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[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 that casts atrophy. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have an incredibly special guest. Last September, a very great influencer named Teresa Jack posted a TikTok and Instagram reel about the infamous Brigham Young University-Idaho production of Cats in 2015 and posed a lot of questions. And it has been my mission to get answers from anybody who was involved in this production. And today is that day. She played Bombalurina and is here to answer all of our questions. So welcome, Katie Fairbourne, and thank you for joining me.

[0:44] Katie Fairbourne: Thank you for having me. I have the amount of people that tagged me in this, and then I commented being like anybody, literally anybody that wants to come answer. And I'm so glad that you said yes. So welcome to the show and arguably one of the most requested production questions I've ever received.

[1:01] Katie Fairbourne: I know. I'm honored to be the one to have been like, this dude asked me to be on a podcast. That's such a joke. And my husband going, you should do it.

[1:14] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, yeah. I have had a few obscure productions that I found really funny, but this is the first one where I think there's a lot of social media about it. Because not just... Teresa's post obviously really went viral and there's a lot of... She posed a lot of questions and there was a lot of comments, but there's also a lot of other lore from especially in the moment and some of the criticism that happened live and when it was happening. So we'll get to all of this because I have a lot of questions. I wrote down a significant amount that I want to ask you. Before we start with that though, I always love hearing... I start every episode with what is your cat's experience? So before this 2015 production, had you seen it? Were you familiar? What was your cat's experience?

[1:59] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. So normal, random kid in the middle of small town Idaho. My mom put me in dance classes when I was a baby baby. And so I was a dancer all growing up. My sister was the one who did musical theater. And she came home one day with this DVD of the 1988 video of Cats. Okay. And I watched it with her. I was probably eight or nine maybe. And I hyperfixated really hard on this movie.

[2:31] Katie Fairbourne: All right. So you were a fan. I would watch it probably three times a week, fan. Wow. So that's the best though. So you are a dancer, family's doing musical theater and you find this show and a formative piece of art at the time. So you were a Cats fan.

[2:50] Katie Fairbourne: I was a Cats fan. So you knew it. So when you saw this posting at college that they're going to do this at this fairly religious university with its own honor code system that I'm sure we'll get into, was it a, I've got to audition right away? Was that the first thought or was this like...

[3:10] Katie Fairbourne: No. So I actually never saw a flyer or anything for the audition. I was taking voice lessons at the time from my sister's voice teacher. She had gotten a job at the college and I was like, you need students. I've got you. And so I was taking lessons with her and she came in one day and she goes, hey, so you're going to come audition for Cats, right? What do you mean audition for Cats? Who's doing Cats? She was like, we are, surprise. And then she was the musical director on the show and she's like, you're going to come audition because we need dancers.

[3:51] Katie Fairbourne: That's a fair point. And if you're taking voice lessons and you're a dancer, you are perfect for the show. I walked right into it.

[4:01] Mike Abrams: They were looking for you in particular.

[4:04] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, me specifically.

[4:04] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if you'll be able to answer these questions, but I do want to ask a little bit about this musical theater. Not just this production, but just the program in general. You didn't do many shows there. I don't think you did. You didn't do four years worth of shows. It wasn't like you're doing every single time they're doing one. Do you remember any shows that were happening that you either went to or that you experienced from this particular program before or even after Cats?

[4:26] Katie Fairbourne: I know I didn't go to any before. I think after getting, I don't want to say my foot in the door in the theater department, because I was not a theater major at all. I think after that, I had friends who were in the productions. So I would go to support them. But I don't. Again, the only one I can think of is Bohem, the opera. So that's the only one that I can think of that I went to and had some semblance of knowledge of what was going on, and then knew four people in the cast. And after that, I was like, cool, I don't ever have to be here again.

[5:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Okay. What's the vibe of this musical theater program? Is it? Because I went to a high school and there were some level of the religious undertones there that come with that. And there's the joke of leaving space for the Holy Spirit when you dance and things like that. Those things are there. And this is, I think, a slightly more extreme version of that, at least at a university level, you hear. I'm so curious about how they decided Cats to begin with.

[5:49] Katie Fairbourne: I wish I knew. It's one of those things that they plan out years in advance what shows will be when. The college itself does three semesters per year. So this was during our spring semester, which is like April to June kind of thing.

[6:11] Mike Abrams: A great time to be in those costumes.

[6:12] Katie Fairbourne: A great time to be in those costumes and the AC to break.

[6:16] Mike Abrams: Oh, wow. Okay.

[6:17] Katie Fairbourne: We'll get there.

[6:18] Mike Abrams: We'll get to that.

[6:20] Katie Fairbourne: But yeah, it's very much pre-planned for months and years. One of my friends that was on the costumes was like, no, yeah, we had known for two or three semesters that this show was coming up.

[6:34] Mike Abrams: Okay. I'm fascinated by that decision-making process again, in general, because there's... If there is this level of this honor code and there's some restrictions on what you're supposed to be wearing at the university and things you're doing, choosing a unitard-based, sexually-danced, charred show is quite the decision.

[6:55] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. And when I first heard Cats was going to be at this university, I was very concerned because again, skintight leotards, that's what I know. Ropes for tails, that's what I know. And I was just so curious as to what was going to happen.

[7:15] Mike Abrams: I probably shouldn't have been curious.

[7:18] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. Okay. So take me to the rehearsal room. What do you remember? What do you remember about... Let's start with the storytelling because it is a fairly... It can be, at least. There's obviously a kid's version of this. I'm assuming that one is not told in the same way, but it's a fairly sexual and there's some religious undertones within it in itself of a story. I'm assuming that they're still... You're doing Cats. How much of that do they tell you and do they share about what you're supposed to be portraying?

[7:51] Katie Fairbourne: So I don't remember how many members of our cast had previously known anything about Cats. I know it was me and maybe one other person that I can think of off the top of my head. But I remember going to our first few rehearsals and we did music first, obviously, as you do in a song opera heavy thing that Andrew Lloyd Webber has written you. But I remember sitting there being like, how are we going to get through this one particular scene that, as a 10-year-old watching a Cats musical, made me go, Mom, what are they doing? Right? So I remember sitting there going, this is going to be weird. Oh no. And I think what happened was that we took that whole section and we said, we're turning it into a ballet solo. So that's how we got around that.

[8:51] Mike Abrams: I mean, so there's a lot of sections, though. I mean, if you think about it from the beginning, the beginning is fairly fine. And then Jenny Adatz is fine. Bustford Jones is fine. But all Victoria's parts, pretty much all of Victoria is going to be a challenge.

[9:13] Katie Fairbourne: The ball is a huge challenge, depending on how you portray it.

[9:16] Katie Fairbourne: The ball is a huge challenge, depending on how you portray it. And then you've got all of your song as Bombay Arena, as Macavity, is a massive challenge. Correct.

[9:29] Mike Abrams: Oh, and Tugger is a massive challenge.

[9:34] Katie Fairbourne: Tugger was rough. Tugger was rough. So did they fully go in and just be like, we're just going to change? Like, is Tugger not a rock star hip thrusting? Or is Tugger a...

[9:39] Katie Fairbourne: Still went with rock star. Toned down. Rock star.

[9:45] Katie Fairbourne: Definitely toned down. I remember toning a lot of things down. With all of Victoria's dances, we went strict classical ballet. There was no room for any other interpretation.

[10:05] Mike Abrams: Okay.

[10:07] Katie Fairbourne: Trying to think, what else? How did we get wrong?

[10:10] Mike Abrams: Did they acknowledge this in the room though? Are you going through this being like, hey, if you know this show like you do, you know we're going to have to change Tugger.

[10:21] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I don't know if we ever had a full conversation as a cast with our director being like, hey, what are we going to do about the fact that Tugger's over here just having a good time? Right?

[10:35] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[10:36] Katie Fairbourne: I don't think we ever had that conversation as a cast of like, this is what we're going to do to avoid making this overly sexual at our very religious school. I don't think we ever had that conversation.

[10:50] Mike Abrams: So that is so interesting, because one of the things that I was reading when I was doing research was, did the administrators come through and be like, hey, here's how you have to... I just go back to my Jesuit school, the Jesuits, everyone would come in and be like, are y'all actually doing that? Are you doing this? Because some of our sports stuff, they're like, hey, I played hockey. They're like, you probably shouldn't fight the other team. I'm like, well, that's kind of part of our game. And so there's like, there is that layer of involvement, but not involvement. And I'm fascinated by this, because you're doing something that the whole point is to not be you, you're portraying, like you're performing, but at the same time, there is this part where it's like, it's kind of not in line with the school's mission or a lot of things that they care about.

[11:33] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. Yeah. So you just, they just ignored it. It's just like, we're just not, if you don't know cats, we're just going to, we're just not going to say it.

[11:40] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I think if you don't know cats, then we're just not going to tell you about like what we had to change.

[11:45] Mike Abrams: Yeah. But this is not like you're, you're not like doing this in like 1999, like the internet's there. Like there's the Wikipedia page to go find all the headcanon. Like this is, this is all out there at this point. And so you're all just not, it's just like, it is what it is. You're doing, you're just doing the show.

[12:03] Katie Fairbourne: And I mean, we were in, again, Southeast Idaho, podunk little farming communities. Like no, no one's actually going to go Google what the cat's ball really is supposed to look like and what's supposed to happen.

[12:19] Mike Abrams: I guess, I mean, I think it's so hard for me to just fathom that because like YouTube, I guess actually in 2015, YouTube was...

[12:29] Katie Fairbourne: 10 years old.

[12:29] Mike Abrams: 10 years old. Like that, the entire movie's on YouTube.

[12:33] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[12:34] Mike Abrams: Like in pieces. So it's like, it's kind of hard to avoid it unless you're just like actively avoiding it.

[12:39] Katie Fairbourne: And honestly, I think that's what a lot of people do. I mean, not on purpose, but I think they just, they don't want to go looking for it if they know that it could be an answer they don't want to find.

[12:54] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Okay. So let's go through a couple of the ones that you would have to change. And if you remember what they told you, did, Tugger's a rockstar, but just wholesome rockstar?

[13:05] Katie Fairbourne: Little more wholesome, like Disney channel, Camp Rock, rockstar.

[13:08] Mike Abrams: Camp Rock. Okay. Victoria is just doing ballet.

[13:12] Katie Fairbourne: Yes.

[13:12] Mike Abrams: Is she getting her lifts still? Or is that...

[13:14] Katie Fairbourne: I don't think we did lifts.

[13:16] Mike Abrams: Okay. Because the lift is supposed to signify losing virginity.

[13:21] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I don't, I don't think we did the lifts.

[13:24] Mike Abrams: Okay. And then in the ball, did you, like the ball, there's a section where you're supposed to all roll around on top of each other.

[13:30] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I think we changed that. We did a lot more like contemporary modern movement in our dancing. Like I know me and one of my cast mates who also does ballroom, we did like a little like Viennese waltz in the middle of all of that. So we just choreographed over it.

[13:53] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And then there's the Macavity song. So like how, how bad was Macavity in this production?

[14:02] Katie Fairbourne: I mean, what do you mean by bad?

[14:05] Mike Abrams: Well, I, so there's a lot like he's, he's broken every human law. So he's done a lot of wrong things. And then the song that you all sing is hypersexual about Macavity. Like the whole thing is like, he's terrible, but also...

[14:21] Katie Fairbourne: But also...

[14:23] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[14:23] Katie Fairbourne: He's Macavity.

[14:24] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I don't remember how we, quote unquote, got around that.

[14:31] Katie Fairbourne: Just did it and just pretended that he's not.

[14:33] Katie Fairbourne: I think a lot of like the sexuality from these songs also come from the movement and the choreography. So I know, again, at our religious school, our choreography was not that at all. It was very much like, oh no, he's a sneaky dude kind of thing.

[14:52] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's just mean to his friends.

[14:55] Katie Fairbourne: He's just mean to his friends.

[14:56] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And then did you, is there any acknowledgement of like, Julian Lin choreography is like, is legendary. Is there still some of that, like, we want to have some of that like cats, cat stuff, but just removing some of those, you know, extreme motions that could be deemed inappropriate?

[15:17] Katie Fairbourne: I don't remember, actually. I think our choreographer had watched the choreography. But I think the director had said, we're doing like our own thing. We're not going with anyone else's stuff. We're not doing any other movement that someone else is. Because I don't remember ever doing any of the choreography.

[15:43] Mike Abrams: Interesting. Okay. Did you learn it growing up? Like as a dancer?

[15:48] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I mean, I would, I would watch films that had dancing in it on repeat. And then like three days later would be doing the choreography in my living room when my parents were down at the store and I was the only one home.

[16:01] Mike Abrams: Okay. So you could, you could do the, you could do the full ball.

[16:06] Katie Fairbourne: You learned a lot of it. Okay. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back for more of The Wrong Cat Died. We've talked for way too long to get to not talk about the, the one thing that really made this go viral. And so we've got to talk about the costumes. And so I want to know, let's start with your memory and reaction of it because you obviously know you're not doing the unitards at that school, but it seems like this was even beyond like, I've seen some regional houses and some community theaters that will put some pants on, or, you know, like some ways to still honor a little bit of like, here's cats in unitards, but still make it a little bit more, I guess, less just everybody in skintight unitards. But these seemed like decisions were made for these.

[16:55] Katie Fairbourne: Decisions were made and they, I don't know if they were great decisions, but they were made. Um, I, the only thing I remember was when they first like told us what they were doing for their costumes, looking at my friends. So out of a cast of like 26, like six of us were from the dance department. And I remember looking at one of my dance friends and going, they want us to move in that. They want us to do like a high kick wearing that. Okay, sure. But I remember going in for like my wig fitting, um, like they had to do like the whole head wrap and saran wrap kind of thing. And like glancing in and just seeing just like the big fur wall for lack of a better term, it was just like fur, fur, fur, fur, fur. And I was like, that's going to be so difficult because not only is it going to be so restrictive that I feel like I'm not gonna be able to move, those are so thick. They were made of like carpet.

[18:05] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And you're doing this, you said, April, May, June, like you're doing this in peak spring.

[18:09] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. Our opening night was like the first week of June.

[18:13] Mike Abrams: Yeah. So you're doing it in summer, essentially.

[18:15] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[18:15] Mike Abrams: Like it is hot.

[18:16] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[18:17] Mike Abrams: And you're putting on a weighted vest carpet to dance for two and a half hours.

[18:23] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[18:25] Mike Abrams: Um, okay. I, I think, you know, if you're listening to this, I hope you've seen the pictures. If not, I'm going to try to post some with this, but I don't think I could even describe it super well. It's like, there's not a single unitard. It is like a full, thick, heavy catsuit on top of everybody.

[18:38] Katie Fairbourne: So they had us in these like spandex onesies, had a zipper up the back, and then we had our mic belt on top of that. And then the fur over the top of that. So it was not only a big fur thing, but it was layered with unbreathable lycra.

[19:04] Mike Abrams: I just interviewed the revival Old Deerotomy who wears, you know, basically what you all were wearing. That's like, that's the costume. That's the only way I can describe it. It looks like Old Deuteronomy, but for every cat.

[19:15] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[19:16] Mike Abrams: And he told me that he had to put in like ice packs and like, they put ice packs into like, so you could even do his thing. And he's not doing the dancing through a lot of the stuff because that's not the character's arc. And you're doing, again, all of the dancing in this stuff. But I'm curious, like knowing the university and knowing like the religious piece of this and the, in the honor code, like you kind of knew you weren't going to do spandex, but did they come in and like, like this feels like almost a full direction the other way. And to the point where I'm like wondering if like, did they have to come in and be like, approve this of like, this is okay for like these, these costumes are now okay for you all to, for us to do this because we want to keep it more cat-like, like furry cat-like than sexual cat-like.

[20:04] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. We went from sexual cat-like to like stuffed animal cat-like is the way that I like to think of it. I don't know who had the say, who had the power, who said, yes, this costume, no, this costume. But whoever it was, I want to have a conversation with them.

[20:23] Mike Abrams: Yeah. I mean, honestly, we, we both read a lot of the comments from the, the post and like we read someone that said it wasn't done for that reason. Like they, like they worked on the costumes and it wasn't just for religious reasons, but I find that hard to believe. I feel like that might, that's like what you tell the costume department where it's like, Hey, we're going to have you do these things. And I mean, to be honest, some of them didn't look great. Like they're, it's not the best, like there's a better, I think there's an interpretation. Like I was saying, I've seen community theaters that will add pants and add other parts to make it. So it feels a little bit more, um, or less cats, cats-like, but more still like human-like. And these were very much a lot. And like, even the wigs, like I saw some where it's like, it's wrapping around their chin.

[21:07] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. So we had a split. Um, there were some of us who had like wigs on, like I had a wig, Tugger had a wig. Um, and I think one other person had a wig. I know Jenny had a wig. But everyone else, yeah, they were like hoods.

[21:27] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah.

[21:27] Mike Abrams: We had our big fur and then they also had a hood on top that would like button.

[21:33] Mike Abrams: Yeah. How many performances did you do of the show? Was it like a weekend or was it like a couple?

[21:39] Katie Fairbourne: It was a full week.

[21:42] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I, we did, I think it was like a Tuesday night was our opening.

[21:48] Mike Abrams: Okay. So you do, it was some, it's more than just like Friday to Sunday. Like it's a, it's a week worth of.

[21:52] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. Well, it was like a, it was like the week I, we did a matinee on Saturday, no show Sunday. And then I think we did a Monday, Tuesday.

[22:00] Mike Abrams: Okay. What's the audience reaction to this? Like, was it, was it as viral as it is now back then? Like, did people come and like, no one, it's just, it's just a show they're putting on. It's just a show they're putting on. It's like your college roommates are here to support your weird thing. And like, I remember my family came, my brother told me afterwards, like, you know, with that nose on sitting downstage center with the light coming at you like this, you look like you're about to murder someone. And I was like, this cat's got claws, I guess.

[22:34] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Do they know cats though? Like even your family, did they know the story?

[22:38] Katie Fairbourne: My, my family does. Cause I had that show on repeat for at least a year.

[22:43] Mike Abrams: So are they looking at this going like, huh, these were some decisions.

[22:47] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I think my family might've been the only one going, this was a decision.

[22:51] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Okay.

[22:54] Katie Fairbourne: So there was no internet lore happening at the time. Like this is just a week of shows. And this is what it is.

[23:03] Katie Fairbourne: And then it doesn't blow up till years later when it, you know, the cat, I mean, cats has come back into the limelight a lot at in, in 2015, it was just starting to come back with the revival in the U.S. but like now it's kind of everywhere and all over the place. And there's a lot of productions, a joke, a ball. And, and so this, this went super viral. And I think that so many people have questions because of it, but I love kind of hearing that it's just like, no, this is just a show. This is just our version. Yeah. It's the way we did it.

[23:30] Katie Fairbourne: Did you in your kind of like revived storytelling of it, what was your Bombay arena story? Like, do you remember what you like? Cause her answer is not what you were allowed to perform.

[23:42] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. So I know, um, because I wasn't like from the musical theater department, I was a dancer on loan pretty much. So I didn't actually sing bombs songs. I think I did a couple of her lines, but like Macavity, I was not the one singing it.

[24:02] Katie Fairbourne: You're just dancing.

[24:03] Katie Fairbourne: I was just one of the dancers. So I, I don't remember like how we did like backstory stuff of like how our cats came to know each other or whatever. I know that one of the other cats and I made this whole backstory that I was her older sister and that I was a rodeo queen cat because of the way that my wig was set. So like,

[24:27] Mike Abrams: Okay. Okay. Is it, was it Demeter though? Cause that one can be, that could have been for sure thought of like, there's a, there's a world where Demeter and Bombay read our brothers or sister sister. I don't think it was, I don't remember what cat she played. Oh no. I mean, it's okay. They were all very different. So it's not like, I don't think I could even look at some of them in like one of the questions I was curious about is that in the photos I've seen, like some of them, I can't even figure out who it's supposed to be, which is also kind of challenging. Um, but I'm also like, because the body types are all different, like cats actually has in its core, like this one, this character is supposed to be much taller and this character is supposed to be short and tiny and tumbles.

And they've kind of gotten a little bit away from that in more recent productions where it's like, we're going to just have a performer be the performer. Right. But, but with those, with those costumes on, like it was very different. Yeah. It didn't really, did it change the story at all based on the costumes or was so much of this just like we're doing our own thing because we have to, and we're just making it up kind of our own way.

[25:34] Katie Fairbourne: I think it was more of the latter. Like, I think we didn't really have a choice, but to reinvent it. Um, there was no way that we could really go with any of like the previous headcanon lore stuff. Um, just cause the way that we had to do it for the university that we were at for the honor code that we all said that we would follow for just like, I mean, we would do prayer before every rehearsal. Like it was very much like, we can't in any way, shape or form have this not be our own thing.

[26:00] Mike Abrams: Yeah. How did you approach, I mean, there is again, a very sacrificial ending to the show. Like there's, there's so much religious undertone in the show to begin with. Um, you know, it's, it's old Deuteronomy. Like there's a lot that you can pull from it from that could be really derived from religious texts. How did you handle Grizabella? Like, is she walking to another room instead of like being reborn? Like that, that feels like that also can be a little challenging on the religious side.

[26:41] Katie Fairbourne: Um, it's definitely challenging on the religious side. I don't think we did anything different with Griz. I think we still did the idea of her like having this cycle of reincarnation kind of thing. Um, even if that's not like what we believe in at this university kind of thing. Interesting. Okay. So, they're fine with that part. Just yeah. Fine with that. You just can't show your body.

[27:05] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. Just, you just can't be in a unitard, but we can, we can murder one and have a reincarnation. That's totally fine. That's cool. Okay. Okay. Um, when it went viral, did people do like you chat with people that did the cast or did you like talk to other people being like, Oh my God, this thing again? I wish I did. Honestly. I wish I had like opened up a group chat and found everyone on Facebook and been like, yo, you guys see this? Like, I wish I would have, I should still honestly. And just let them know how much I love them still, how much I sometimes think of our time as trans felines.

[27:41] Katie Fairbourne: Did they are like, are you aware of any recordings or any version? Like, cause we're, we're kind of pre, I mean, we're like at the edge of smartphone. Like we're not, like we're not at the point where someone's going to be having a documentation of it, but like, did you, doesn't the theater department archive a lot of these?

[27:56] Katie Fairbourne: I would assume so, but I don't know where they would keep them. I went on a deep dive through the website, like probably a week ago now. And I was just like trying my very hardest to see if I could find anything. All I could find were some photos.

[28:14] Mike Abrams: Yeah. The photo gallery. That's like, that's it. Maybe 80 pictures.

[28:20] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. But there's nothing else. Like that's literally all I can find.

[28:23] Katie Fairbourne: And even with that, it's like, everything else is kind of assumed. Like there's not, there's not like a, Oh, the, the school definitely said this. It was more of like, we kind of assumed that they made this costume choice because the school has this honor code.

[28:36] Mike Abrams: Yeah. And so there's no, there's like, again, so much lore behind it with no buddy really willing to answer the questions or, I mean, not willing. I think there's probably Teresa and me and like three other people that are actually willing to search for this. If it's cats, it's very niche cats fandom and it's finest. But I'm glad that we're able to kind of get some of those answers. So what, what haven't I asked you about the production that you were like, we got to get out there still.

[29:01] Katie Fairbourne: Man, I don't know. Maybe the AC breaking.

[29:05] Mike Abrams: AC break. Yeah. You're in the heaviest costumes in the world.

[29:08] Katie Fairbourne: Heaviest costumes in the world. I remember like opening night. Cause it broke like five minutes into the show.

[29:19] Mike Abrams: So no chance to fix it.

[29:21] Katie Fairbourne: On a Tuesday or Thursday, one of those two days. And no one can come fix it until the weekend when no one's in the building, but everyone's in the building cause we're in the middle of a show. But I remember like in the middle during intermission, we went out into our green room and they had got like ice blocks and like the little fans and like put it in front and blow everyone like stripped down half of their fur and was just like sitting in sweaty Lycra in front of a fan.

[29:51] Mike Abrams: I mean, that's how that shows hard enough to do with you. If you don't add any other elements, like even if you have slightly different choreography or whatever, like it's such a demanding show. And I think you did the whole thing. Like you didn't make major cuts, right? Like it was still cats.

[30:06] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. We didn't do like peaks and parks. Um, we didn't do.

[30:10] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, probably not the growl tiger. We didn't do growl tiger. We didn't do girdlebone.

[30:15] Mike Abrams: But even if you, that's still two and a half to two hours, 20 minutes, like worth of dancing and singing, even if you don't do that.

[30:20] Katie Fairbourne: I mean, we did pre-record our vocals, like the big numbers. We pre-recorded all of that so that we, when we were dancing, it didn't sound like 25 people were struggling in the middle of a big old ball.

[30:28] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Was the junkyard fairly 1998 junkyard or was it Idaho junkyard?

[30:45] Katie Fairbourne: See, out of everything in my cat's production, I remember the scenery the best I feel like, because I thought they did a great job with like making it have the levels that I felt like it needed personally. And then like there was the boot drop still. So like, I liked my junkyard was a good junkyard. I think.

[31:12] Mike Abrams: That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, what's kind of fun about cats too, is that there's the, there's a lot of ways, like the production I saw most recently did it in more of an amusement park theme. And there's been a couple like that. There's was a cowboy one in Fort Worth last year, because as long as you get the vibe and you have the moon and you have the tire or some version of a tire type of way, you're kind of good. So I kind of like that you can do a localized version of it for you.

[31:39] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, absolutely.

[31:39] Mike Abrams: Okay. I want to make sure I don't have any, I think I've asked you all the questions like decision, costume, choreography. I'm like, I will do my best to post as many pictures with this episode as possible.

[31:52] Katie Fairbourne: I mean, I can email you some that I saved because I went through all these pictures the other day and was like crying. My eyes out was laughing so hard.

[31:59] Mike Abrams: Are these the ones you found online or extra ones that you had?

[32:01] Katie Fairbourne: No, they were ones I found online, but like, I would, I do have extra ones on hand. So I can send you some.

[32:06] Mike Abrams: I was going to say, anything that you have that you can share that's either not out there, or again, it's so hard to find anyways.

[32:11] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, we have like a whole Facebook album, because you know, this was peak Facebook time.

[32:16] Mike Abrams: Oh, peak Facebook, yeah.

[32:17] Katie Fairbourne: So we've got a whole Facebook album that like everyone is a collaborator on. So I'm sure we'll find some good ones.

[32:24] Mike Abrams: We'll find some fun ones to share to kind of just show the experience. I wish there was a video. I just want to like, I'm just so fascinated by like, what did Tugger do? Like, how did you get away with Tugger? Like so much of that end of that song is just like straight hip thrust with the female cats like running to the legs.

[32:42] Katie Fairbourne: And I know we did do like the fan pit mosh thing, but I don't remember how we got away from like, I don't, I don't even know if we did get away from it.

[32:56] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[32:56] Katie Fairbourne: Because like, at that point, I don't know if you can.

[32:59] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I mean, well, that's, that is the hard part is that like, it is a very loose plot to begin with. So there is levels for interpretation that you can really make some, some adjustments. But at its core, so much of this is rooted in, in the sexuality of the cats. And like, a lot of the backstories are very sexual, and a lot of the motions are very sexual. And it's supposed to be like, they are very clear in the choreography that that's what's supposed to represent. And so to have a version that's very clearly, like, I do think I go back to, sadly, I go back to the kids version, where it's like, they're not going to do some of those things for the kids version, because they shouldn't. But, but they put you also in these massive costumes. Yeah. So you'd have to work around that to begin with.

[33:44] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah. I mean, what a way to work around it, I guess.

[33:49] Mike Abrams: I'm sure it was an experience. And I know, I'm sure I have a million more questions. And hopefully, this is maybe just the first of now people willing to come on and answer more from the costume or director or anybody else we know that is willing to share more about the decision making process.

[34:05] Katie Fairbourne: For sure.

[34:06] Mike Abrams: Let's do some Cats Rapid Fire here to close us out. So if you could go on any night to play any cat, just for one night, which character would you want to perform as?

[34:12] Katie Fairbourne: Probably Jenny.

[34:18] Mike Abrams: Jenny. Okay, do that tap number.

[34:22] Katie Fairbourne: Favorite and least favorite cats from a personality standpoint. Like, who's from that 1998 movie, you're like, that's my BFF, and this is the one I don't want to talk to?

[34:25] Katie Fairbourne: Honestly, I am a Demeter stan. I would spend all day with Demeter if I could. I think someone I do not want to hang out with is Skimble. We have personalities that do not match.

[34:44] Mike Abrams: Okay. Favorite song from the show?

[34:48] Katie Fairbourne: I know it's a cliche, but it's Memory.

[34:50] Mike Abrams: Memory. All right. Which cat do you think would be best suited to go to BYUIda?

[34:58] Katie Fairbourne: That is a question. I'm going to go with...

[35:02] Katie Fairbourne: I thought about this a lot too, so don't worry.

[35:04] Katie Fairbourne: I can tell. I'm going to go with Mistoffelees.

[35:09] Mike Abrams: Interesting. I was not thinking that route.

[35:12] Katie Fairbourne: It might be because he's in a suit.

[35:15] Mike Abrams: Okay, so you went with the suit. I was thinking Mistoffelees has a lot of flamboyance, which I'm not sure is going to be fully accepted.

[35:25] Katie Fairbourne: Didn't think about that one.

[35:27] Mike Abrams: I went with Skimbleshanks. He's already got a nice vest on. He's very put together. He's very orderly on time. He's going to follow the rules.

[35:34] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, that's fair. Well, he is the rules.

[35:37] Katie Fairbourne: He is the rules, so I feel like he's ready for the honor code.

[35:39] Mike Abrams: That's fair. That's fair. I'm going to switch it to Skimble. The other option, I think, is Busford Jones.

[35:43] Katie Fairbourne: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[35:44] Mike Abrams: He's just posh, and he's also in a suit.

[35:47] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, okay. This show is about how I don't think Grizabelle's the right jellicle choice. You all still decided to sacrifice a cat, so Katie, who's your jellicle choice and why?

[35:59] Katie Fairbourne: Mistoffelees, because he's the only one who deserves a reincarnation. Because when Macavity kidnaps old Doot, the only person who can get him back is Mistoffelees.

[36:14] Mike Abrams: Yeah, he is the hero in the story.

[36:15] Katie Fairbourne: He is the hero.

[36:16] Mike Abrams: Yeah, okay. I love it. I'm sure this has sparked more questions than it's answered, which is great. I love that we were able to get some of this history on record, so thank you for coming on and been willing to share your experience in this piece of cat's lore.

[36:34] Katie Fairbourne: Yeah, of course. If anyone else from this cast reaches out to you, please let me know, because we'll share stories so that we don't get doubles.

[36:43] Katie Fairbourne: If you start a group chat, please just put me in it. I'm ready, because I'll happily answer the questions of what they didn't tell you.

[36:51] Mike Abrams: Yeah, we'll do that, and then you can post them all on your story.

[36:54] Katie Fairbourne: There you go. We're helping your social media page.

[36:57] Mike Abrams: We're going to answer this question, and I already messaged Teresa being like, hey, I got some answers.

[37:05] Mike Abrams: We're going to follow up for her, because she's the one that posed the question and originally found it, so kudos to her for uncovering you all 10 years later.

[37:15] Katie Fairbourne: 10 years later. Thank you for bringing up the drama.

[37:18] Mike Abrams: Well, it was pretty buried. The school, whether intentional or not, did a fairly good job of not having this be part of the lore as much as it should be.

[37:32] Katie Fairbourne: For sure.

[37:34] Mike Abrams: Well, again, thank you for coming on, and thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, a podcast breakdown of the cast. I ask you to follow and subscribe to Epoch Podcast, Spotify, or any of our other podcasts. Follow us on social media at TheWrongCatDied or check our website at thewrongcatdied.com.