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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, and the wrong one, good night. I'm the wrong one. Good night. You.

[0:20] Speaker 3: Welcome

[0:28] Mike Abrams: to the wrong cat died. The podcast, breakdown the cast, atrophy. I'm your host. Mike Abrams, I'm very excited about today's guest. He is the founder and current artistic director of the new line theater in St Louis. He has been working in musical theater since 1978 and has been directing has been directing musicals since 1981 he's written multiple books, music and lyrics for nine musical and two plays, and his recent book is called the theater cats, which is a parody of TS Eliot's old opossums Book of Practical Cats, which is why he's here today. So welcome. Scott Miller, thank you for joining me. Thank you glad to be here. Yeah, I am excited. I definitely. I got cued to your book and bought it and read it, and thoroughly enjoyed reading kind of a musical parody of cats, you know, the poem of cats, as somebody who's kind of spent a lot of time thinking about the story of cats, and so I'm excited to have you here, but before we get into the book and cats, I do, I want to hear you have a really deep, like, background in theater. So tell me a little bit about, like, new line theater and your experience, kind of writing and being in this world.

[1:30] Speaker 4: I literally have been in been in love with musicals since before I can remember, like, really, you know, like I do all the lyrics to My Fair Lady when I was, you know, four years old, and and, and my family had a lot of cast albums in the in the family collection, you know, so I grew up with that stuff, and I've always been in love with it. And so, you know, as soon as I could, I was in musicals in high school, and senior year, I wrote a Musical for the first time, and we did it at the high school. And so that kind of turned me from wanting to be an actor to being to want to be a director and writer. And went out to college, kept doing it, and then early 90s, I was working with a community theater back here after college, and I really wanted to get adventurous, and the musical theater itself was starting to get really adventurous, and so I broke off and started new line, and it's primarily about doing shows that are a little less mainstream. You know, a lot of what we do has been on or off Broadway, but most of it failed on or off Broadway. So we're doing the shows that aren't really commercial, but are brilliant and wonderful.

[2:49] Mike Abrams: Wow. So I actually was wondering, because I looked at the history of your theater and you've not done cats, and I was wondering, you know, no, I guess maybe two main line here

[2:58] Speaker 4: well, and also it's, it's like such a dance musical, you know, and we do musicals with dance, but we don't really do dance musicals. You know, for me, it's all about content. It's all about story. So I enjoyed Cats The first time I saw it. It's, you know, I've gotten a little over it since then, and it's, but it's all it's never been something I really wanted to work on, you know, as a director,

[3:22] Mike Abrams: got it. Okay, so you're and are you from? You're from St Louis, you're from this area growing up. Okay, so you're like me, I'm from Indiana, where, you know, we had a little bit coming through every year. I think you've got the Muny there's right, like, theater, yeah? So

[3:36] Speaker 4: when I was growing up, that was 11 shows a summer at the muni. Wow,

[3:41] Mike Abrams: yeah, we get five, about five a year in Indiana. And so that was kind of always like, what's rolling through, I think, you know, this past week, when we're recording, this pretty woman was on tour there, but you never know what's actually going to make it. And so I had, actually, I'd never seen cats in the however, many times it stopped by. But so you're in high school, okay, so you're high school, and you kind of say, I'm gonna, I want to be a director and a writer. And you started really kind of digging in, and you took that through college, and then that's how the new line theater kind of came to about, well,

[4:10] Speaker 4: and also little thing that was kind of cool. I went to Harvard, and I was up in Boston, and there was this astonishing variety of used record stores. So my four years in college, I acquired like four or 500 cast albums. So I was really kind of, like teaching myself, you know, the literature of my art form, kind of,

[4:33] Mike Abrams: so how many of those were cats? Did you have any? I did have the Broadway cats. Okay, original cast, okay, original Broadway cast album. And I have to say, when

[4:43] Speaker 4: I first started listening to it, I really liked it. Like, some of the music is really unusual and kind of challenge, like, you know, skimble Shanks is in 13 that's really kind of fun for me as a musician. And like I said, the first time I saw it, I thought it was really cool because I was up close. And. You know, but, yeah, so where, where

[5:03] Mike Abrams: was that first, that first viewing, like, Where were you? When was it?

[5:06] Speaker 4: I was in college, and it was the first stop of the first national tour in Boston. Okay,

[5:12] Mike Abrams: so this is the tour. I think it technically be tour three, is what they called it. And because they got weird names, are on tour six now, but six was pre and post pandemic in the in the US, so two or three, and you're in Boston, okay? And so you're in college, yeah. And what was that? What was that like? You, I know, you know, before we started, you said that there's, you know, everything is a little bit better experience, if for cats, if you maybe were, had an enhancement before you go see the show. Did you? Did you partake in that before in college? Or did you go sober? I

[5:49] Speaker 4: was not yet a stoner, and so I saw it console stone cold sober. But one of the things was I the seats we had were right on a cross aisle in the audience. And so the cats were coming right up to us, you know, when they were out in the house. And, you know, I was close enough to see that, that, you know, amazing giant garbage on stage, and everything, you know. And so the experience, like, was really cool for me, because I was relatively close. I was kind of in the experience, you know, yeah,

[6:23] Mike Abrams: and so you Okay, so did you know that they were coming into the house? Because I didn't, and it scared the living daylights out of me.

[6:29] Speaker 4: I did not. No, okay, what was also cool is, you know, we were fairly close up, but you could look behind you and see him crawling on the balcony railing and stuff, you know, that was cool.

[6:38] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I was not. I wasn't ready for that. I was at a matinee, and I was not ready for them to be all around me. I was thankfully two seats in or three seats in, so I get, like, completely green eye in my face, bombarded, but, but, yeah, I love that. Okay, I was because it sounds like similar experience. They kind of I was close. It was pretty early on. It was a preview of the Broadway revival, and I felt like I was mesmerized by the set, and then the lights go down all of a sudden to my right, his eyes flashing in my face, and I was terrified. And

[7:07] Speaker 4: the other thing, have you seen that book? A cat's diary? No, it's one of the actors published this diary about working on the show. And the thing that I thought was so wonderful about it was that the early rehearsals were all about acting. They were all about cat behavior. It was all improv, you know, being cats. How do cats interact? What happens when a stranger comes over? Like all those things about being cats, they took it really, really seriously and, and so I think early on, the show was a different show than it is now, yeah,

[7:47] Mike Abrams: it's, it is kind of a wild like the progression of it. And now that I've interviewed so many different cast members, I've also noticed everybody has a different take on their character, the story. It's like, it's very loose, yeah, which is, I think some of the fun of it, which I'm sure as a writer, is also probably super fun for you to kind of go in and be able to take this like, there's a lot to work with here.

[8:09] Speaker 4: Yeah. And, you know, my idea for the book was, part of what I love about cats is it's not just talking about cats, right? It's talking about people too, and, and so I thought that's really cool. And instead of a book of poems about the quirks of people, how about a book of poems about the quirks of theater people now, which is to me, of course, extra funny. And the more I thought about more, I thought, yeah, that's that's really that'll work. And so I tried one as a, as a experiment, see if I could do it. And so I wrote mermaniac, the skrelty Cat and and by the end of it, I was laughing at things I had written. And I was like, Yeah, I think I can do this.

[8:56] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it mean they, they landed. And especially, I'll tell you what I what I appreciate about it is when I when I got it and I started reading it, I immediately was saying, Oh no, I'm not a theater person, right? Am I gonna get most of this? Like, how much of this is gonna go over my head, and how much of this is gonna be there? And I got a lot of it, and so it's like, yeah, I'm not gonna know the nuances of some of it that a theater lover is going to love. And there was somewhere I was just like, oh, this is still really clever, and this is great. So, like, I was gonna say, the ones that jumped out to me when I was reading it is the triple threat, the director, the casting, like some of these things as especially as I've heard more about, like, the real life experiences of these actors. It's like you, it seems like you nailed a couple of these super vile and it's fun. So I like, I encourage anybody, well, you know, the link will be to get the book, will be in the description here, but I encourage everyone just to go read it and, like, especially if you're a theater person, to to pull out some of these, like, nuances. I'm sure there's going to be one or two. It's like, it's like, the show one or two is like, going to be like, oh, man, that just absolutely nailed. You. Exactly my experience with this.

[10:02] Speaker 4: And, you know, some of the poems are essentially a composite of, you know, lots of people I've worked with or known, or whatever. A few of the poems are really about a single person, and I will never tell who they are, but, but it's very funny to me because I read them and I think, oh, my god, is that person going to recognize themselves. You know,

[10:21] Mike Abrams: have you been Have you been called out yet? Has anybody reached out to you?

[10:27] Speaker 4: The ones that are really based on Pacific person are the kind of less generous ones. I'm not sure they want to recognize themselves.

[10:39] Mike Abrams: Okay, I know a couple that might be there, but I didn't, I wasn't saying, here's who this is, which

[10:46] Speaker 4: I just wanna say I also have this kind of secret agenda underneath. You know, there's this amazing growing fan base from musical theater for Broadway musicals that didn't used to be around. And I really wanna, like, feed that fan base, because I remember me being a high school musical theater freak, you know, and how awesome that was. And so part of the secret agenda here is also kind of to teach a little bit about making musicals. And so the first poem and the last poem are relatively serious, you know, the casting of cats and the directing of cats, and they're just little things every once in a while in the book that I'm just trying to get a point across about, you know, respecting musical theater and that kind of thing. So it's, it's kind of underneath, but, but it's there.

[11:34] Mike Abrams: I'm curious which one of these was the most challenging to write. Like, which one did you open up the book and say, this one's gonna be hard to parody on

[11:44] Speaker 4: the one? And I almost didn't do it. I almost left it out. It's the Battle of the snack heads and whisper cats.

[11:53] Mike Abrams: Yeah, that it's hard. That's a hard one to go in. It's hard one to kind of like follow in the in the musical as well. And it's a, I thought your version of it was super clever, though. Well,

[12:04] Speaker 4: thank you. It's a weird form. It's weird rhymes game. It's long, and it's the only one where I really had to tell a narrative like that, that would have to be a story, not just a description of someone. And I really struggled with it. I worked on a really long time and and I kept thinking, well, that's okay, like I could go with that, but I would like it to be better. So I kept tweaking.

[12:32] Mike Abrams: And so this is, I know you've written multiple books. Was this your first kind of foray into poems?

[12:38] Speaker 4: Yes, sort of, I've written two shows where I take a Gilbert and Sullivan score and write entirely new book lyrics to it. So that was good practice for this, you know, because I had to stick to their rhythms and rhyme scheme and everything. But this is the first time I ever did like straight actually, not that. I'd say that I wrote a collection of horror stories that are connected to musical theater, and one of those is a parody of The Raven. So that is the one other time that I actually attempted poetry. And it's hard. It's really hard. Yeah,

[13:16] Mike Abrams: yeah. What's what's hardest about it

[13:19] Speaker 4: is making sure you can only read it the way I want it to read, you know, make sure the rhythm is not ambiguous at all, but you can't read it wrong. And it's

[13:29] Mike Abrams: hard, yeah, it's, it's a, you know, it's a fairly, it's a famous book too, you know. So, yeah, taking, taking some of that, I did a memory parody, and even that was hard, of like, keeping some of the the lyrics that are focal points, but also being able to to get enough across to make the joke.

[13:47] Speaker 4: And every once in a while, I wanted to leave a word or a phrase of Elliot's, you know, to reference it to cut, you know, it's a fun little easter egg, kind of

[13:59] Mike Abrams: exactly, so I'm curious with this, watching like having read this now, and knowing that it's a little hard because they're the musical doesn't actually have grizzabel The book's not Grizz not in the book. Isn't that in the original book? Right? If you were taking this book and turning your book into cats too, how are you weaving, how are you weaving that story together?

[14:24] Speaker 4: Wow, that's a really good question. I guess I wouldn't do it all that differently. I mean, there's no real story, you know, it's a it's a snapshots community, it's a character study, which usually doesn't hold your attention. But I guess you know all the weird, crazy stuff here, you know, helps hold your attention.

[14:47] Mike Abrams: Totally okay. So if that's the case, then who in your book is going to be the Jellicle choice? Well,

[14:54] Speaker 4: it's going to be the my parallel to Grizabella, which is Razzle jail. Azi, the diva cat, okay? And I think because she's kind of pathetic, like, I feel like she's got to, yeah, I feel so sorry for everybody's like, making fun of her, and, you know,

[15:15] Mike Abrams: totally Yeah. Well, okay, well, we'll get into the Grisel argument at the end. You gotta, gotta sit tight there. I do want to hear a little bit more now about your, you know, how many like, I know you've seen the show, and you obviously tackled this. What is your cat's level fandom? Like, if someone asked you about the actual musical, do you go in and say, like, pre this book? Was it a, you know, a show that you loved, hated, or was this just kind of like you saw a really strong vehicle took a crack at it and created this really amazing thing.

[15:48] Speaker 4: That's a good question. Height, I think I would say I'm a huge fan of the Broadway cast recording and medium fan of the show itself.

[16:05] Mike Abrams: Medium fan, you're the only person in the middle. I think

[16:08] Speaker 4: if the if there's, if a production of the show really takes the acting seriously and really takes the cat behavior and the characters and all seriously, I think it makes a much better show.

[16:19] Mike Abrams: Have you seen one that has? I mean, I've only seen my experiences the 1998 movie on an iPad, yeah, and 2016 revival twice, right? And that's really it. I mean, it's on tour now, but it's not anywhere near where I'm going to be able to see it, right? I didn't know anything about it pre 2016 at all. So my like, my knowledge is limited, but everyone I've talked to, it's like, everyone talks about felony school and their three words and all this, like the fact that they become cats. So I'm curious if you experience one, and without maybe calling out the production, where it didn't feel like it was taken as

[16:58] Speaker 4: serious, I've seen a couple of tours, you know, more recently, last 10 years, or whatever, where, you know, the dancing is great and the singing is great, but they're not, they're not doing a show. They're doing a dance concert, which is fine, you know, it's great songs, because I really do I love the music and, yeah, I love the lyrics. TS, Eliot, how can you go wrong? But, yeah, but it's a show that you can't you can't disrespect it or it sucks.

[17:27] Mike Abrams: Interesting. I So, I mean, I'm gonna ask you when we hang up, when we stop recording, because I don't throw anybody under the bus, because I've probably talked to somebody on the show that you saw. But I'm very curious now, which ones you thought kind of mailed it in, but you're the first person I've ever met, ever since I've been doing this now for two and a half years. That is in the middle of the road. Everyone is love or hate. There's no it's like, it's either the it's your favorite show and you are a super fan, and it's like a part of your growing up in aura, or you think it's the dumbest thing you've ever seen, and you hated every minute of it. And you can't explain why. I've yet to find anybody to explain why. It's just this is like, not their cup of tea, and that's it. You're the first one that's kind of gone in the middle. Well,

[18:10] Speaker 4: you know, the first time I heard it was probably like, you know, 8182 whatever. I was thrilled by it. I mean, you know, I was already a huge fan of Jesus Christ Superstar in Evita. I like Joseph. I don't think it's amazing, but I like it a lot. It's very clever. And so, yeah, I was, I was ready to like cats and and I loved the recording. And I think under ideal circumstances, I love it live. You know, the first time I saw it in Boston, I loved it, but, but I think it's one of those shows that you you can't disrespect. You know, there are a lot like that, Jesus Christ Superstar, and there are a bunch of where, if you phone it in, the audience will accept it. But it's not great unless you really, really treat it with respect and really take it seriously. This

[18:59] Mike Abrams: is such a director answer. I love it. It's the i I've watched. You know, I'm the director here. I know what's happening, and this group isn't giving it today, and that's like, or just, you know, they might not care. I found the parallels. And I mean, you can see behind me here, but I have a lot I'm much, very, very, much more into sports than I am theater, and it's like the NBA, which is a lot of what I watch basketball, the players sometimes get criticized for mailing in regular season games. It's like, you know, you're going to spend a lot of money to go watch them play, and it's like, they kind of give half effort, but you're still watching the best players in the world do something that you have zero chance of doing. I can't. And so I it's like, it feels like kind of that same thing you're saying. Like, look, I know what great looks like. I know that this is still incredibly good performing in a crazy show and great lyrics and everything, but I know that you're just kind of like you're on tour. You're just kind of, you're just kind of giving it today, just because you have to be out there well.

[19:56] Speaker 4: And I think, and maybe it's the nature of. Beast. But I think most commercial musical theater doesn't take the time or effort to understand and respect the work. You know, we've done a lot of shows that were disasters on Broadway, like disasters, Cry Baby, high fidelity stuff like that that get nothing but raise reviews when we do them, because we don't try to make them funny, we don't try to give them spectacle for the tourists. You know, we just like take the story and tell the story seriously, and then it's a great show. And it drives me crazy, because there are a lot of people in commercial theater who are like, how can we throw the audience instead of what is this story we're going to tell? And how do we tell it? Will told

[20:41] Mike Abrams: I mean, well, I guess that becomes an interesting piece, and I can probably say more than most people, because I'm not in the industry. But like, is that the business of it? Of the like, you kind of have to play to the tourists a little bit to keep the ticket sales coming in, and if not, they, you know, I've seen a couple things that I had wanted to see even before I moved to New York that didn't make it through previews or didn't make it there, that I was really interested in seeing, and clearly I was the minority, yeah,

[21:10] Speaker 4: well, and yeah, because so much of the audience is tourists now. And you know, you pay $700 for an orchestra seat like, that's, that's crazy. You know, I remember a few years ago, saw a bloody, bloody Andrew Jackson on Broadway, and it's this really like, aggressive, confrontational, crazy show. And I sat there enjoying it immensely and thinking these tourists hate this. And sure enough, it closed really fast, and then we got to do it, and we had a blast with it, you know, but, but it's like, it is about families and tourists, you know, what do they want to see, and what do the producers think they want to see?

[21:51] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's kind of interesting. I do think I'm like, I always use me or my I would say my dad, my mom's much more into musical theater as a bar of like, would they enjoy this? Yeah, and same for me. I now know a lot more than I used to, and now I live in New York, so it's a little a lot easier to go to see a lot of stuff on random times, and a little bit easier to get tickets, right? But I'm not, I'm not knowledgeable. I asked a lot of my friends who are now, who work in theater, and people I saw, you know, today I was with somebody, and that is in theater. Works in theater. And I was like, they talked about something that was a little bit more offbeat. And I'm like, Would I enjoy that? And I'm like, take that eyes of like, hey, know that I don't go to everything. I don't go to all the shows like, you know, a lot of lot of my friends do now. And like, which one would I be entertained by? Which one would I and so I do think that there is a lens of, like, it has to be a little bit that way, because the New Yorkers can't all go every day, unfortunately, and so you do have to rely on the ticket sales from tourists and other even, I would say less like theater enthusiasts is probably the better term for someone who's just going to a show or two a year.

[22:58] Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I would say two things. One is, audiences don't only like what's safe and familiar. Audiences love what's great, you know, yeah. And so you can challenge them and surprise them and still be awesome and still be a hit, you know. And the other thing I have to throw in a little self plug, if you don't mind, please, one of my books totally addresses you. It's called the ABCs of Broadway musicals, and it's this small format, like overview of the entire art form. Like, who are the important people? What are the important genres? You know? What good videos to check out. Here are some documentaries. Just to kind of give you an overview of the art form.

[23:45] Mike Abrams: I love it. I will, I will check it out. But I also am hesitant to check it out, because I really like the fact that the only thing I know about theater is the story of cats. It's cats, and I know one. I know one thing better than 99% of the world, and I don't know anything about the rest, and it's a nice, pleasant world to live in. You know, I can, I'm a little ignorant in the sense like now jokingly, that I can kind of just live in my little bubble here and only think about cats and the rest of stuff. But I do appreciate the I mean, you're doing a lot of work for the people, like for everyone who wants to learn about it and needs to learn about it. And I think more than just the me, there's also the people that are, you know, students who are getting into it, like, what do they need to know if they were, they're entering this world and weren't involved in it as a super fan growing up?

[24:31] Speaker 4: Yeah, I really, I think a lot about me as a high school musical theater kid, you know, and what, what would thrill me, what would make me happy? And also this, this ABCs book, partly, it's for, you know, parents of theater majors and, you know, grandmas of somebody who does musicals all the time, you know, or a spouse of somebody who does musicals all the time. You know, how to get a little bit of glimpse into that world.

[24:56] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I love it. I was not ever in theater drawing. Up. I played travel hockey. So I was always on the road playing hockey. So it was, like, the one time. I don't even remember what it was or what I did, but I was a non speaking, like, tree, essentially, tree, you know, type of thing. It's like, Don't give him a line. He's not going to be in any rehearsals. I was like, second or third grade type of thing. So it's, it is fun that, you know, there's the, there's different populations of the world that are gonna like, I am now here, years later, still doing this type of stuff, which is fun, that everyone can enter and experience whatever point in their life that they find, and whatever brings them to it. We're going to take a quick break, and then we back for more of the wrong cat died. So let's go into my rapid fire about the musical. For you, I do want to ask a couple about the play, about the musical. So, yeah, if you got to be in it, yeah, which character, which cat would you want to be?

[25:48] Speaker 4: Oh, what a good question. Uh, Gus. Gus.

[25:52] Mike Abrams: Okay, so you want to, you want to get broke, big. Okay, this is, this is good for my final question, because I think Gus is the most common non Grizabella answer we're gonna get into, I'm sure, oh yeah, I guess. Well, we'll get there. Let's, let's keep going with the rapid fire, though, what is, who is your favorite character and least favorite character in the musical?

[26:10] Speaker 4: I think favorite is rum tub Tugger. Super fun. Okay, you're gonna laugh at this the church. I like the least. I'm not even sure if she has a character name. I think she does. It's the all white hat, like the all white arena cat. Oh, is that? Yes, yes, yeah, there's some Yeah, I don't, I don't. She can go away.

[26:32] Mike Abrams: Okay, so I'm gonna, we're gonna pause the rapid fire, because then we're gonna talk about the new movie, which I know you said you saw. They made her the vehicle for the new right? The storyteller of it, right? What was, what was your take on the new movie? Well, the

[26:52] Speaker 4: so, like, freakishly surreal and like, inconsistently freakishly surreal. So I did watch it really stoned, and I kind of loved it. I kind of loved the craziness of it, like, was just crazy. And, you know, like, I'm already, you know, I already like the music and all that. I found it, like, super creepy, but, but, like, kind of in a good way. Yeah, I can't imagine watching it straight. I can't imagine watching in a movie theater. I

[27:29] Mike Abrams: was in a press viewing, again, sober. I just just recorded, I just recorded an episode. I walked straight from the studio to the theater with my producer, and we went, and it was a filled theater, and I knew we were in trouble when it was a press viewing later on, like, not the opening press one, but it was basically press and people that knew people in the show. So it's like, it should be a favorable audience, right? And 10 minutes in, people were laughing at the like, directly at the theater and not at funny parts. And that was when I was like, This is gonna be an run when it goes live to the public. Because if this group is laughing and struggling, the like, the world is not ready for it

[28:10] Speaker 4: well. And my reaction, you know, on my couch with my actual cats watching, you know, I just kept going. But like, you know, like, in a fun way.

[28:23] Mike Abrams: I think your experience is where it has to go to have another life, which is rocky Roche,

[28:33] Mike Abrams: yes. Go see it with a bunch of people that want to see it for that reason. Yes, yes. That's I'm pushing for it. We gotta give it a little bit of time, though it needs, it needs to breathe a lot before, because every breathe a lot before, because everyone's uh, disassociated themselves from the movie, yeah, Weber,

[28:47] Speaker 4: everything was so awful. And, like, I even, you know, not stoned, I don't think it's awful. I think it's, like, kind of terribly misguided. Maybe

[28:55] Mike Abrams: there were, it was, I thought it was poorly edited. Honestly, it was my biggest take of the whole thing. And I think there were some choice, some interesting decisions, there were some, I thought, some really smart decisions, and then a couple interesting decisions. And all in all, it's, it was, it was just, there's too there's too much to go into. I have a whole episode I did a very like right after I watched it, recording the next day, where I broke down a lot of stuff, and I've heard more behind the scenes now, as it's come from other people that were loosely involved, or talked to people that are involved. And I think there were, I think there were a lot of errors in the overall piece, and it got rushed out. And you know that a lot of people think it's actually the reason that the pandemic started is, you know, the world turned the minute the cats movie was released. Wow. Yeah, that's what some of the takes I've seen on the internet, nice, okay, what? What was your favorite song from musical?

[29:55] Speaker 4: Well, I really do like memory. It's a beautiful song. I think my favorites. We probably skimble Shanks,

[30:01] Mike Abrams: yeah, it's, it's a unique it's just a unique song. It's just very different, very upbeat. I

[30:06] Speaker 4: love explaining to people that it's in 13, yeah, yeah. You catch it. 12312312312121231231231212, and that's like, that's really cool, anything different. It gives you this sense of of railroad, you know, of movement, of of energy. I really like it,

[30:26] Mike Abrams: yeah, yeah. And it's a fun one to watch, too. They build an all. It's like a very unique piece of the show.

[30:33] Speaker 4: I think my favorite lyric is Buster for Jones. It's just such a funny lyric. It's a very human lyric. His

[30:45] Mike Abrams: song, if you read it, depends on how you read it, but it talks about going to gentlemen's clubs a lot, and it talks about going to, essentially, if you depending on how you interpret it. The way I interpreted it was, you've got a really rich guy, I think, seems like backing the mob of the cavity and is going to his gentlemen's clubs, yeah, and and living his best life as the kind of sloppy, big fat bachelor. And so I, I found that one to be like, again, it's a pretty dark premise, but I was like, sitting there going, this is I've got Demeter potentially being abused. I've got one cat that's now funding a crime mafia and doing it out of a strip club. I that was where I was like, this show, this show goes into a whole lot of layers. I wasn't expecting

[31:33] Speaker 4: Well, and that's, that's what I love about the poems that you know, they are about cat behavior a lot, but they are totally about human personalities,

[31:41] Mike Abrams: yeah, yeah. That's and I think that's why it's relatable to a lot of people, is that you can see, hopefully not with, like, some of the crazy pieces of it, but you can relate to parts of almost all of them. But in a in a character that's, you know, a cat, it's non binary. It's it's not a it's not male, female, it's just, it's a cat. And so I think that that's an interesting part of this, for sure. And,

[32:03] Speaker 4: you know, with the book, The second piece that I wrote was Razzle jazzy, based on Grizabella. And it, it was because of the emotion of it, like, you know, I, I, I feel so bad for Grizabella, the poor thing, you know, because she was glamorous once more time. And and it was so exactly parallel to these women, who are, you know, gorgeous chorus girls. And they get parts all the time, and they get older and older than they play the mother, and they get older and older, and they still want to hold on to that young, you know, I'm beautiful, I'm a great dancer, etc, etc, but they're, you know, 4050, years older than that now, you know, and it's, and it's, it's real human, and it's real sad. And I, I just saw this obvious parallel,

[32:48] Mike Abrams: yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the redemption story of her coming back and, wow, we'll get there. I want one more one more rapid fire question. Then we'll go to bake Rosa Bella here. Which cat do you think would be the best author?

[33:07] Speaker 4: Which cat sings the Gumby song? Does she sing

[33:11] Mike Abrams: her own she sings some of it? I don't know who kicks it off, though it's one of, probably one of the younger females, because

[33:18] Speaker 4: I always feel like that's like, one of the great story songs in the show. Yeah, that was who I thought you could so imagine the story she's telling. You know? Yeah,

[33:29] Mike Abrams: I my answer this question while I was thinking about it was Jenny, any dots I could see her writing and interesting? Like, it's like, almost like the children's stories, like she's writing my children's stories for me.

[33:42] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. She, she has a voice. She has a narrator voice. That's really interesting. Yeah.

[33:47] Mike Abrams: Okay, let's, let's dive in. Now. We've kind of teased this a couple times. My whole show is about, I don't think Grizabella should be the Jellicle choice. It sounds like you think she should be. But I want to know if you're, you know, if you're Old Deuteronomy, and you're picking at the ball, who are you selecting and why? And if it's Grizabella, I don't want to hear your defense for and if it's somebody else, I want to hear your defense for

[34:09] Speaker 4: that. Well, you know, I've always just assumed it should be Grizabella. And I think it's entirely out of pity. I mean, it goes beyond that. It's poor thing. You know, it's

[34:21] Mike Abrams: a redemption it's a redemption story. The arc is a question, is,

[34:26] Speaker 4: what? What's the point? Why do they go to the heavy side layer like, you know, do any of the other cats need that? I don't know

[34:32] Mike Abrams: that. So that's a great question. I think there's a couple questions. There's a lot of unanswered questions. I'm now way many, way more episodes into this than I've ever, ever thought. But I think the number one question is, what is Old Deuteronomy, decision making criteria? Yes, yes, yes, because that is the root of this. Because we only get one ball. You have one ball, I don't have the year before, the year after, I don't. Know how this is graded, per se. And I think you bring up a good point, which I actually thought a lot about, which is, what is being the choice? Mean, I kind of always assumed it was you deserve and you get to start your next life. But I think that that's an interesting piece of like, maybe that's not actually it. Maybe it's

[35:15] Speaker 4: Oh. So, in other words, you like, you've, you've done a great job with this life now you graduate, which

[35:20] Mike Abrams: is, again, which is why most of the time a Gus or a Grizabella or some of the older cats is the ones that are thought of for this. I do think that that goes back to my original joke has always been. I think it's Tugger and misophys Because I voted on based on the performances. I thought I treated it like a singing competition. And I forget age for everything else. Which ones were I entertained by the most? And it was guys, right?

[35:46] Mike Abrams: I do, yeah, which is funny when you think about it's also being potentially murdered, like, it's like, which one are you gonna kill, right? But it's a, I looked at it as a reward. I think it is a positive thing to be the choice, okay,

[35:58] Speaker 4: see, I've never considered that. It to me, it's always been, you know, who's who's ready to die. Ah, okay,

[36:07] Mike Abrams: so I we're taking this a different route. So you basically are thinking like, Grizzle, life is so miserable. We got to put her out of her misery,

[36:14] Speaker 4: or not even that, not even that. It's her time. It's

[36:18] Mike Abrams: time. Okay? So that would be the same argument for guys, then would be theirs, okay,

[36:28] Mike Abrams: So in your, in your version of your thought of this, are they coming back to a next life? Are they coming back to a new life, or are

[36:36] Speaker 4: they, yeah, that is like, there is the next step. Okay,

[36:39] Mike Abrams: okay. So then in that scenario, I do think you have your two choices are Gus or Grizabella.

[36:46] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. To me, it was always Grizabella is so near death, you know, she's so fragile, so crumbling, that that it's her time to die, if not anybody else's time yet. And so she will go to the heavy side, though, and everybody's like, Yay, because she gets a new life now.

[37:05] Mike Abrams: So I agree. I agree, and I disagree with that, because if you watch the 1998 movie, Gus is Sir John Mills, and he's blind by the time I read this later, he is blind when he's doing that performance, which is why they would walk him out. He is as frail as you can be watching him do that. If you go back to the 19 eight movie, and you watch it, he looks like he's on his last leg. And so it's like, I get Grizz about like, but then you see a little bit of younger Grizzle belt out her song like it's, if you watch that movie, I'm like, That's Gus. Is the one that looks like

[37:40] Speaker 4: they're about to croak. See between Grizzle and Gus? Grizabella gets a better song, the more emotional song. And so that's who I want to go to, the heavy side layer, of course,

[37:48] Mike Abrams: you know, you built out memory. You got to be the selection. But

[37:51] Speaker 4: it's such an emotional song, too. You know, I

[37:55] Mike Abrams: have always kind of thought, the more I've thought about this, a lot for the Grizabella argument, my my whole thing was a joke to start. But if, if she is being brought back to the tribe, and they're re accepting her, and it's really redemption, why can't she stay? Why can't she be next year's choice and get a year back with her family? So my

[38:12] Speaker 4: Reno would be dow, my email would be only Old Deuteronomy knows this, but it is her time. Yeah,

[38:18] Mike Abrams: well, that's no fun. That's the problem here is that that's just no fun. But I have made, I've made the Grizzle argument. I get it. I'm, you know, I 40 plus years of a positive, you know, outcome of people coming to see this show like we don't need to change it every day. But some arguments here.

[38:41] Speaker 4: I agree with you about Gus, though he would be the obvious other choice. Yeah,

[38:45] Mike Abrams: Gus is the most common I've heard. I've had some fun ones, because I do think the criteria is what it boils down to. I loved one person made a joke that they thought is who is the biggest strain on the tribe, and now, in their opinion, was bus for Jones. So it was like, so he needs to get out, which I thought was

[39:07] Mike Abrams: yeah? Like, who's, who's the strain on the tribe, and let's get him out. And that, like that. Argue would also be mccaviddy. Like, there's your, your villain, let's get rid of our villain. Yeah, there's a couple other I've had, and there's some, you know, it's, it's, there's, there's not a right or wrong. Well, there's only a right version, because Andrew Weber and, yeah, Chrissy and everyone who's who created the show made a decision, and I'm now critiquing it 40 years later, but, but it's been, it's been fun. I do think it's kind of like the beauty of the show, as you get to see all those different personalities and hear how they kind of come up with stuff so and

[39:45] Speaker 4: everybody's life experience is going to interact differently with all those personalities.

[39:52] Mike Abrams: Exactly. Well, I have had a blast talking to you about this, and also, you know, getting to read your book and kind of go through all that, what? Um? I'd love to know, like, how can we direct people to the other stuff you've written, the other stuff you've worked on? I know we'll, I'll throw a link in the description to all of your books and how to kind of grab them. Yeah, yeah. I've got an Amazon

[40:10] Speaker 4: Author Page, so they're all there, both serious books and silly books and and, yeah, I would encourage folks to come check out new line theater, the company that I run. I also keep a blog about our work at New Line and also about the art form. It's called the bad boy of musical theater.

[40:30] Mike Abrams: Love it, well, we'll link that as well so you can description go and and keep up. And, yeah, if you're in St Louis or the Midwest, go check out new line theater. And I have to

[40:41] Speaker 4: say, in a couple weeks, we're about to open head over heels, which is just the most wonderful show,

[40:46] Mike Abrams: amazing. Well, hopefully this is depending on when this releases and when this airs, hopefully people still have time to go see it. But thank you so much for being a guest. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thanks everyone else for listening to this episode of 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 listen to podcasts, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died. Or check out our website, the wrong cat died. Calm. You.