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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. There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there.

[0:17] Speaker 2: I'm the one good night. I'm the one good night. I welcome

[0:29] Speaker 3: to the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we have another very fun episode I have promised you, the listeners, a wide variety of cats related content, and today we continue down that path. As I welcome a cats super fan, my guest today, Nat Demario, is part of the infamous cats junkyard, has a cats blog, and saw the 2016 cats revival 88 times. So I have a billion questions for you, Nat. So welcome to the wrong cat died. And thank you for joining me, thank you for having me. So I definitely am going to ask you about the 88 time, but I want to save that, because what I want to first start is just general cats fandom. Like, how did you get into the play? Like, what's like? What was the genesis of your fandom? Well, I first

[1:19] Speaker 4: saw cats when I was in fifth grade, this was, like, I don't know, 2011 when it came on tour through my town, and I fell in love with it. And, you know, at the time, like fandom and the Internet was all very new, and I was like a baby, basically. But I used to like play cats with one of my, like, good friends who also really loved the musical, and we would like pretend to be characters. I would pretend to be Mr. Misopelles, and she would pretend to be Demeter. And then I started writing, like cats fan fiction when, like that was just sort of becoming a thing that people did. And then I fell out of it for quite a few years. And then when the Broadway revival opened and I went to see it, my love sort of came back instantly. And I just completely fell back into it, got sort of re obsessed with all the characters, started connecting with other fans on Twitter, mostly, and it all just sort of came rushing back to me as if it was, you know, 2011 again.

[2:25] Speaker 3: So you what type of fan fiction did you write? Because there's a lot out there.

[2:29] Speaker 4: Um, I wrote when I was younger. I wrote a lot of like, stuff set in the universe, but made up, like original characters and sort of, like, put them into that universe, like interacting with the Canon characters. More recently, the fan fiction that I wrote like during the revival time period was about the actual like Canon characters based on things that it like, that I had observed during the show, like little interactions that I like expanded on, and like wrote, like, longer stories about

[3:05] Speaker 3: incredible I really think so you're part of that junkyard group. And I think that there is Haines mentioned in a couple who have mentioned that there are rumors and stuff that come from the amount of times your group has seen the show. So like, tell me more about like, about that, being part of that, that group, you

[3:23] Speaker 4: know, it was very strange, because our group, of our group, I was the person who saw it the most. I'm pretty sure I'm the person who saw the revival the most out of like, literally anyone like, who saw it, um, but my, my friend group the junkyard. We it ranged from people who saw it like once or twice only to me, but we all were so invested in the characters, in the actors and the like specific portrayals of the characters that we we would go and we would literally watch a different cat basically every time we saw it, and we picked up on little interactions that would be different every night, or that they would do all the time, that just like the average person seeing the show for the first time would never pick up on so definitely the most like sort of infamous one, um, was Tugger Shanks, which is the skimble shanks and Rum Tum Tugger ship that started with me the first time I saw the show, before the fandom sort of re blossomed. And it came from this moment in act two, during the peaks and the polls, the song that, like Gus performs, where skimble Shank sort of walks away and he goes and he sits over next to the Rum Tum Tugger on, like the car trunk, and they just have, like, some interaction, like skimble gets up and just like, storms away. And I watched that, and I. Said, what is happening here? And it just sort of became this joke that became more serious that we, like mentioned to the actors at the stage door, like, what's up with like skimble shanks and tuggers friendship? And it just sort of went from there and became a thing that they actually played like, on stage, yeah,

[5:21] Speaker 3: you, you influenced the show. It was, like, very influenced the show. Yeah? Like, that's, I mean, that's like, an amazing thing, yeah. And it's kind of weird to think about, because that that's like, when I was researching for both of those characters, and I was like, trying to understand, like, their backstories and all the phenomena, it was like, there's something going on in the 2016 revival, and I couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. And then tower Haynes kind of confirmed it and said it was, it's basically it was you, it was like your group of friends that they just decided to kind of continue with, which is incredible. So I want to talk about the fact that you saw it 88 times. So I did some math. The 2016 revival had 593 performances and 16 previews. So there was 609 opportunities to see the show. You saw it 88 times. It's roughly 76 weeks worth of shows. So you saw just under 15% of the performances and saw over one a week. Yeah, my only question is, just, why, like, like, how? Why? Like, how did you, like, how did you make that happen? I know you said you were a student in New York, so you were already, you know, you're obviously close to the theater, like you had that ability to, kind of to get there easily, but that's, I mean, that's an incredible commitment. Like, that's more than people do when they join a sports team, like, for like, for fun, like, it's you, you did this for two plus years, or for over a year and a half every week, if not more, to see the same thing. I mean, it's like, it's, it's incredible. And so again, my question is, is, why and how

[6:58] Speaker 4: the why is it started with just, Oh, I really enjoyed this. I want to go see it again. And usually the shows that I like, I try to go back and see a couple of times. But with cats, especially, there are so many characters and so many different people who understudy those roles. A lot of it actually became going back to see understudies play roles and to see different portrayals of the characters. And my friends and I made sort of a habit of trying to find out when, like, swings were going on for the first time and playing different roles. And we would make a point to go and see it and see those performances. So that's where a lot of the trips came from. But I just sort of got so used to being there all the time and having something fun to do that I knew I enjoyed doing. They would just be like, Oh, I had, like, a hard day, like, like, a hard day at school, like, a long week, let's go see cats, like, for fun. So that was the why and the how was the Broadway direct lotto was a life saver. Those $40 tickets, I think not a lot of people were entering the cats lotto, because basically, anytime I entered, I won. And

[8:18] Speaker 3: so basically, yeah, I could, right?

[8:21] Speaker 4: And it was super easy. And I lived, you know, 10 minutes away from the theater, so it was very easy to just scoot down there and go see it on a whim, basically. And there were times when I would rush down there, literally, like, half an hour before the show started, because I found out that some understudy was going on, and I would run up to the box office and be like, give me your cheapest seat in the balcony, please, and I would just go in and see it. So

[8:47] Speaker 3: I know you have a cat's blog. And one thing that I read, that I thought, like, I really appreciated, was that you mentioned that when you find something that you like and it gives you happiness, like, you shouldn't even have to apologize for it. So it's like, the 88 times, it's just like, I do think it's the most anyone's ever seen the revival. Like, you definitely have to be holding that, that torch. But at the same time, I'm like, you know, some people watch sporting events or watch whatever, or turn on their favorite record, and it's like, yours just happens to be cats. And so I, I do think it's kind of cool you tracked. Did you track who you got to see? Was there anybody that you didn't get to see that you wish you could see do a performance? Yeah,

[9:25] Speaker 4: there, there were a couple of understudies who went on that that I never got to see, Sam lips understudy, Tugger, and I never got to see him go on. He only went on a couple of times, and it happened right at the end of the run, and I I went out of town, like the week of Christmas, so right before the show closed, and he went on like the night that I left town, and I was so angry. And there were a couple of understudies that I only got to see once, like early in the run, and then they. Never went on again. And I wished so badly that I could see them again. Callen Bergman, who was one of the swings. He under studied Mr. Police. And the first time I saw the revival, he was Mr. Police, and I like, fell in love with his performance, and he only went on like two other times, and I didn't get to see either of those, and I spent the entire rest of the run just wishing that he would go on again, and he never did, which was very sad. So

[10:30] Speaker 3: you touched on this a little bit about that you watched, like, one character the whole show, but like, what did you pick up on? Number time, number 36 seeing the show versus time number two versus time number 75 you know, like, I mean, how like was there? Was there a ha moments later on, like, when you got past half the halfway point of seeing it?

[10:53] Speaker 4: You know, it's funny, because I think the the longer I went and the the the more times I saw it, I would actually start to sort of zone out in the middle of it, because it was just like, I've seen this so many times. I know it so well, and I don't have to, like, pay as close attention to be able to sort of get the full experience. The things that I started really leaning into later on were the moments when the cats, like interact with the audience. Because usually, I usually was not lucky enough to get, like, seats close to the stage when I, you know, entered the lotto, because those seats are random, and it's based on what's like left in the theater, but there were always these seats in like the front row on the very sides that are only sold at the box office, and so they're always empty, and me and my friends would always move up to those seats during intermission. And the interactions you get with the with the cats when you're sitting up close are the best, because the actors you know got to know us. And so when they would come off the stage during misto police and be like, dancing in the aisle like they would see us, and they would be like, happy to see us as actors and audience members. And that was always, really what I looked forward to the in like, the second half of the run was those interactions. But yeah, whenever I was there watching, like a new understudy, I would especially watch them, and I'd be like, What did this person do differently than the other people who I've seen play the role, and how did they interpret the character? And it was stuff like that. And it would be like the random little like ensemble cats that I would be so invested in

[12:41] Speaker 3: That's That's amazing, because those are the ones that, like most people, don't even know names, like their names, let alone who's performing. What's the nuances to right? Okay, so you have to be one of the, I mean, do you? Do you consider yourself one of the, like, the biggest cats fans, like, you have a blog, you're part of the junkyard. You wrote fan fiction. Are you part of the Tumblr group?

[13:05] Speaker 4: I used to be. Not anymore. And honestly, I've sort of fallen out of the cats fandom. I've sort of like moved on to other things now, because I can't, sort of not that cats is like a dead fandom. But once the show closed and like, there wasn't new stuff to do every day. I just sort of like, moved on to other stuff, but my love for it is always there. So all that to say, like, I was in like, the Tumblr fandom while the show was open, and there were, like, huge sort of riffs between us, because it was the people who saw the Broadway revival and liked it, and all, like, the older fans of the show are, like the European fans who hated the Broadway revival because it was different, and, like, we could never, like, find peace, it was sort of a nightmare. So

[13:53] Speaker 3: there is within the cats fandom, a traditionalist and then the modern interpretation group, yeah, arguing, yeah,

[14:02] Speaker 4: that's always, that's been my experience. There's a Facebook group that's mostly for, like, cats cosplay that I'm in, but I never post in anymore. But there, there would always just be arguments, and there would be the, like, the European fans being like, the Broadway revival is trash, and this thing they do differently is bad, and this thing is bad. And I'd be like, It's fun though.

[14:23] Speaker 3: Did you ever you should come back by saying, but they did the street Tugger in Europe.

[14:30] Speaker 4: I'm like, at least we brought back, like, the real Rum Tum Tugger, like you

[14:34] Speaker 3: guys was the biggest mistake. Yeah, you guys are not able to add history. I agree. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the plot. Yeah, as as probably the biggest fan that I've spoken with, and I've talked to a few but, but you especially with the revival, because you saw the revival, which is the my entire context of the show, besides the 1998 movie, what? Did I get? What have I gotten wrong? Like, what am I totally off on, on things that I've kind of made up as an outsider looking in, I

[15:06] Speaker 4: think that the biggest thing that I sort of disagree with with your interpretation of the plot is I've never seen it as so much that they are competing, and that every performance that they do is like an audition to go to the heavy side layer. I see the Jellicle Ball as like a big celebration of like who they are. And they don't see each other most of the time, except for once a year. So they get together. They're as jellicles. What they do is they sing and dance. That's just like, who they are. So it's more of like, we're gonna go and if you want to perform, like, go ahead and perform. And there are just certain cats who you know are candidates for going to the heavy side layer, and some who are not, in my opinion. And so it's Yeah, and so it's totally fair. The movie definitely painted it as as this is a competition, and I've just never seen it that way.

[16:18] Speaker 4: no, that's not true. No, I did not get to see it in previews. I saw it at the for the first time after it had already opened. Okay,

[16:25] Speaker 3: but you definitely saw the the original, like the first group, right? My narrow interpretation, again, I don't, I don't disagree with you. I think there's a lot of ways. I think that's the beauty of the show. There's a lot of ways too. But I was basically sold this with Leona Lewis, that's fair. So I think because of that, I was like, X Factor, and I was like, and then, like, when I saw a miniature version of X Factor, like, almost a meta version of X Factor pop up on the stage, that was immediately where my head went. And so now the more I've, like, looked at and I've watched the 1998 movie, and heard people talked about it like, I think that your version has probably way more merit than mine, but that was not the way I like walked out. And so that's, that's the angle I've stuck with, and that's what all of my friend reference. I actually think I can see your point I like. I can concede that point. Is there any of my the theories I've made up that you disagree with. Um,

[17:22] Speaker 4: let's see. Um, okay, definitely. The one, and this is something I think that causes a lot of arguments in the cat's fandom is, um, whether tug of felies is real or not. Um, whether mistop Ellies and Tugger are a thing.

[17:40] Speaker 3: It's my fan fiction, besides yours. I guess it is true.

[17:44] Speaker 4: It is true that I would say the majority of the fan fiction is the two of them. I have never shipped them. Part of that, I think, comes from the fact that when I first got into cats, I was little and sheltered and did not know the gay people existed. And I interpreted them, okay, I have very specific opinions about the family tree, which I think sort of what's

[18:09] Speaker 3: here, um, because I think there's, there's, there's a lot of ways to make arguments of like, that could be this, but if that is correct, then this can't be correct exactly, but I could argue why this could be correct. So I'm very curious. Your, yeah, what is your what is your treat? Have you actually mapped it out? I have,

[18:25] Speaker 4: yeah, a couple of times I've struggled to find a good way to do it, because there's so many like, interwoven bits that it gets very hard. A friend of mine did a spreadsheet of it. I was like, That's smart. Um, so for me, it starts with Old Deuteronomy, who is, you know, the Jellicle leader, and the father of a lot of the cats his four children that we know of, monkeys, strap rum tongue, Tugger, Macavity. And this is unique only to the Broadway revival, in my mind, but I know that I think Andy Huntington Jones mentioned it, and maybe one of the vlogs that Alan zo is mags brother. So that's for cats who are Old Deuteronomy sons, in my mind, Mustafa Lee's is Macavity son. He doesn't know that. Most of them don't know that he's told that he's like Buster Jones' son because, you know, they're both like the black tuxedo cats. But

[19:31] Speaker 4: some unknown cat that does not like exist in the show, just like someone okay? And he was sort of like, oh. And he and Victoria are siblings, so the two of them were sort of like rescued, taken away from Macavity, brought to the tribe and raised in the tribe. He finds out at some point that Macavity is his father, and that sort of causes some tension, because, like, first of all, he gets his magical powers from. Macavity. Um, makes sense, yep. And there it causes some tension, because it's like, do they trust him, you know, in the tribe, do they trust him to use his magic? Do they think he's going to, like, turn evil? Um, so that's sort of a plot point that I've always been interested in. But what this means is that Tugger is his uncle, and so that is how I have always interpreted the family tree. And so the thought of shipping them never occurred to me when I was little, and most of my head cannons from when I was little have stayed with me until now.

[20:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, so that makes, that makes a ton of sense that you've that you've already put them in the same family tree, right? So that is an impossible scenario,

[20:46] Speaker 4: right? I totally, I totally get it. You can find that, yeah, I totally get it, though. Like, I understand, like, why people ship them, and I totally see it. Um, I'm just, it's just not my head cannon, and it's not like a ship that I am personally invested in. And as we know, I am a huge Tugger Shanks fan. And not that I don't think they could co exist, because there is definitely polyamory and cats.

[21:13] Speaker 3: But you, I think you created Tugger shanks.

[21:16] Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I did, which is so weird they think about but I did

[21:23] Speaker 3: that's, I think that's amazing. All right, so I'm following along through your the rest of your kind of cats, what? How do you view thing like grizzabel arc, like, what's her family relationship to who and her whole storyline,

[21:41] Speaker 4: this is something that has, like, changed a lot for me, and I don't know that I've completely settled on it, but there was a time when I really liked the theory that she was tuggers mom. And so there's, there's a little bit of me that's like, she had a thing with Old Deuteronomy at one point. And so one of my theories with it, she was tuggers mom, which I which I still kind of like, because they both sort of have that, like, I'm, you know, fabulous, like, whatever, except that, you know, she sort of moved past that now. And, you know, his, his fallen from grace, in a way. And what I like about the theory that she's tuggers mom is that he's afraid that he's going to go down that same path, and that he's sort of going to wind up like, no longer fabulous, like everyone's going to hate him. Like, so there. So there's that, which I really like. There's also a theory that she is Demeter and bomb ball you are in his mother, which I also really like, and sort of explains why they're the ones like singing the song about her, and why they're they they seem to shun her so much because they're like, ashamed of her. I think that's probably the one that I that I stick to the most in terms of her like relation to the other cats, but definitely she was with the tribe. She was part of the tribe. She was a well loved part of the tribe. And then she, I think she distanced herself from them unintentionally, and either left of her own accord or was forced out. I don't really know which, and I don't she. She's a cat. She's a character that I don't put a lot of thought into. All I know is that one thing that that happened in the Broadway revival, that I want to say Mamie Paris mentioned in a vlog at one point was it like she had a thing with Macavity, and that's why she left, and that I'm just not on board with. I don't, I don't know what that was about, but I don't agree

[23:52] Speaker 3: that one. So that is, I think, a strange one, because if you think about Demeter and McCabe's relationship, and then, to your point, if they're mom and daughter. Now it's like, that's also a little strange. And then when you start bringing, like, if it is the, if it's if she is tuggers mom, then that would be her nephew. Like, not necessarily, I guess, but like, loosely, it's his brother. Yeah, this is where it gets very it's a lot of dots. Yeah, okay, I want to do some rapid fire. But before I do that, I want to ask you, how would you if you've got a friend who's never seen cats and you're going to bring them, what's your sales pitch to like, come with me to see the show. I

[24:37] Speaker 4: have done this actually multiple times, and usually what I say is, look, it's a little crazy. You don't don't worry if you don't understand what's going on, go and enjoy the dancing because it's amazing. Enjoy the music because it's amazing, and enjoy the spectacle of it. And just don't. Think too hard about it and just like and let them be singing cats, and just roll with it and have fun.

[25:10] Speaker 3: That's all. That's awesome. Okay, I want to do a couple quick rapid fire if you were in the play. Okay, which character would you want to

[25:22] Speaker 3: Okay, favorite cat and least favorite cat, not character, not actor, cat.

[25:29] Speaker 4: Favorite, again, definitely skimble shanks. Least favorite. I have two. One is the like ironic answer. One is the unironic answer. Unironic jelly Lorem, I just have never liked her ever since I was little, and she still makes me angry for some reason.

[25:47] Speaker 3: Um, you gotta, you gotta explain why? A little bit more. Okay,

[25:52] Speaker 4: Gus song is so slow and so long, and when I was little, it just made me angry. Um, I so I didn't like her because she sang it, and I didn't like him because I didn't like his song. Now I love his song and I love him, but I've just never liked her. She's annoying. The ironic answer is, car, buckety, random chorus, cat. I have just simply always had a grudge against him. He makes me so mad, but also I talk about him so much that no one believes me when I say I don't like him.

[26:36] Speaker 4: Jenny, any dots? She is practical. She gets things done, um, but she does it, like, on her own schedule, the whole like sleeping during the day, being incredibly lazy, very me, and then when she's awake, when she's ready to go, being completely frantic, that is also me, um, so I think we would have, like, a good balance of sort of sleep, work time.

[27:07] Speaker 3: So you want to, yeah, you're gonna quarantine with a mirror image of yourself. Yeah, exactly. Okay. And then I usually ask, Which cat would you want to write a Tumblr for? But I guess, since you did that, what was your favorite character to be a Tumblr writer for? Um, I'm

[27:22] Speaker 4: gonna start sounding repetitive, but definitely skimble shanks. Um, yeah, I just, I think about him a lot.

[27:33] Speaker 4: not, not like in recent times, I had made up original characters when I was younger. Oh, my God, I don't, I don't. I wish I could remember their names now. Um, there is fan fiction that exists of them in, like, the depths of, like, old fandom stuff. It's out there, you know, if anyone cares to try to track it down. But, um, not, not recently, no, I tend to stick to, like, the Canon characters,

[28:02] Speaker 3: what was your most red popular fan fiction story? Ooh,

[28:07] Speaker 4: um, probably one of the Tugger Shanks ones. Um, where I think it might have been, like it might have been the love confession, one that I literally took, like, word for word, from what Tyler and Jeremy told us they said on stage. Um, yeah, probably that one. Or for my old, old fan fiction, I wrote one where misto police died, and for some reason people really liked that one. I always got comments on it. Very weird.

[28:47] Speaker 3: The first one makes sense. The first one was like, an interesting angle. Second one seems like people are rooting against them. I

[28:55] Speaker 4: think they were like, Oh my God, this was so sad. It broke my heart. And I'm like, I was nine. Are you sure? Are you sure you thought this was good?

[29:07] Speaker 3: So usually my my last question, which I do want to ask you, is I ask if you think I'm right or wrong on grizabell being the wrong cat to die, but based on the amount of like, the depths of your fandom, I want you to rank the cats in terms of most to least worthy, or least to most worthy. And you don't have to do every like, all ensemble characters, but at least the main characters. And then if you don't think they're even because, like, I think you said in the celebration, there's some that don't even have a shot. If they don't have a shot, you can give them an incomplete grade. But how would you give like, what is your order of if you're Old Deuteronomy, and you're in your doing your ballot all the way down, let's hear the rankings.

[29:52] Speaker 4: We're gonna put Gus at the top, which I think most people would agree with, although I respect Chris gerz Like interpretation. Question about him just sort of crawling under a tire to die. And I, I love that, um, but Gus at the top always has been, um, after that, probably Jenny, any dots like she's getting old. She's like, done her work. She has, like, proved that she is great, and she is she would be ready to go. I think so I would put her next. Let's see I I'm going to appease like 2011 Nat, and actually say number three is Old Deuteronomy himself. It is time for him to go.

[30:36] Speaker 3: He takes over the choice if he leaves, I think

[30:40] Speaker 4: monkey strap, who's always sort of been second in command. I think he would become the leader. I guess I'll say Grizabella after that. I have no pro The thing is, I have no problem with her going. I just think there were other people who should have gone and would have gone if she hadn't showed up. Um, but really after that, those are really the only cats that I see as um, as like, being like, ready to go. But if we're gonna judge based on performance alone, um, all of them after that. Yeah, um, I definitely, definitely tug her just because his performance is so fabulous, um, and then misto Phillies, um, I mean, he, like, saves the day, like, that's pretty great. That earns him a lot of points, I think, um, skimble Shanks, who obviously is just great at what he does, and clearly everybody loves him. So that's like, that's a lot in his favor. I expected you

[31:53] Speaker 3: to rank skimble Shanks higher based on everything you've said.

[31:59] Speaker 4: I think very highly of him. I just don't, I don't think he's ready to go. I think, I think he has too much fun doing what he's doing. He likes, He likes his life.

[32:15] Speaker 3: That's, you know, what's your favorite but, but not ready to go.

[32:20] Speaker 4: Yeah, he's gotta, he's got to stick around. Um, busted for Jones, just because, yeah, I mean, he might even be in the in the group of cats who actually could go, and I would be okay with that, um, toward the bottom, just because I don't like him very much. But like, yeah, he can go, Yeah, sounds good. Yo. In conclusion, I I've spent so long with these characters, and I've spent so many years thinking about them, um, you know, they're, they're all like this big family, and they sort of feel like my family, in a way which sounds like really cheesy now that I say it, but that's what it's been like, um, and I feel like I know them so well, and just getting to spend so much time with them was such a joy for me,

[33:10] Speaker 3: and it's honestly why I wanted to have you on is just hearing somebody that has such true fandom, got to experience it so many times from so many different angles, and be a part of of the community and have like, you know, and tell me again, for me, as someone from the outside looking in, like, where those there's errors, where there's stuff that was wrong, what am I looking at incorrectly? Which is the beauty of the show. So I really appreciate you taking the time to join, to join me today and and be part of this, incredible cats community. Yeah, thank

[33:43] Speaker 4: you for having me here. Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about cats, because I don't get to that often these days.

[33:54] Speaker 3: So with that, I want to thank you all for listening to this episode with Matt Demario on the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's atrophy. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify Stitcher, or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died, or check out our website, the wrong cat died. Calm. You.