34:49] Mike Abrams: This could be good for my last question, then. One more before that. Which, Cad, do you think would be the best professor to teach your course?

[34:59] David Armstrong: Well, Deuteronomy, I assume, would be the one with the most authority and the most—seems to know everything. So we'll go with him.

[35:07] Mike Abrams: Okay. I thought Gus could be a good second one, too.

[35:10] David Armstrong: Gus, absolutely. Certainly in terms of the history of theater, he seems to have lived it all. So, yeah, that would make sense.

[35:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[35:17] David Armstrong: Okay. My show, as you know, is centered around my disbelief in the jellicle choice. So, who is your jellicle choice and why?

[35:26] David Armstrong: So, let me ask a question about that.

[35:29] Mike Abrams: Okay.

[35:30] David Armstrong: Even though I've heard you talk about it quite a bit. The cat who's going to be sent through the roof, do you know that story about the lady? There was a famous—back in the day, there was a story that made the round of all the theatrical circles of this woman who they overheard in a diner or something saying, well, I saw the most incredible show the other day. You can't believe it. It's cats. It's all about cats. And they're all—they dance around, and they look like cats. But then there's this one cat, and she's old, and she's very sad. And then at the end of the show, they shoot her through the roof.

[36:07] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Great. I love the story.

[36:10] David Armstrong: Yeah, I'm sure somebody can tell an even better version of it, but hilarious that that was the review.

[36:18] Mike Abrams: That was the message. Yeah, yeah. So, my question is, they're choosing—what, in your mind, is the criteria for being the jellicle choice?

[36:37] David Armstrong: So, this, I think, is the crux of the argument and the question that's unanswered. Because you, in this hypothetical world that we're living in, you only have one example of one night. And I've heard versions to where old Deuteronomy is omnipresent, and he knows everything, and he knew she was coming back. I've heard versions where Gus was the choice, but then he saw her come back, and that's at intermission. Right before intermission, she sings, and that's when he makes the choice that she's going to be the choice. But nobody can answer, is it a different choice every year? Is it redemption every year? Like, I've always joked, why? Is there somebody coming back next year that we don't know about? Like, is this an annual thing? Or how is that made? So, I don't think there's clear criteria. The one I've always felt is the person who needs it, the cat who needs it most. And from that argument, I can tell you why I disagree that she needs it most. But I'm curious for yours, because I don't think that question's answered.

[37:34] David Armstrong: And I think a lot of people's decision depends on how you interpret that question.

[37:38] David Armstrong: Right. So, it's interesting, because we talked about reality shows earlier, and there was a reality show from when I was a kid, which I barely remember. It was a big hit back in the 50s, but I think it was still like in reruns when I saw it as a kid. It was called Queen for a Day. Have you ever heard of this show?

[38:04] Mike Abrams: No.

[38:08] David Armstrong: Okay. This was a very popular television show. I think it was in the daytime. I think it was a daytime television show.

[38:08] David Armstrong: And Queen for a Day was women, like three women would come on and compete to be queen for the day. And in order to do that, you generally, the one with the most pathetic story was the one who won, who got to be queen for a day. This is sick.

[38:30] David Armstrong: Yeah, very much so. Literally queen for a day. And so, they would tell—and I don't remember that well, but you can find episodes of it—they would tell these heartbreaking stories about their son has cancer and all this kind of stuff. And then whoever was the lowest, the most needy of the women would then be crowned with a crown and a banner like she was Miss America, queen for a day. So, in some ways, I feel like that is a reality show that existed that may actually have influenced Cats, because in a way, it seems like she's getting the award because she's the most pathetic cat on the stage.

[39:05] Mike Abrams: I've never heard about this reality show, and now I'm fascinated by it.

[39:10] David Armstrong: And yeah, I mean, I think it does. If that's the criteria, then yeah, she would be picked. I struggle with her leaving her family. It's been my argument for a while. So, are you picking Grizabella still?

[39:21] David Armstrong: If that's the criteria, I guess I am. Who needs it the most? She does seem to be the most down and out of the people.

[39:30] Mike Abrams: But that doesn't have to be the criteria. That's what I'm saying. That's, I think, the reason I wrote the show, to have that criteria so everyone wants to pick her.

[39:38] David Armstrong: Yeah.

[39:38] David Armstrong: You can pick whatever criteria you want. My original concept for the podcast was because I saw Leona Lewis, I wanted to send Tugger and Mistoffelees together as a boy band, because that's what The X Factor does. They take a bunch of solo shows and make a band. So that was my answer, was if we're doing it from a singing competition, I want them as a boy band.

[39:59] David Armstrong: Yeah, I guess I'm not going to disagree with Andrew Lloyd Webber. He clearly wrote that song in order to present her as the person—I mean, there's a reason she pre-prises the song twice.

[40:11] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[40:13] David Armstrong: Because he's setting us up for, this is going to be the choice. This is where the story is going, what story there is.

[40:20] Mike Abrams: Okay.

[40:21] Mike Abrams: So I'll just honor his choice there in terms of that.

[40:25] David Armstrong: I'm going to keep it in here mostly because I like the Queen for a Day concept. It's like, I'm going to find that reality TV and it's going to be what I watch here.

[40:34] David Armstrong: Yeah, I think a lot of it was on live television, so I don't know how much of it exists, but there's probably kinescopes and things.

[40:38] Mike Abrams: Everything's on YouTube or somewhere.

[40:41] David Armstrong: Yeah, everything's somewhere.

[40:42] Mike Abrams: I'm sure I can find it.

[40:42] David Armstrong: You'll find something, yeah.

[40:44] Mike Abrams: That's amazing. Well, this has been so fun. I mean, again, I love learning from you. I always love your show for that reason. I always learn something new whenever I listen to your podcast.

[40:53] David Armstrong: Well, thank you.

[40:54] Mike Abrams: How can people stay in touch with you, get the book, and follow the podcast? I'll link everything to in the notes.

[41:00] David Armstrong: Great, great. So my podcast is Broadway Nation. It's on the Broadway Podcast Network. That should be easy for anybody who's listening to the show to find and to tap into. The book is on sale now literally everywhere books are sold. If it's your local bookshop, which I encourage you to get it from, they may have to order it. I don't know that every bookshop is going to have it in stock at this point, but you can certainly do that. It's also available on Amazon, although at this particular moment, it says temporarily out of stock, which I'm taking as a very good sign.

[41:36] David Armstrong: Sold out. They didn't quite order enough copies to begin with, but I encourage you to go to bloomsbury.com. That's the website for Bloomsbury where you can purchase the book. Right now they have it at 30% off as sort of an introductory offer. I don't know how long that's going to last, but hopefully it'll still be going when you hear this. But I think even then it'll go back to 20% off. There's a little discount you can get there, which is great. I'm really so happy the way that Bloomsbury has released the book because they've put out both the hardcover and the paperback at the same time, which doesn't always happen.

[42:13] David Armstrong: And the hardcover, as people might expect, or maybe it'll be a surprise, is $100 because it's a big book that will be hopefully in every library and things like that. But the paperback is only $34.95, which I'm really happy about because I think it makes it very accessible, and that's not always the case. I often want to buy books these days, and I'm lucky that I feature them on my podcast so I get free copies of things. If I had to buy them, I'd be broke because it's like everything else. Everything is expensive these days, so I'm thrilled about that. And then personally, you can find me on Instagram, especially on my Facebook group. I have about almost 3,000 members in my Broadway Nation Facebook group, and that's a great place to come for conversation and interaction with a bunch of other people that love Broadway musicals.

[43:10] Mike Abrams: Awesome. Yeah, we'll link all of that, too, including the Bloomsbury link.

[43:15] David Armstrong: Yeah, and I strongly encourage local bookstores, too, because I try to get books that way, as well, and digital books, too. You can get from libraries.

[43:23] David Armstrong: Yeah, it's available as a digital book, also. We're in discussions about an audio book. We haven't started on that yet, but that'll be a fun project when I get going on that.

[43:30] Mike Abrams: You've got your mic ready. You're going to have to record yourself.

[43:34] David Armstrong: My mic is here and ready to go, yeah.

[43:36] Mike Abrams: Amazing. Well, it's been so fun.

[43:39] David Armstrong: Absolutely. I enjoyed it, and it's fun to talk about very specific elements that are in the book, like Cats, which is a major event in the history of the Broadway musical.

[43:50] Mike Abrams: Totally, totally, yeah. And again, learn something new, which is, for me, at this point, I don't think there's much about Cats I can't learn, but I love when I always learn a new theory or history, because, again, I didn't know anything about it until 2016, so there's definitely some gaps in my knowledge there, and it's fun to learn it. And I'm excited to finish the book, since I only got to kind of, like, dig into pieces of it and read the whole thing.

[44:14] David Armstrong: Cool. Well, I can't wait to hear what you think.

[44:16] Mike Abrams: Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on, and thanks for everyone else for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast broken down the cat's atrophy. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any of us's podcasts. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, there, and social media at thewrongcatdied, or check out our website, thewrongcatdied.com.