The Stars and Creative Team of Cats: The Jellicle Ball Promise a Fresh, Less Furry Take on the Musical

Look—a new day has begun. For an appreciation of the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, that is.

With director Sammi Cannold’s recent feminist dissection of Evita; a stark Broadway-bound update of Sunset Boulevard by the director Jamie Lloyd; and, in Amsterdam, Ivo van Hove’s Jesus Christ Superstar, it seems that some of the boldest theatermakers around are eager to breathe new life into the classics.

This month, New York will see the premiere of possibly the most unexpected and surprising reimagining of them all: Cats sans cats.

Beginning performances at the Perelman Arts Center on June 13, Cats: The Jellicle Ball is a drag and ball culture-inspired take on the musical originally inspired by Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Think of it as a ballroom competition set to the poetry of T.S. Eliot and some pretty out-there music.

“This is not a spoiler, but there are no whiskers,” Tony winner André De Shields, who plays Old Deuteronomy, told Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show. “No fur. No tails.” (Fun fact: De Shields' Ain't Misbehavin' co-star was Ken Page, who originated the role of Old Deuteronomy.)

“We began to dream about Cats in a queer context,” said Bill Rauch, who co-directs with Zhailon Levingston. “Cats is about a competitive ball. And ballroom is indeed about competitive balls. I mean, it really… It's right there in the text.” Levingston agreed, quoting a lyric: “‘Feline, fearless, faithful and true’ have become these core values that are shared across both ballroom and the world of Cats.”

“You're gonna take the structure of musical theater and the structure of ballroom and mesh it together,” said Arturo Lyons, who choreographs the show along with Omari Wiles. Both choreographers are known for their work in the ballroom scene. “You put the two together, you can kind of create something new and something magical.” According to Wiles, the combination just works. “Put a bunch of queens in the room and you’ll get some drama,” he said.

As well as featuring Broadway veterans like De Shields and Hamilton’s Sydney James Harcourt (playing Rum Tum Tugger), the show features a host of performers from New York’s ballroom community, including Junior LaBeija, the MC in the '80s ball-culture documentary Paris is Burning, as Gus, and “Tempress” Chasity Moore, founder and Queen Mother of the house of Maison Margiela, as the faded “glamor cat” Grizabella.

Tempress, who is trans, sees a correlation between Grizabella’s plight and ageism in the ballroom scene. “I tie it to the older femme queens who come back and sometimes they don’t get the best reception,” she said.

De Shields is excited for the experiment. “I wanna be on the avant-garde edge of the change,” he said. “I don't want to be bringing up the rear. And the magic of this process is combining theater and all of its process with the discipline of ballroom. And it's going to sizzle. Absolutely sizzle.”

While, as De Shields admits, kinetic choreography isn’t exactly the wheelhouse of Old Deuteronomy, he is ready “to represent the ‘welderly.’”

The welderly?

“The welderly are old people still kickin' ass.”