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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.

[0:16] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown of Cat Statutory. I'm your host Mike Abrams and today we have another amazing guest. She played Jennyanydots in the 1987 3rd US National Tour of Cats. So welcome Cathy Susan Pyles and thank you for joining me.

[0:31] Cathy Susan Pyles: Thank you for inviting me.

[0:34] Mike Abrams: I am so excited to talk because I have lots of Jenny questions still. And I've talked to a few of the different Jennyanydots. But we'll get to the plot. We'll get to the story. I love hearing about your experience with Cats, especially on tour at that stage of Cats. It was very early on. It was the first time the US was really getting to experience. So tell me a little bit about what it was like when you got cast, what it was like being on tour. What was Cats in that period of time like?

[1:06] Cathy Susan Pyles: All right. Well, I had just come off of two national tours. I had done almost a year long with Lauren Bacall in Woman of the Year. And I was the swing in that, which meant I covered six other ladies. Plus I understudied Marilyn Cooper, who was one of the leads. So I'd done that. And then I went out on tour for a year and three quarters just about with 42nd Street. So it was fun when I jumped onto Cats because I was sort of revisiting a lot of cities around the country. And that's what I love to tell people between those three tours, I saw most of the United States. And I can tell you the best places to live in the United States and the cities you just want to drive right past.

[1:54] Mike Abrams: I might put you on the hot seat. I'm curious. Let's start with the good one, actually. Where's your best place to live?

[2:02] Cathy Susan Pyles: Oh, well, there was actually a lot of really, really good ones. But there's a couple of really like, oh. But again, you have to put this in perspective. This was quite a few years ago. And what was really interesting, actually, was watching the cities change. Because when I first went out, I think it was 83, 84. And that is right at the time when all of the cities in America had moved out that the malls, the malls just drained the downtown stores. So all the department stores, the lovely places, everything had moved out to the suburbs. And the downtowns where the old theaters still were, and where we were housed, had almost nothing. By the time I rolled back through with Cats, which was 87, 88, you started to really see the revival of all of these cities.

You know, downtown Detroit, on my first tour, oh, my God. But you came back six years later, and these things that were happening. So that in itself, I think, was worth schlepping the suitcases across the country for a total of 15 years, was seeing that.

[3:08] Mike Abrams: 15 years. So what is the reaction of, let's take a Detroit, what kind of crowd reaction did you get from your first two tours, versus the Cats reaction?

[3:21] Cathy Susan Pyles: Oh, okay. Um, well, the first one, of course, was a star vehicle. So that was Lauren Bacall. So people were there to see Lauren Bacall. The script itself, the story in Women of the Year, really wasn't that self-sustaining. But 42nd Street, that had a cast of 50.

[3:46] Mike Abrams: 50, on tour?

[3:47] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yes, close to 50. And so that was just a huge, immense thing. And so the show was the spectacle. So I'd had that experience two years before Cats. And Cats was very much the same kind of thing in terms of, it was one big spectacle, you know, and the people were there because of the spectacle. And they were two completely different experiences for me personally. And some things about each one were great, and some were hard as an actor to do. So that was, that was an interesting setup. But that tour, I know your Cats tour was really the first time that Cats got introduced to a lot of cities.

[4:33] Mike Abrams: Oh, yeah.

[4:34] Cathy Susan Pyles: And so I'm just so fascinated and curious by like, it's, it's kind of, it's a bizarre show. Like, it's definitely an experience.

[4:42] Mike Abrams: Totally weird.

[4:43] Cathy Susan Pyles: And you're providing that first experience to sold out theaters across the nation that, and this is pre social media and buzz, it's like, there might be one or two reviews ahead of it. And you might be in these in the city. So I'm just fascinated by the reactions and like what the crowd response was at that time, where it's, it's an unknown with this, like, almost cultish buzz coming through.

[5:08] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yeah. Well, again, I keep referencing it off of the 42nd Street tour I had done right before. So we had blasted through all of these cities that had these glorious old theaters in the centers of their downtown. But they hadn't been used for years. They kind of dried up because there wasn't a whole lot of touring theater for a while. There were some shows but not nearly so many. So we were coming into towns with both 42nd Street and then two years later, they cleaned up most of the theaters because we had an equity rep in almost every city on 42nd Street, because things backstage just weren't up to code and up to standard. And so that was challenging. Fitting the set into these theaters was remarkably, some of the theaters were now being used as movie theaters. So there was no wing space.

[6:02] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yeah, when I did what I did 42nd Street, they literally opened the door right before we were supposed to do the dime number with these metal dimes and rolled them in from the cold alley freezing temperatures and we had to sit on them with our little cushies. But with Cats, all those theaters now had started to fix themselves up. But the cities were still I think, just remarkably enthralled with this show. And I think I mean, the big joke always is that why did why do Cats run so long in New York? Why? Why did that song go on for years and years and years, right? And I think it's just because a everyone has a cat or know someone who has a cat. So it's like, you know, it's a weird thing to relate to, but people can.

And second of all, it was it was completely unnecessary to translate. So any foreign language, I mean, they talk about the Japanese tourists supporting it in New York for years, because you didn't have to be a competent English speaker to appreciate Cats. It was so visual. It was just it was it was sort of visual overload, you know? It is. And I think that's what seeing it, having seen it the first time in New York, and then knowing that like, wow, this is gonna be the first introduction to it, thinking it back to your to your tour of like that's the first introduction to this city, to this experience where it's so different, not like anything else that's around. I like am fascinated to hear that aspect of it because I know I don't know anybody here where I'm from that went to that tour.

I know it, you know, it came through and it came through Chicago and a lot of the other Midwest cities. And I have been able to find some of the reviews, which was very fun to kind of see these like archived old reviews that were someone like scanned in from from your tour. But the it sold out in minutes. It sold out like so quickly. And so that the buzz was there in a time where the buzz was like very different than current buzz, you know? And so that's that's a very cool thing to be a part of.

[8:10] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yeah, it was. People, people would stand outside the stage door. It's just strange groupies, you know, wanting you to sign their program. And I mean, that was always my running joke in the show is I had in 42nd Street, I had played a supporting role. And it was a real identifiable role. And so when I come out the stage door, everybody knew who I was. I would come out the stage door in Cats and there would be a group of people out there and they'd go, Oh my god, oh my god, you were so wonderful. You were fantastic. Which one were you?

[8:43] Cathy Susan Pyles: Try to explain who Jennyanydots was. And the funny thing about Jenny is that she has a lot to do in about the first 30 minutes of the show. And then she sits on the tire for the extra. So if I would try to explain which number I had done what I had, they just would look at me and go, Oh, okay, okay. Okay. So then I started just saying, they said, Which one were you? I was the white cat. And they go, Oh, okay. I was not the white cat. I was five foot eight. The white cat was like, four, three.

[9:21] Mike Abrams: I thought you're gonna say because I did your cast do the cockroaches or mice?

[9:27] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yes, we did. They did. But I was not in. Well, oh, yes. Well, the cockroach, there's the peaks and the polygons, which is the one that's later, right? And then there's the whole Siamese thing in act two, which got cut, I think, in the subsequent.

[9:40] Mike Abrams: It was not. Yeah, it was not in the one I saw.

[9:46] Cathy Susan Pyles: Yeah. My frame of reference is the 1998 movie. And the 2016 cast are like Broadway revival. That's all I've seen. Yeah. And I've heard enough now. But oh, and then the current movie, like the Oh, no, no, don't even go there. Oh, my God, I tried. But okay, well, let me come back to that. But, but I do like I did. That would be the way I would describe Jenny was like, Oh, which one you say? It's like, it's the one that shed the coat. And that did the really cool tap number with the I think it was cockroaches or mice in the version. I saw the cockroaches. Yeah, which is my was like my New York nightmare. Cockroaches there. So I was like, I was a very memorable piece of the show for me. Because I was like, Oh, that's not like, that's what I don't want to ever have happened in New York.

It's like when I moved to New York, I was like, Oh, I just don't want cockroaches. That's all I was. I was a little traumatizing. But tell me about what you were told about the story when you're going on this tour? Because I do think like, it's such a polarizing plot line, which is what I've spent a lot of time trying to decipher. And I know you get as a cast member a little bit more inside information. So I'd love to hear what you were told.

[10:58] Cathy Susan Pyles: Well, yes. And no, I replaced into the national six month mark. At the six month mark, because you sign a contract for six months when you're in those shows, they had a bit of a bailout. I think six or seven people left at that six month mark. And so I came in and I was pushed in really quickly.

[11:26] Cathy Susan Pyles: And so, they didn't give you any, I mean, they have to give you some, right? Like they have to tell you kind of how to loosely play her. You get several afternoons with the choreographer and then like maybe one afternoon with one of the stage managers who gives you their rendition of stuff. And the funny thing for me was there was a whole bit that I had to do about watching, it was sort of a pantomime-y thing in the beginning, when, when, um, MonkaStrap is describing, he's singing the first part of the song and she's walking around doing stuff. And there was all this mime in it. And I kept saying, okay, I'll do it. You know what, it just didn't make any sense to me. And I was supposed to be watching the feather fall and all these things with moving my head and doing all this mime.

And finally, I found out that the girl who had played it in the first national, I think, had been a pantomimist. She was really, really, really good at pantomime. And so she had created this bit and that was now for every subsequent Jenny had to do this thing. Standard. Okay. Yes. And there's actually a writer that you have to sign in the contract at that time that said any bit that you develop becomes the property of the show. So if you created anything and they liked it and they kept it, they could pass it on. That was part of the standard writer. So, so that was interesting. So I, I do know a little bit about the show. I had seen it originally when it first opened in New York. And then I was actually doing an industrial show in the Bahamas when Bermuda, I think I was in Bermuda when I got a phone call from the casting director, Vinnie Liff.

And he said, Hey, Kathy, can you be, can you be in Baltimore on Tuesday to go into Cats? And I said, well, Vinnie, it's Saturday and I'm in Bermuda. I know. Can you be in Baltimore on Tuesday? I said, okay. Okay. So I flew back the next day because our, it was an industrial show I was doing and it was done. And then on Monday night, because at that time Cats had a Monday night performance in New York. And I went to see the show. Now, mind you, I had had a back surgery the year before. And when I had seen Cats, it was way another two years before that or something. So I literally was watching from the back of the theater. First they measured me to see if I was going to fit the costumes and the wigs and stuff.

And they did a whole wig fitting. And then they sent me out to watch the show. And all I did was stare at where Jenny was entering and exiting. So that my mind, can I do that? Can I do that? How much dancing does she do? And I, of course, see, I've always called myself an actor, singer, dancer, in that order. I was very late to come to dancing. And so I was sitting there watching to say, can I really do this show? Can I, can I really do this? Cause I had auditioned for it, um, six months before and not, not been cast. So I had just put it out of my mind. And so I literally watched it. And then they got to the Jellicle ball and that's when everybody's dancing all over the place. I mean, I watched the tap number and I'm like, that I can do tap.

I can do piece of cake that I got. Cause I just come off of 42nd Street. And so when the Jellicle ball happened, I was staring because it's like 12 minutes long. And I was like, when does she enter when she exits? And then I looked at it. She was like, wait, she, she just exited stage left. And I would wait. And I was waiting. She's still gone. She's still gone. Okay. Still go. Oh, damn. There she comes, you know, and she'd come on from stage right. Be in the next part. I was like, okay, so I'm going to have to learn that. Cause I was quickly trying to analyze, do I have the physical stamina to do this crazy thing? Because I was also a bit older than most of the rest of the cast. So, you know, and not being a dancer, premier dancer, I was just panicked, but yeah.

I think that was when I did see it the first time. And I, you know, I spent a lot of time a little peeved at the plot, which, which is very well documented at this point, but I did walk out saying that was one of the most physically demanding things I've watched. Anybody ever do like live, you know, and coming from someone who watches a lot of sports and everything else, I was like, yeah, you know, these athletes, they train for that. I was like, oh no, these athletes and dancers trained for this. Like that took so much effort and so much movement and to do it in that costume with all that makeup on and everything else of like the acting was the felinity of like trying to also be on crawling around.

Like it is, yeah. And it was a lot. And I was really, really like that was my, one of my biggest takeaways besides my anger of Grizabella being the wrong choice is I walked out saying, wow, that is peak performance of people doing something that they're highly skilled at that most people can't do. Yeah. And it's structured, I think, you know, in a way that people don't realize when you look at it, you think, oh my God, everybody can sing, dance and act. And when you actually break down the structure of each character, you can really see that there's one strength, one super strength and a secondary medium strength and one not so important. And there really are only a few that have to be absolute triple threats that have to do all three things.

Absolutely the same, you know, because like I said, Jenny, Jenny had to be a singer and she had to be able to do the tap dance number and be funny. Um, but she didn't have to do a whole lot of that Jellicle ball. Well, you had the pantomime now. Yeah, just the pantomime. So you gotta be, so you gotta do a little more. I, I'm, I am a little fascinated by that, that little aspect of it. Did you, what else, like what else was created? Did you create anything that, that they were like, that they took from you because of your contract? Or do you know of any of the other things that kind of the legacy preserved because of that rule?

[18:24] Cathy Susan Pyles: Um, well, I think all of it, you know, anytime there's an original cast, just like with Hamilton recently, there's an original cast. They, they'd have contributions that they make to the show. And if I'm not mistaken, Hamilton had a whole lawsuit about trying to make sure that entire first initial cast was granted a royalty of some sort to the show. And that had never happened before that, that I'm aware of. But, um, so pretty much everything you throw in there in an initial rehearsal. Um, but I did not have to do that six weeks of crawling around and sniffing each other that everybody else talks about since I was thrown in so quickly. Yeah. So how would you describe Jenny?

[18:54] Cathy Susan Pyles: Oh, so this, yes, I did listen to one of your previous podcasts and the person had done Jenny in this 2016 tour. I think I did. I talked to two from the 2016 tour. Anyway, I only heard the one and she was sort of saying, well, everybody else played Jenny is this old crotchety cat. And I was like, no, we did not. Hello. Um, she's like, well, we played her much younger than those original people. And I was a little taken aback by that because, um, my, my take on her. And again, you know, we played other cats, we played neutral kind of people until we had that step out moment, which was really, because I played the Gumby cat, which is what Jenny plays. And the Gumby cat is supposed to be the fat, sassy cat who sits in the sun, you know, the one that just lazies around all day.

But then comes alive at night is very nocturnal. Um, but I think I played it with a lot more youthful energy than was implied by your other guests. It was either Eloise or Sarah, um, are the two that I talked to that were Jenny's. And I'm not very curious which one. So I'm not sure, but I just thought they made it sound like all original people were really crotchety. I mean, Anna McNeely was the original, right. And she was this amazing, um, soprano, amazing soprano. And, um, so she's one of the two people that had hit that high C, but that got changed in the touring companies. If they cast a Jenny, well, actually at one point on our tour, three of the companies were within a ride of each other.

So there was the one company sitting in Chicago, and then there was, there were two companies touring and we were all close enough together that the, um, producers actually held a banquet and moved us all together on Monday night. So there are photos of the three of us who all played Jenny. I'm five foot nine. The next girl was five, four. And then the third girl was Robin. She's like four 11. So we were completely different physical types. And originally I thought, so it's really, I think more than people are aware, it was more about your energy, the kind of energy you had. Um, all three of us were funny, big smiles, big, you know, perky, funny. So that was definitely a part of what they were looking at.

Um, I think we were near Chicago. Well, we had to be near Chicago and I can't, we might've been, we were in Indiana somewhere. I think actually, I think, but they brought the three companies together on a Monday night for a get together. And that was pretty freaky. That was a little freaky. I'm going to start asking everybody I know in the Indiana theater world, if they were part of the banquet, the banquet. Yeah.

[21:36] Cathy Susan Pyles: The cat's banquet. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Um, I want to, I want to continue a little bit about the plot. Okay. How would you describe having been in the show? If someone has not seen it, you've got a friend that's not seen it. They're going to go see the future tour on whatever comes back to Broadway. Whenever theater opens back up and it's back on, how would you tell them what they're about to go witness?

[21:52] Cathy Susan Pyles: Well, the first words out of my mouth would be, there is no plot. Yeah. Uh, I mean, seriously, it was based on TS Eliot's, you know, series of poems. Um, and so I think that that's the big weakness of the show. That's the, that's what they spent. The creative team spent so much time trying to make it make sense. You know, I mean, I get it every, all the cats had very specific personalities. You know, Demeter was supposed to be neurotic and it's like, well, why was she attacked and raped or what's the deal there? But, um, so a lot of people think, I mean, that's why there's so much, there's so much to this show because, and I think you covered an interesting piece of this, is that like every different cast does it a little different because it depends on the person and the energy and the, the, the different vocal range and all these other pieces to it. And maybe

[22:52] Cathy Susan Pyles: They're pulling something because the last person did it and they wanted to keep that. But because of that, there is almost zero consistency of what this loose plot actually means.

[23:05] Right. Yeah, because I know that when I went in, I was a tap dancer and not everybody who played Jenny was a really great tap dancer. They could do the steps and stuff, but I mean, they pulled me over on the second day and he goes, come here a minute. I got something for you. And he gave me a whole extra thing to do across the floor. And he says, I give this to the people who can tap dance. So I did have an extra little I mean, during within the same time. But most people just did a simpler step at that point. And he did some embellishment there. But I don't I don't really know. I mean, they meet one night a year right in the junkyard to choose the person who's going to the Heaviside Layer.

[23:46] Now, is there ever any question about who that should be, you know, I think that's the million dollar question. Yes. I mean, why is Grizabella the chosen one? Because she's the one that deserves redemption.

[24:05] Is it that's a common argument? I don't like making all the Grizabella arguments, but there are plenty of them out there. I think the redemption is obvious. That's probably the most common. The most needing of to be reborn is a pretty common argument. Yeah. The old Deuteronomy teaching everybody a lesson about redemption is kind of an argument. I've heard more that I did not expect to hear.

[24:31] Oh, wait, go on with that for a minute. So I've heard a few people give variations of this, of that old Deuteronomy who's making the choice is using Grizabella as almost a vehicle to teach the younger cats and all the other cats and potentially even the audience on being a better person, being good, like a lot of different versions of what but it's his decision is about teaching others and Grizabella just happens to be his vehicle for that is very, very, yeah, that was very, very interesting. Take of it, but also different, but I've argued a lot of different other cats, too, so we'll get to that because that's my last question for you. That's always one of my last questions.

[25:12] All right. Have you the other part that I'm fascinated by? And I'm curious if you thought about this, if you ever if ever came up, it seems like it came up less in your cast than in other ones. But what about the relationships between the cats? So which cat do you think you're the mom of? Did you did you ever think about that? Did you play it a certain way? How did Jenny's like family cat's family almost play into the plot?

[25:39] Right. Well, you know, we were told from the beginning, these are the kittens. These are the frisky kittens. You know, the white cat who's supposed to be on the verge of pubescent, you know, and then and then you had Sillabub, who is actually the connection that reaches out to Grizabella. Right. They have that moment at the end where they share, share the song and sing in harmony for a second. And then there's this transfer from perhaps you will get the redemption and be this innocent young thing like a Sillabub plays usually very innocently. Pounceable is always played as frisky ornery. But maybe that's because the guy in our company was that way. He was very young and had 300 percent energy all the time, you know.

[26:35] But, you know, so I don't know. I think Jenny was always one of the maternal ones. But honestly, in our company, both both Jenny and Jelly kind of were maternal. We were both older. Just just the two actresses in our company. We were older than some of the others. And I don't know. I think I always had a great relationship. I think I gravitated more to the actor than the character.

[27:05] OK. A terrible thing to say. I think it's not uncommon. You come into a company, you see who's open for you, who's receptive to you on stage because you spend hours out there with your arms crossed and, you know, watching somebody else do their thing. I think I probably did feel kind of responsible for Skimbleshanks being a little nuts.

[27:31] Tell me more about that. How are you responsible for that? I don't know, because he was there before me. But maybe it was just an energy that Jonathan had in our company. He was so he was so silly and so fun and so completely outrageous, you know. But there was such affection from him. I just viewed him as the your faith. If you were a mom cat and you'd had a litter, this is the one you liked.

[28:05] Yeah, it is. It's kind of it's so wild to hear. And that's why I ask this question a lot, because there is a little bit, it seems like, of if you if the energy or what you're playing off the actual other actor or if you were friends before and you knew it. But then when you meet these super fans who I've talked to a few and it's like there is those cats shouldn't like each other or like there is some belief sometimes in these plot in the plot. And I think cats kind of gives the ability because it's such a loose plot. It's what's made this analysis of the plot so hard and unique is that there is no answer to most of it. So I can get an answer from you about how you played it. And I can answer from the other two Jenny's about do they think they were the mom of somebody or if they were, you know, parents with another like with old Deuteronomy. But there's not consistency across shows. And that's a very unique thing.

[29:00] Whereas when I feel like a lot of other stuff that goes on tour or you see over time, it's like, no, that character really is going to play that character. And there's not a lot of variance. There's maybe a little bit of personality or, you know, a little bit of customization. But I'm trying to think of a good example. I don't know enough about Broadway in general, but like I did love the Book of Mormon. The two main guys are going to kind of always be about that to personality types. Now, they might have some tweaking of it, but the two main characters are generally going to be kind of the straight and narrow and kind of the nerdy fun. Yeah. That is not always the case in Cats, which I find so unique.

[29:39] Yeah. I mean, you have certain characters in there that are paired up. You know, you have a Mungo Jerry rumple teaser. So they are who they are. And they are very connected at the hip in their number. But we had a lot of couples on our tour. Roadmances, as we call them. Of course, when you're on tour, roadmance. Yeah. A lot of people were together on our tour. So I'm sure there was a little more connection on stage. But it was it was an interesting thing. There are so many cats, I think, in the show that are so well defined. Maybe it's because of just the structure of the way the musical numbers were written. You know, Monkey Strap is always the leader, the guy who he's the organizer and the leader and the calm one. And, you know, then you have Bombay Arena who comes in as the sexy cat who's just the sultry. There's always one of those Marilyn Monroe's, you know.

[30:37] But. Yeah. So there's that. But then Demeter is just always wide. Why pair up Bombay Arena and Demeter for that number? You know, there are a lot of unanswered questions that I still have about the show. I think that that's an interesting one. I think a lot of people think they're sisters. Well, but then the third person thrown in there is Jelly Lauren in the singing. So was it just because those were the three girls that could sing the harmonies when they first opened in London? That's probably a better answer than trying to actually analyze like the cat's backgrounds. I have that harmony through that whole thing. And it's I don't know.

[31:19] Yeah. Again, so many unanswered questions that it's hard to fill in the blanks. I want to touch. I want to hear a little bit about the both benefits you did. So I know that I love hearing a little bit about the benefit you did in on tour and then how you had a 30 year kind of reunion of it. Last year, we were able to to reconnect and do something, you know, for the Broadway Cares. So tell me a little bit about the tour one when you were on the road. And I'm trying to remember whose brainstorm that was. It might have been Jonathan and Jonathan Cerullo and a few others. But I'm not I don't recall how it started to germinate. But they decided to do this. You know, we were right in the middle of the AIDS crisis and nobody really and nobody really understood the severity of that and how much it was impacting the theater society.

[32:22] They just started doing. Let's do a tribute. We did a tribute to Michael Bennett, who, of course, everyone knew had AIDS and was fairly sick at the time, as I recall. And so we just picked a whole bunch of songs that we liked from that he had been connected to. And it was amazing. And I don't know who did the forework to because we were two months out from being in Kansas City, which is where we actually did this benefit. And we did it in cohesion with a group in Kansas City that that was working on AIDS, assisting people with AIDS. And they we had no idea what we were doing. We were just having fun. And but we were every day and building costumes and building props to do this benefit. And we got there that night. And I'm sure you've heard other people tell this story. They we had to hold the house because they said that the line was literally around the block.

[33:27] Yeah, literally gone up and around the block of people. And it was packed. If the fire marshal had walked in, we would have been dead, you know, because and we auctioned off posters and other stuff, whatever we had. And I don't know. I don't recall. I think it was thirty thousand dollars or something, which in 1986 was a huge amount of money. Eighty five, eighty six. And then we did a couple more on the tour. Smaller. We did one in Washington, D.C. I know it was a late night club act after the show. We did a couple of other things. But it was pretty magical that we were able to pull that off. And and we felt good about it. And, you know, that was one of the first things that when when the Actors Fund and Broadway Cares equity.

[34:18] Cathy Susan Pyles: I do think I'm a little responsible for making Skimbleshanks nuts.

[34:33] Cathy Susan Pyles: My experience as a swing on other national tours really helped me when I went on as Jennyanydots in CATS. It was a unique challenge, but I loved every moment of it.

[34:45] Cathy Susan Pyles: The contributions from the initial casts were invaluable. They helped drive the backstories for the cats, which added so much depth to our performances.

[34:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: I always argued that we should sacrifice one of the kittens for the Heaviside Layer. It was a bold choice, but I felt it was necessary for the story.

[35:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: Playing a very youthful Jennyanydots was a fun challenge. I wanted to bring that youthful energy to the character while still honoring the original portrayal.

[35:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: The dynamic between the cats was so important. Each character brought something unique to the table, and it was essential to highlight those differences.

[35:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: I remember the rehearsals vividly. There was a lot of laughter and camaraderie among the cast, which made the experience even more enjoyable.

[36:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: The costumes were another aspect that really stood out. They were intricate and helped us embody our characters fully.

[36:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: I think the audience really connected with the characters. They could see the love and effort we put into our performances.

[36:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: One of my favorite moments was when we would all come together for the big numbers. The energy was electric, and it felt like magic.

[37:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I also loved the storytelling aspect of CATS. Each cat had a story to tell, and it was our job to bring those stories to life.

[37:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: The music was another highlight. It was so catchy and memorable, and I still find myself humming the tunes.

[37:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: I think the legacy of CATS is that it continues to resonate with audiences. It's a timeless piece that speaks to the heart.

[38:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I feel grateful to have been a part of such an iconic production. It shaped my career in ways I never imagined.

[38:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: The friendships I made during the tour are some of the most cherished relationships in my life.

[38:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: Looking back, I realize how much I learned from the experience. It was a true gift to be involved in CATS.

[39:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I hope that future generations continue to appreciate the artistry and creativity that went into the show.

[39:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: Each performance was a new opportunity to connect with the audience, and I always looked forward to that.

[39:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: The joy of performing is something that stays with you long after the curtain falls.

[40:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I think the magic of CATS lies in its ability to transport people to another world, even if just for a few hours.

[40:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: I feel proud to have been part of a show that has left such a lasting impact on musical theatre.

[40:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: The experience was challenging, but it was also incredibly rewarding. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

[41:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I hope that my portrayal of Jennyanydots brought joy to the audiences we performed for.

[41:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: It's amazing to think about how many people have seen CATS over the years and how it continues to evolve.

[41:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: I believe that every cat in the show has a unique story that deserves to be told.

[42:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: The passion of the cast and crew was palpable, and it made every performance special.

[42:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: I think that the themes of love, acceptance, and community resonate deeply with people.

[42:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: CATS is more than just a musical; it's an experience that stays with you long after you've seen it.

[43:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: I feel fortunate to have been part of something so groundbreaking and beloved.

[43:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: The legacy of CATS will continue to inspire future generations of performers and audiences alike.

[43:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: I hope that my contributions to the role of Jennyanydots will be remembered as part of that legacy.

[44:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: Thank you for having me on the podcast to share my experiences. It's been a pleasure to reflect on my time in CATS.

[44:35] Cathy Susan Pyles: I look forward to seeing how the show continues to evolve and touch the hearts of many.

[44:55] Cathy Susan Pyles: It's been a joy to discuss my journey with CATS, and I appreciate the opportunity to share my story.

[45:15] Cathy Susan Pyles: Thank you again for this wonderful conversation.