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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network, visit vpm.fm to discover more.

[0:13] Speaker 2: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the one good night. I'm the one good night. I welcome to

[0:30] Speaker 3: the wrong cat died the podcast breakdown of the cats. Tastrophe, I'm your host. Mike Abrams, and today we have another amazing guest. She stars. She starred as Jenny Andy dots in the 2016 Broadway revival of cats. Welcome Sarah M Jenkins, and thank you for joining me.

[0:46] Speaker 3: So I always love asking first your history with the musical. So how much did you know about cats before you decided to take on the tap dancing mother of Jenny? Were you well aware? Did you do it as a production growing up? Did you see it as a kid? Like, where were you on the spectrum? Yeah, yeah.

[1:05] Speaker 1: Okay. So basically, I had never done a production before, but when I was a kid, I want to say I was probably, probably 11 or 12, and I'm from San Diego, California, and the tour came through, and we went and saw the Pacific, and I remember sitting there watching it is this, like, probably between 10 and 12, and I had danced since I was, you know, like since I could walk. And I remember sitting there seeing it, and I didn't think, Oh, my God, this is amazing and life changing. But what I did think was, oh, what I'm doing after school can be a career. Somebody should have, like, been like and, but like, pay more attention to math, but, but no, so, yeah. So instead, because I've always kind of, I'm the person that's not like I love and I do it for the art. I feel like I'm the person that got bamboozled into musical theater, thinking it would be a good living. And then by the time I was in it so deep, it was too late, so But I definitely saw cats, and was like, this is, oh my god, this is it like I can, I can do this, like all these singing and dancing lessons that I'm doing, this is what I can apply it to. And I had seen other shows, but for some reason, cats was the one that that got me. And I was like, Yeah, I can do this. And then how is that the one that got you? What else did you see? I don't know. It must have been garbage. I don't know, but I will say, though this is a two parter. So then I started, I mean, it was from Southern California, so I started working a lot as a kid and a teenager, and I saw the tour when it came through again when I was about 19, and at that point, I had already done a full US tour. I had gone. I did my first tour a month out of high school. I went back to California for a little bit, and the non equity tour was coming back through the Civic again. So I went, Yes, I'm gonna, I'm gonna revisit this. And I brought my little sister, and we went back to the show, and we left it in our mission left.

[3:14] Speaker 1: right. So the thing that totally sparked my interest in saying I'm gonna do this for a career. I saw the show again, you know, roughly 10 years later, and was like, What is this? And like, just got up and left. I was like, No, thank you. So it's pretty hilarious that the last time I saw cats before I was on the stage, truly was when I left at intermission. I

[3:38] Speaker 3: mean, you were done. You were done, though, like your, your main role is done by that point,

[3:44] Speaker 1: totally, oh my god, so funny, so funny. Yeah, so that was it, so inspiration,

[3:50] Speaker 3: yeah, was as a kid, you couldn't even handle watching as a young adult,

[3:56] Speaker 1: I totally couldn't. And it was the one with the blow up set too. And I remember just being like, are they bouncing around an astro jump? What? Yeah, man, when the when the tour turned non equity, and Troika took it over, back in, whenever that was, and the tour went out for, you know, a million years, but the way that they downsized the set, it was essentially an astro jump so they would plug it in in these smaller theaters, and the entire set would just blow up. So it wasn't weight bearing, like you couldn't, you couldn't, you know, the trunk didn't open and you couldn't climb all over the set.

[4:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, it was not. So is it basically the equivalent of like a bounce

[4:39] Speaker 1: castle? Yeah, 100% and actually, this last tour that went out of our revival used that same blow up set.

[4:50] Speaker 1: Because another fun fact that, like nobody really knows about surprise is I went out to the tour last summer for one week in an emergency. Emergency situation. And I got there and was like, What is that noise? Because

[5:06] Speaker 3: you walk backstage and all

[5:10] Speaker 1: you hear is every day, yeah, it's a blow, just a it runs the whole show like it

[5:19] Speaker 1: going through, yeah, great guitar blast in, because the audience would just hear an astro jump anyway, but yeah, so, so that's kind of it. And then I, I auditioned for the original company of this revival. I initially went in for rumple teaser, which I have been told my whole life, like, that's what I You're a rumple teaser. That's what you do. You're short, and you tumble, and that's it. So I went in and, like, clearly didn't get it, and then once replacement started coming back up, I actually went back in for rumpelteezer again. And there was only a few of us, and it was during that that Andy, who I'd known for a while, said, Wait a minute, don't don't you tap. I was like, yes, yes, that's actually what I prefer to do. And it was that moment that I knew, Oh, okay, they know that Eloise is leaving, so I would got slated into into that. So I technically never auditioned for Jenny, really, I only auditioned for most season twice. Just came

[6:23] Speaker 3: in and got it. I still can't get over the fact that it's, it was a bounce Castle, basically, for a set, yeah, how does that? I still can't get I can't find them how that works. So you can't climb on it. Like, there's a bunch of stuff in the productions. I only saw the 2006 I saw your production twice, yeah, and I've seen the movie old and new, and that's it. No no other versions, no other times. I've now heard a lot about a lot of them, yeah, but my I remember very vividly a lot of things happening, of like, people jumping up around and like, how do you build like, how do you build a a skimbo Shanks train, if you can't all be standing on the set. Yeah, it's all just done on the floor. That is amazing. Yeah, but I'm telling you, this is a gift that keeps giving it more and

[7:10] Speaker 1: more. And nobody had warned me. So when I went out to to the tour, and I sat there and I watched it the first night, and I was so confused. I was like, what? Why isn't Jimmy in the in the car, and instead, she just like, walked out on a little ramp, and then, like, instead of the trunk opening and rolling out and doing all that, she just like, slid down. So listen, it worked. It was fine. Audiences loved it. But I truly it was. It took me by surprise.

[7:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess when you're on a when you're watching a tour, you're kind of dealing with whatever the nuances of that theater, like they're not all the same. They don't have the same space. So you kind of expect that, but I don't that's still fascinating to me. Okay, let's, let's move forward. So you you saw it as a right around the fringe of where I'm okay with parenting, bringing children, I don't think they just like too young. It's very, too sexually aggressive of a show, in my opinion, for kids to go to. But teenager, I think you can kind of get away with and so, but I can't get over it now that you saw it and then came back, and it was like, This is my life changing moment. I've made my career decisions off of this show. Yeah, and you came back, did you doubt yourself after when you saw it the second time and left the intermission? We were like, I made the wrong career path? No, because I

[8:26] Speaker 1: had already been working professionally in the biz. You know what I mean. So, like, so, right? I'm doing the good I'm doing the good shit. Now, who needs that anymore? Fast forward that then I end up doing the show. Yeah.

[8:36] Speaker 3: Okay, so what did you when you get to replace Eloise. What did they tell you about Jenny?

[8:44] Speaker 1: All right, so it's interesting when you replace in a show, because you don't get that full, you know, couple month experience of building things with the rest of the cast and doing all that, you know, you get I had four weeks of rehearsal. Luckily, I was put into the show with basically three other people. So I was going into the show with a new Mr. Police, a new bomb and a new Demeter. And luckily, Jenny and bomb and Demeter do a lot kind of similar track work. So it was great for us to all learn the show together, because we interacted so much, so that was good, and they're not my daughters, are they not? No. Also, here's the thing, like in the original production, Jenny was a more of a matronly, you know, character lady who did a couple shuffles, and in this version, she's like, not old, you know what I mean. And I'm like, Ryan doing like, this crazy ass shimmy tap dance. And I'm like, what so good. So I'm sure, like, Whatever, whatever the idea was that Jenny was in. This original, iconic production, to me, is not who Jenny was in this one, because it's just it wasn't choreographed or set up the same way. So I took them more as that, you know, they were my pals than my kids.

[10:13] Speaker 3: Interesting. It's such a different way of like, it's always seems that Jenny's the mom that takes care of everything.

[10:19] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, what was what was fun is that, I mean, we were given bits of backstory and things to create, but I was also friends with people that were already in the show, which was super helpful to me. Like Mamie is one of my dear, dear old friends, like we've known each other, we toured together. It was great. So I was super excited to be in the show with her. Tyler's an old friend of mine, Sarah Ford, like, I had real life relationships with all these people. So it was a lot easier to jump into the show with these pre established relationships than somebody who didn't know anybody and was like, Hi, I'm here dressed like as a cat. Who am I supposed to like? So that was, which

[10:58] Speaker 3: is a fascinating thing to know, because I heard Sarah and Tyler said that, said that as well. And there are some super fans out there that like they they're not happy if you're very clearly friends with a cat that that's not, you're not supposed to be friends with that cat, like it's a there's some traditionalist that's like, No, you shouldn't be. You're supposed to not like them, or that's supposed to be a rival or and fascinating to me. It's so

[11:26] Speaker 1: funny. Yeah, cats fans are fans. You know what? I mean, that's, it was. It's different. It's definitely, it's amazing to be a part of that, to be a part of a show that has that kind of fan culture. But, I mean, I'm not gonna lie like I started, I opened the show by as being one of the cats that goes through the audience. So I started in the basement of the Neil Simon and it the ones that started down the basement were so they'd call places, and most people would go to their sides of the stage. And then there's a group of maybe five or six of us that used to have to go all the way down underneath the theater and hang out in this dirty like, probably body filled basement, and wait till the audience went to their seats, and then would get released into the lobby downstairs and just get to hang out there until our entrance for the whole Overture and stuff. And I mean, that group of people was uh Jenny and Tugger and jelly and bomb and Mungo Jerry. I mean, basically it was a it was all a group of us. They were all friends, so we would just goof off and hang out down there. But, um, so I had to enter through the audience and going through the audience to enter in person is much different than starting the show on stage and being able to survey the audience. You know what I mean? Because it's dark and you start to sing, and you're going through the aisle with my sole purpose being to scare children a first and foremost, who can I find that looks like they're under 10 that I can try to make scream during this opening number, and then second, like you're scoping out who is there. And sometimes people would come in full costume, dressed up, and I would scream like I would be terrified, because I think I'm gonna go up and scare the shit out of some kid right now. And then I turn around and there's like a 50 year old man in a homemade Manchester costume that then terrifies me so much that I have to, like, run away and continue the opening number. So it was always, it was always a treat.

[13:31] Speaker 3: There's no this is, again, fascinating to me that, like one we can't we have to use a bounce castle for a sad but also, there's no way to in these theaters to get you to the the entrance, besides, like, going through the the, like, crawl space below the theater. Like, how is this? How's that a thing? Like, is there's no way. There's no, like, side door. Like, how's that the only way to get you there? Yeah,

[13:54] Speaker 1: well, because, I mean, these, these theaters, are so old, you know what I mean, so you can't really go outside, so it's just crawling your way, walking down to the boiler room. Started to show me the boiler room.

[14:07] Speaker 3: Under the seats, come back out. Did you have any because, again, that was the other thing is, I was not on the aisle when I saw it the first time. I was very glad I wasn't, because I would have been the person too scared and not been happy about it. Oh, totally. But did you ever have any experiences? I think Tyler mentioned was the one who mentioned was the one who mentioned he got hit, he got punched by a kid. But did you have anything where you scared somebody and they weren't happy?

[14:27] Speaker 1: Ah, not really, not really. I feel we are very similar in I will never sit on the aisle seeing any show ever, because I'm terrified of people like me, you know, like I know I know what I do when I'm in that position and when I'm an audience member, I would be terrified to encounter me as a performer. So that being said, nothing, nothing ever got too crazy or aggressive for me. I mean, there was a moment in the show, one of my favorite moments, that. Is after, after Tugger, because Jenny and Tugger have a real complicated relationship. And when I went into the show, Tyler and I got super excited. And there's a moment after his number where he would go down into the audience and take the photo, like the Tugger photo, and you'd always kind of either sit in an empty seat or, you know, grab somebody up from the audience. And Jenny's job was to run down there and kind of scold him and try to get people away from him, and kind of have this little fight. Well, there was a there were a couple weeks there where, I don't remember, maybe it was a few shows in a row where we just couldn't get any of the audience to interact with us. So we started, we started putting on our own just three act play in the aisles. And we thought we talked about afterwards and went, I mean, we're gonna get a note like, somebody's gonna say something. Mike, nobody ever said anything. So the problem is, when you have people like me and Tyler, and you don't tell us not to do something, we're just going to not only keep doing it, but it's going to keep growing. It's going to keep growing. So like the last month of the show, we had a whole soap opera happening. We went down there, we got in fights, we made out, we got married, we like, we would just get away. We got away with so much. And I think you can get away with so much in the show as long as you are, you know, full out, because you're wearing a unitard with a painted face and like, kind of anything goes.

[16:35] Speaker 1: yes, that's the thing. You can't you can't not commit. But if you commit, you can pretty much find a way to justify anything in this show.

[16:43] Speaker 3: So with live theater too, it's like, you know, I've seen it twice years ago, and so it's like, the memory of me trying to kind of pull back, is like, I don't think I would have caught that, but you doing it every day, you kind of piece it together. Now, there is fans that have gone many times to see a lot, you know, there's the junkyard that goes a lot, but even then, I think, like, that's probably something that maybe they're lucky if they catch on, because you're not seeing three or four shows in a row, you're maybe catching it once or twice a week.

[17:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And it was, and that was also so fun, because there were people that saw it enough that they would catch on to certain things like that. But for the most part, this show is just so visually stimulating that you could see it 10 times and watch something different every single time and and completely miss things, which I think is something that's pretty that's pretty cool about it. It

[17:37] Speaker 3: is. It's what makes it really an impressive and thing, it's, honestly, it's the way, reason I can keep having these conversations over and over again, because, like, I learned something new almost every time. Because there's just such different variations, because it's run for so long, and there's people doing, you know, small tweaks here and there to this, which is no story, there is no plot, no

[17:57] Speaker 1: I'm trying to actually look up right now. I used to have, I need to find it. I used to have a note on my phone that was my summary of cats that I used to send to my friends that were coming to the show. When I would say, don't try to figure anything out. These are the ABC bullet points that you need to know. And I think you would get a kick out of it. But I'm trying to, I want

[18:26] Speaker 3: to, I want to hear yours, because then I can give you my version of it. Did you? Did you recommend to your friends to be intoxicated

[18:34] Speaker 1: always, but here, but only to a certain degree? I said, I said, this is a, you know, it's a single edible or a two drink show,

[18:48] Speaker 3: not the what happens if they go off the cliff? Like, What's the worry if they go past that?

[18:54] Speaker 1: If you go past I mean, here's the thing, if you go past that and somebody in full cat face, like sneaks up on you. Where we're going to a place that is, that is dangerous, which I actually found it

[19:08] Speaker 1: your we want to hear last This, this. This note was last touched. It says, November 18, 2017, this is what I would send to my friends. All right, I haven't read it. It says, this is all you need to know about cats. One opening. What it means is, why are all these people in our junkyard? That's the entire summary of the opening. Number is us hanging out in our clan, saying, why are all these people in our junkyard? Summed it. Summed it up for you eight minutes, summed up two naming of cats. Okay, fine. If you're gonna stay, then we'll explain ourselves in the party that we're having kind of fair. Number three, Gumby cat, the first contestant who could win and come back in one of my nine lives. You should pick me because I tap dance. Duh. Four, Tugger interrupts the contest because he thinks he's cool, but is actually just a jackass. Yes, great. Five, Grizabella, when cats do drugs, we don't like them anymore.

[20:08] Speaker 1: you concur case sticks, Buster for Jones, the next contestant. We like him because he's fat and Joanie and Jenny is apparently a chubby chaser. Seven, Mongo, Mongo, Jerry and rumble, teaser, troublemaker, troublemakers out there so that we can go get water and pee.

[20:28] Speaker 3: So they're just like, they're the break. So everyone at the cacking, they're one

[20:31] Speaker 1: of the only times that all the other cats get to leave stage. Yeah. So on this note, it's true too, when you think about it, that is the only time since the show started that anybody has a chance to pee. And also, if you're talking about an old Broadway theater, there's not like, unlimited bathrooms, so sometimes you'd have to look at each other on stage and be like, who's gonna pee today? And the two people that had to pee the worst could go and run and pee. There's time. There were time for two people to pee in the girls dressing room during Mongo Jerry and rumble teaser

[21:05] Speaker 3: built that into your your storyline is that, like, look, this is behind the scenes of how this actually works. Yeah.

[21:12] Speaker 1: This is my break. Think about it, too. This isn't a normal costume where you're just like, oh, let me tuck up my microphone and pee like you have to run off stage and dressers. Two dressers were always waiting by the bathrooms for the first two that came. You would just stand there, and they would have to UN snap your entire unitard, pull it down. You'd run in. You'd be sweaty, so when you came back out, it took two people to try to put a wet unitard back on you in enough time to run around stage and re enter for Old Deuteronomy. That's probably more information than you ever wanted. Yeah, it makes sense, though. I,

[21:47] Speaker 3: I, well, that's, that's the part like, when you're gonna get to the intermission. But I can't believe that Old Deuteronomy doesn't take his break and just sits up there. Oh

[21:57] Speaker 1: yeah, that's his like, job. That's, what's next. It says eight Old Deuteronomy, the leader who picks the winner. Then we're evangelical ball, our big Orgy Party. That's it. That's the only explanation. Our big Orgy Party. Then I said 10. Act Two starts with us all super sad, because old dude is clearly mad at us for being mean to Grizz, but whatever. So that's what happened there. 11 is Gus. We were all meanies. So now we have to listen to the old man and pretend that we care about acting in his weird dog battle. Sure, sure. Skimble shanks. He does shit on trains. Macavity. He's rapey and scary and kidnaps old dude. Mr. Police, don't worry, he'll find him. He does magic, lights and shit and lots of turns. And then we're at 15, Grizz old heroin cat. But I guess she belts high enough that we all accept her. And then 16, she wins and flies away to pussy heaven. And I'm like, great, that bitch is gone. So it left. Guess that means I'm back to taking center stage. And that's cats.

[23:00] Speaker 3: That is a great synopsis. You've nailed it. There's nothing else you need

[23:04] Speaker 1: to know. Yeah. I mean, truly though everybody was like, Oh, I get it now, because then they go, what's it about? I'm like, there are 16 points. And then just kick back and enjoy the singing and dancing.

[23:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, my elevator pitch was always it's the weirdest competition show you've ever seen with the cat being murdered at the end. Totally,

[23:24] Speaker 1: totally. We're all very eager to die, but before one of us dies, we want to make sure we have that orgy.

[23:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, the and there's the introductions, the naming of the cats. It's like, you know? And the the show starts, and it's like, up coming up. Here's what's happening. And

[23:40] Speaker 1: all these cats that don't actually exist on stage, but we're talking about them anyway.

[23:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, you name a bunch of names that don't matter. Yeah? That don't matter for the orgy totally. Yeah, that's a, that's a very strong synopsis. Thank

[23:56] Speaker 1: you. Thank you so much. It should be published. Yeah? I mean, there's,

[23:59] Speaker 3: there's a chance like it's now recorded, but you can help push it TS

[24:06] Speaker 1: Eliot with just like the most beautiful pros. And then I sum it up to 16 points. I've still

[24:13] Speaker 3: summed it up and I watched, I watched a version of the A weird, offbeat, a little like kinky erotic version of The X Factor.

[24:22] Speaker 1: Oh, it absolutely is, yeah, that's how

[24:26] Speaker 3: I summed it, yeah, with a judge, with a couple, you know, young characters performing couple old characters performing the weird kind of, like, throwback to last season, is the orgy of like, Oh, here's kind of all the other people. Like, that's that was it. And then, and then one Belter wins, and we move on.

[24:46] Speaker 1: True. It's true. Oh, my God, so funny.

[24:51] Speaker 3: And the reason I the only reason I knew that is because I saw Leona Lewis the first time, and I think that's the only reason I pieced that together. I don't think there's any other reason I would have. Probably walked out just being like, happily enjoyed watching people sing and dance, not piecing any storyline, having no idea what I witnessed, but it was probably around your number or tuggers number, when I started to be like, it's just cat after cat after cat after cat. I'm like, it's just, it's a competition.

[25:21] Speaker 3: So that's my frame of reference, and that's how I've come up with all of my synopsis of it. No other real reason, which is why, whenever I talk to people from your cast who give me very thoughtful, cerebral like the redemption story, so I'm like, I'm glad you said that, that Chris Bell was on heroin, because that's

[25:37] Speaker 1: kind of what I fully well, the only backstory. I mean, there were certain, certainly back stories that we were given, and then, as it happened, you know, like they, they kept developing, which is why I think, too, it's fun, because based on based it would be different based on who was on stage that night, too. You know what I mean? Like, if somebody was on for a certain cat, but you had a relationship with that actual person, or the way that that person was in that role could be totally different from the way that I interacted with a bum on a different night. Yeah.

[26:11] Speaker 3: And you know, 40 years of doing this, like, there's different versions of like, different cats names, they've replaced. Some they've changed some. There was Tugger. Was a rapping street cat one time in London. Oh, yes, I heard about, I heard about that, yeah, like, there's a lot to it. There's a Gilbert. That was my favorite. I found in Japan, who knew, like, it's like a samurai cat, essentially. It seems like a little culturally insensitive, but it was when I read about it, it was, there was a scene that I don't think existed in the US at all that they added to a, you know, a production overseas, all

[26:47] Speaker 1: right, well, there was that. And again, people that, like I said, you know, the purists that love the show and that did the original version, I think have such strong feelings about it. But it's somebody that was like, this is fun dancing and thinking I get to be with my friends. And like the revival. I think it's great and wonderful, but I don't have that same like, This is it? This is the story, and this is the only way I'm like, make it up as you go.

[27:10] Speaker 3: You read your point. That's very obvious, that that was very well summarized.

[27:14] Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you. But, um, but that being said within that, I feel like it, it can either be a performer's dream or nightmare. Like, I feel like you have to really love improv and kind of flying by the seat of your pants within limitations to really enjoy that show to the fullest. So I mean, when I get to spend half my show running around the stage with, you know, Tucker or Tyler or jelly or any of these people. And they're, they're quintessential yes Anders, you can just have a different show every single night, which keeps it entertaining for us. But I feel like that also can contribute to why people come back and see the show so many times, definitely.

[28:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also, it was your dream as a 10 year old and your nightmare as a 19

[28:06] Speaker 1: year old. It was, I just didn't realize that it would involve, you know, rolling out of a trunk in a fat suit, and here we are, and

[28:13] Speaker 3: then a costume change. Yeah. So when I remember when I saw because I I saw you and eliez because of the timing, the the part I just the number, your number. The first time, I was just like, I was still, it was too early in the show for me to be I was, I was completely dumbstruck at that point still. But when I saw it the second time, I'm sitting here going, oh yeah, this is the part where I like the costume change and I love the tap dancing number, but I'm like, Oh, this department's gonna be like, rats and cockroaches again. It's gonna weird me out, because it's like my New York nightmare. It's like, coming near me from the Midwest, New York, we're having a rat or cockroach in my apartment. And it was like, Hey, we're gonna now have them as human adults on stage, tap dancing, tap

[28:57] Speaker 1: dancing. I mean, at least in this revival, that section was very, very truncated. I believe in the original, there were a lot more dancing cockroaches and such. And I think this, what was it? Three of them just came out and did two eight counts while I did a costume change. And then they were like, Let's get out of this.

[29:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, but watching the 1998 movie too, it's like, there's a whole line of it. It's like, 10, oh yeah, that shit. That's just terrifying. And then the movie, the new movie, was even more terrifying. I can't, I don't know if I have the strength to talk about that. I don't really want to talk about it, but that part, like, again, was a lot

[29:29] Speaker 1: to like, why is she? Why is she eating them? Yeah. And then she took her and then she unzipped her skin.

[29:36] Speaker 3: That was the costume change. I kind of like, I at least thought, like, oh, okay, I get this is the costume change they're trying

[29:41] Speaker 1: to mimic. But did they have to be that terrifying?

[29:47] Speaker 1: mean, I mean, I will, I Yeah, it was, it was a treat. The whole thing was such a treat.

[29:53] Speaker 3: So my last Jenny, any doubts? Question for you. And then into some rapid fire. And. Final question, but do you think your character is the laziest character, or literally running the show behind the scenes?

[30:09] Speaker 1: Um, I think she is pretty much running the show. I mean, she's lazy. I feel like she just has the opposite hours, right? So she sleeps all day. I called her the bodega cat. I felt like she was a total Bodega cat that laid around that Bodega all day, and then when they closed up shop for the night, she was like, all right time to get shit done. But she did kind of keep everybody in line. And the only backstory, like solid backstory, that Mamie and I had talked about is to kind of justify the fact that, like me, as Jenny and Ellie's Jenny like, we're not an older, matronly, motherly like person, like we're now, we're like, running around and spry and and trying, trying to figure that out. So what we kind of figured out was that Grizz and Jenny were kind of peers. And when Grizz took off, I don't think they were my kids. I think that I kind of got stuck raising all of Grizz is illegitimate children. Kind of got, yeah, I kind of got stuck cleaning up her shit. You know what I mean? Like, she went off, she did her thing, and I was like, because a lot of the interaction I had in the show was with her. Whenever she would show up, Jenny was the first one that would run up and get in her face and be like, fuck. You get out of here. So we had to justify like, why am I running out of this crowd, getting up in your face and hissing at you and trying to get you away from here? So that that worked for us, to think that, you know, we were friends, and she just left me with a mess to clean up. So

[31:45] Speaker 3: where do you think she went? You said heroin addicted. Like, where do you think she went? Oh,

[31:52] Speaker 3: that's, that's what I got. Yeah, I've gotten some. Not, you know, she's

[31:56] Speaker 1: like a fair she was a feral cat. She went out she did. She had the kids. She had the kids. She did the drugs. She took off. She was an addict. She left Jenny to clean up her mess, and that's why Jenny's like, get back out of here,

[32:10] Speaker 3: and then you're gonna reward her with a win at the end. Yeah,

[32:15] Speaker 1: yeah. To which, to which. Here's what I say, if, if this reward is based on life merits. Gus should have won. That's the obvious choice. That's the obvious choice like, bless his heart, Gus is on his last legs. That bitch ain't being reborn again. He's either, like, turning to dust, or he's, you know, getting his getting his ninth life. Um, but if it's a talent show, I mean, she belted the highest, and Jenny's like, I mean, whatever, I'll be back next year when that pitch is gone and I'll probably win. Then, you know what? I mean, like, Jenny's got a lot of lives left ahead of her. Tuggers got a lot of lives left to him. You know, Chris Grizz belted the highest. If

[33:00] Speaker 3: America's voting as if it's a competition show. Do you think she gets the win? She

[33:06] Speaker 1: does? Because I think she's in the sweet spot at the end.

[33:10] Speaker 3: So they're gonna lay out the redemption story. Moms at home are gonna vote for her because she's, you know, found her way and is now her children,

[33:21] Speaker 1: and we all know that it's about placement, right? It's about placement. When you get to these things, you want to have a you want to have a strong opener, which is Jenny, then you want to have a strong finish. And what's the last thing in people's minds when they pick up their phones to vote, the last thing that they saw you, put the high Belter at the end. So, like, I can't fault her for winning, because we were all tired. We had performed two and a half hours ago. Nobody remembers Jenny's tap dance from two and a half hours ago. You're gonna vote for the you know, bitch that scrolled it to the back of the house. That's

[33:57] Speaker 3: fair. That is the, I mean, the redemption story argument is for her. I still think you combine Tugger and mistoolies

[34:08] Speaker 3: together, Bert and Ernie up to the heavy side lair. It's a joint competition. You know, if it's a competition show like The X Factor, they're gonna always take some solos and make them a group. It's how we got how we got one direction, how we got Fifth Harmony. That's why, though it's true.

[34:26] Speaker 1: Layer is the heavy side layer an actual place. Because I used to think that it was, you know, it's code four. You get your next life, like Did we say? You get reborn into the next Jellicle life. So if you take misto and Tugger, who's to say that they're going to be reborn back together like that could be the end of the of the romance.

[34:45] Speaker 3: That's true. That is very true. There is the argument that it's actually just a place in the Winter Garden Theater in that, like the attic, essentially,

[34:56] Speaker 1: like, if we go up there, there's just going to be already happening. Yeah, that is

[35:02] Speaker 3: the, one of the other arguments. Okay, so your team, Gus, I'm

[35:06] Speaker 1: team, if we're talking about real, you know, the cat's life and what they've contributed. And if, if we want to give somebody another chance to be reborn, it should totally be Gus, if we're going on, you know, American Idol style, who belted the highest and who's the freshest in your mind, like the audience is gonna vote for Grizz, even though it probably shouldn't be her. But to be there, we used to play, yeah. We used to play a game at the end of the show, called, because we were so tired, called, can I hold my breath for as long as maybe holds the note? No, no. The answer is, the answer is no. Like, we were so dead at that point. I remember sitting on that car trunk with, you know, skimble, whoever was playing skimble That night, and we'd turn upstage and be like, Oh my God, here we go. And we were so out of breath that we're like, No, give up. Can't do it. I can't even sit, sit here and hold my breath for as long as she's sustaining this phrase,

[36:02] Speaker 3: yeah, it's, it is incredibly impressive. And it was fun to talk to her about, just in general, about her take on the show, because it was the first cruise of bell I got to kind of argue with but I got to, you know, I did get to see her the second time I performed. And there I want to see the performance. And I was just like, incredible to watch her do that and then to think, like, I also love that most people know of that, for the people that didn't get a chance to go see her because of the Macy's Day Parade,

[36:31] Speaker 1: absolutely, I'm so glad that that clip can just live on forever, because I feel like it's the it's the grist standard that Everyone will be held to. You know what? I mean? You're like, Well, do you sound like that?

[36:46] Speaker 3: Which is the fact that it's also the Macy's Day Parade is, like, kind of hilarious, because it's such a different experience. And then it's also like, oh, it's cats. Just some cats rooming around here. Just cats

[36:57] Speaker 1: walking around 34th Street. No big deal, which ironically, is pretty much what 34th Street looks like. Now, that's so sad. Just a just a junkyard.

[37:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've covered my main question. So let's do some rapid fire. Great. So if you weren't Jenny, any dots and who would you want to play? What other cat would you want to

[37:22] Speaker 1: play? Oh, I think I'd like to play rumble teaser, just because I spent my whole life being told that that's what I should do, and then never got the chance to do it. Yeah, I think, I think it's fun. It's a great fun that

[37:38] Speaker 3: is the main thing I remember from the first time I saw is I could not get that song stuck out of my head. Yeah, in wild, I was singing it the whole time out of the theater I saw on mayonnaise. I'm like, on my way home, like, thinking about that, and that was it. And then it's, as I got home, I'm like, What did I just watch? And that's when it all kind of like, hit me. And

[37:56] Speaker 1: then you continue to asking yourself that question, yeah, and I saw

[38:00] Speaker 3: that day, so I didn't drink before, oh no, after. And that was when I, like, was like, Okay, I got it. I mean, I'm aware. And I saw it exactly a year later, because I had a friend that came in from out of town and had never seen it, and knew my argument of it, and was like, we're going. And so we went and bought, like, the cheapest of cheap tickets. Sat up way up high and watched the second time around. Awesome.

[38:26] Speaker 1: I do feel like I have a two part answer for that. Though I feel like that was a very logical response that I gave you. I gave you a very performer response, which is like, what is the other thing I could logically do in the show, which is that if I had a fantasy role, it would be bomb ballerina.

[38:43] Speaker 3: So why is that a fantasy role? Not in your just

[38:47] Speaker 1: because I I'm like five two, and will and look like an eternal child, and I will never, in my entire life, be the tall, sexy girl. It's just it's not like I will never, I will never, in my entire life look like a woman that should play bomb like that's it's so it's that like leggy, rocket, sexy, tall woman, and that's just, that's not my cards. But I think it would be damn fun.

[39:13] Speaker 3: I've asked a lot of people this question, and I have wondered if everyone's mind immediately goes to which what you said, what you could do, like, this would be the one I'd be good at, or another, like, do versus, like, for me, who can't do any of them, I'm like, you know, like, not, it's more of just, like, I don't think about it at all because I can't, I can't sing, I can't dance, I couldn't, of course, stuff, what would, what would your choice be? Oh, I, you know, I think, I think it would be super fun, like, for me again, because I can't do all of it to do Buster for Oh, and you can't that. But then I learned, like, then you got to be Peter and Gus. And I don't think, like, I would not be a good Gus. So

[39:56] Speaker 1: like, show up and be Buster and then peace out. Yeah,

[40:00] Speaker 3: just sit there with their like, spoon, pimp cane and walk around just jovial, and then leave Old Deuteronomy is an interesting one too. But then, when I saw that he sat on stage during animation, I'm like, Nope, no way that

[40:17] Speaker 3: yeah? Like when you go the bathroom, when you get your break at your water. I'm like, he, I guess he's not on at all times. But I was like, our mission is the time when the crowd does that. I was like, how's he giving this up?

[40:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, but then again, he does that into the top of act two, and then he gets to take another break. You know what I mean? So he does. I feel like he gets kind of like, Grizz, like he gets a big chunk and he has giant breaks on the other side, as opposed to the rest of the cats that are on stage from the downbeat to the finale, and then only have intermission and like, Mungo to run. P Yeah,

[40:55] Speaker 3: and that's the part. Like, if I was my first time thinking about it, I was like, it was Mongo Jerry, because I thought that whole number, but I couldn't do any of that like in

[41:07] Speaker 3: that's good for the second question, what is your favorite song? And I'm going to eliminate your your own song. So take yours out of it.

[41:15] Speaker 1: That's fine. Eliminate my song. Um, my favorite song? Oh, it has to be Macavity.

[41:23] Speaker 3: That's mine too. And it wasn't. It was my Gary Rumpel teaser, until I started, like, researching all this stuff, and was and I started listening to these more frequently, and I'm like, Oh, this is, by far the the best song is McCabe.

[41:35] Speaker 1: Oh, it's so good. It's so good. It's like, it's sexy, it's rich. I loved it. That was also one of the ones that I didn't have to be a number, that I didn't have to dance, I only got to sing. So I kind of lived for that too.

[41:51] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a song that's now most stuck in my head, most frequently. Oh,

[41:57] Speaker 1: for sure, for sure. I also don't love his consent here, but I don't love to listen to musical theater like I like to do it a lot. I love to sing and dance and be on stage, but I'm never going to sit at home and say, You know what? I'm gonna listen to some Andrew Lloyd Webber, like, Not on your life. Never,

[42:17] Speaker 3: definitely the same way. It's very clear. I'm an outsider. I spend more time watching sports than I showed you, like, what's behind me? Like, I spend more time watching the NBA and NHL playoffs than I in golf than I do watching musical theater, but being in New York and being there, like, it's fun to go. I love going, but I never listened to cast album before. After, occasionally I listened to, like, one or two songs I like, loved out of it. But it's like, I very rarely listen from start to finish. The only reason I've even done that now is it's my writing brain power as like, when I did the initial episodes where I was breaking down the characters, I would pull up the YouTube clip and watch their the number like, and that was how I'd like start with it, which is the 1998 movie. They're just, just on YouTube. And so I would watch that number, and then I'd be like, Oh, yeah. That kind of got stuck in my head. Got stuck in my head. And then that was why, like, I started to learn sweet songs. But if you ask me about things like the naming of the cast, joke about anyone's where it wasn't a character, I broke down. I'm like, I don't know a lot about it. I couldn't tell you any of the words from me, like, I've listened to it probably five times in my life, because I listened to the like, the ones. Is like, research,

[43:29] Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, sure. Sure. Research. I also realized when I was learning the show that, um, something that I had completely forgotten was I had to memorize the naming of cats in the eighth grade for my English Lit class. Yeah, I went to this, like crazy Catholic private school, and we used to have to do a lot of, like speech memorization. And it wasn't until I was in rehearsal for the show that I was realizing that I already knew it and it just had been retained in my brain. Because eighth grade, Sarah had to stand up in front of the class, and we all did one at a time. Had to recite the

[44:05] Speaker 3: naming of cats. Most schools do like the Gettysburg Address, and you did that too.

[44:09] Speaker 1: I can still, I can still do all the presidents in order, like we had to do all of that states

[44:14] Speaker 3: in order, in a song, I still know the states alphabetically, but I can't sing it. I just know it, but that's okay. So, all right, I I'm on board. I'm on board. Okay, so we did favorite song, who's your favorite and least favorite cat? Not not actor. Take the actors out of it. Okay, just

[44:34] Speaker 1: the cat. Favorite cat. I think Tugger is a really fun cat. It would be between, between Tugger and Mr. Police. I love the magic element that misto can just like, show up and do a bunch of turns and make shit explode. I think that's super I think that's super cool. I also think that Tugger is a really. A fun cat, because he can get away with whatever he wants. And I I think that's really fun.

[45:08] Speaker 1: least favorite cat, hmm. I mean, honestly, if I didn't play it, I think my least favorite would be Jenny. So terrible. That's so terrible. Well, right? No, but I again, I loved it, and I had a lot of fun with it. But example, like in the original production, hands down, would skip over that number. Hands down, I'm like the cockroaches and the shuffle will change. And it was like, bland and not exciting. So that that would be a pass, that would be a gay for the revival, a pass for the original, okay, very controversial.

[45:51] Speaker 3: My there, I just, oh sure, I'm sure Peter. Peter is the is, is Christopher ger in the beginning.

[46:02] Speaker 1: Oh, yes, okay. But like all these cats that we just say names and they don't actually exist, like, do those even count?

[46:13] Speaker 3: I mean, they're in the orgy. No, Peter orgy, but he's a number little

[46:21] Speaker 1: old Gus is in the orgy. 100% is laying around in the back during the orgy. I know this to be true because I can picture glancing over and seeing him in this orgy on stage left, as I was orgy on stage right. And I would orgy with, you know, gay Uncle skimble shakes. So as we would be doing our thing, we had to orgy right in front of

[46:53] Speaker 3: calling it we're orging the whole time. Here was the whole explanation.

[46:56] Speaker 1: Well, that totally it is specifically this section, though, but literally, it's like the sexy time dance, the orgy, and we're literally rolling around on the ground like there's nothing else, there's nothing else to call it. You'd be like, what are we doing? And I remember, as we would, you know, be slowly slithering around sometimes, like body rolling down the stage on each other, trying not to laugh. I'm sounding really professional right now. And we'd look up, and old dude would just be like, sitting on the stairs, like watching us. And it's so it's so funny. It's just so funny. And I know so many parts of this can be so serious and about redemption and whatnot, but in the end of the day, like I was getting paid hard, cold American dollars to wear a unitard and face paint and body roll around with my friends as another friend in a giant fat suit, like watched us slither around on each other trying to make each other laugh. And that's, that's what cats need

[47:57] Speaker 1: Like that. Shits really funny, guys, it's funny,

[48:01] Speaker 3: yeah, and that's what I that's why this is a parody, is because I funny.

[48:11] Speaker 1: I know they don't. And that's I was like, Well, you know, not here, not here to make friends, but I get it. I also get when you see something and it moves you, and you get what you need to out of it. And that's, that's what art is. You know what I mean? It's subjective, like somebody's gonna sit and watch this and it's going to change their life because they see a story about redemption, and somebody else is gonna sit in the audience and see it and go, oh shit, I can make money doing this. Okay, I guess I'll keep taking voice lessons. You know what I mean? And it's, it's different to everyone, but I don't think there's a wrong answer. Did

[48:41] Speaker 3: you when you walked out as a 19 year old? Were you just like, make that money? Everyone on stage go get paid.

[48:47] Speaker 1: I call it do kick, get check. Sometimes there are shows that are so fulfilling to your soul, and sometimes you got to do kick and get a check.

[48:56] Speaker 3: Do kick, yeah, do click, get check, get check. That is the the dancing like theater version 100 it's always been cash, cash, them checks.

[49:10] Speaker 1: Cash, them checks. This is do a kick, get a check. Um, but yeah, I think that is to say, but that would this was a completely, that whole experience of doing it was such a it was an artistic fulfillment, not because of, like I said earlier, not because of what the weight of the story that it brought to my own life, but simply because I had so much freedom on stage, and that's so rare, especially in modern day musical theater, where You have these, you know, associate directors and choreographers and people that are maintaining shows, and they're like, You were half an inch off of your number you and you have to say the line this way, and you have to keep everything so in line, and in this box, that show was so much freedom. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and the most. Fun thing I've ever done along the same package. But

[50:02] Speaker 3: it should be that way, because it's not like there are plenty other shows where things have to kind of move in the right step at the right time for the story to progress. And it's like, if you miss the cue something, it's like, off on the story. But there's, it's clear, we've turned you've gave your 15 point version. I gave my one hour long X Factor version, like there's, everyone's got a very random way that they interpret the the musical. So you can have a little bit more fun and have a little bit of that freedom, because there's just a couple core things that have to happen, and the rest is kind of like, is

[50:35] Speaker 1: what it is, of course, and and the especially in this revival, I thought the sound and the lighting were so excellent, like it was such a visual feast to be able to sit there and it directed your eye exactly where it was supposed to. So anything that wasn't as long as you weren't distracting from where the audience was supposed to be paying attention. It was a lot of freedom, you know what I mean, so as long as you know, live still within the world. But it was, yeah, it was, it was great to be able to not ever really know what the Knight had in store. You just had to stay Jellicle. You just had to stage a goal. And what does that even mean? It means whatever you want it

[51:23] Speaker 3: to mean, that's right. So what are, what are you working on now? What can we are you still teaching tap? Like, what else is going on in your world? Yeah,

[51:33] Speaker 1: I'm trying to exist on the daily. Yeah, it's a, it's a weird, weird, weird time. Um, I've gotten very comfortable with, I don't know, you know, I think, I think a lot of people ask, you know, what's coming up, or what are you going to do when this is over? What is this? What is this? And I think when it comes down to it, I don't, I don't know. Like, none of us, none of us really know I had stuff that was supposed to start in the spring. I was going to do the new, the revised production of Thoroughly Modern Millie at moncores, that Chanita story. And they were coming back, they were rewriting all that stuff. Camille Brown was doing the choreography. It was a huge, heavy tap show. So I was super, super excited to do it. I think that it might again, because they put so much work into redoing it that it might resurface at some point, but we I just, I don't know. So until then, I'm teaching some I actually it's really fun. Once a week, I teach a beginning adult tap class in my apartment on Zoom, which I started doing when I was at my parents in California, because so many people that aren't necessarily inherent dancers or that didn't really ever specialize in tap, because that's a different specialty that we discovered that people like to just make jingle noises with their feet, and tapping to classic jazz music makes people happy. And so no, we're like, No experience necessary. Put on a pair of Converse and tap around in your kitchen, and we do it once a week, and it's super fun. It makes people happy. And, yeah, I'm teaching. I teach privates and just kind of walk my dogs. That's bad.

[53:18] Speaker 3: And how? And so how can we find you on social media. That's the other big, important question. Oh my

[53:23] Speaker 1: gosh, so important, you know, to see all those photos of just my dogs. It is Sarah S, A, R, A, H, M, Jenkins at all the places, Instagram and Twitter, I don't really use that. I don't have a Facebook. Because why? Yeah, so thank you

[53:45] Speaker 3: so much for you for being on and being an amazing guest and having the the refer you taught me something I didn't know about the I'm gonna keep calling it the bounce Castle set. Yeah, and I loved your 15 point summary, like that's Thank you such, such a better version than most of what I've heard. So yeah, again. So thank you so much for being a great guest. Thanks for having me, and thanks everyone else for listening to this episode with Sarah M Jenkins on the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the catastrophe. To follow along. You can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify Stitcher, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died, or check out our website, the roncatdied.com you.