Rachel Hauck on Reimagining Cats: The Jellicle Ball for Broadway

Tony-winning set designer Rachel Hauck is responsible for some of the most memorable Broadway visuals in recent memory, from the industrial music hall of Hadestown to the colossal shipwreck in The Avett Brothers' jukebox musical Swept Away. Next on the agenda is Cats: The Jellicle Ball, which reconfigures Andrew Lloyd Webber’s feline fantasia into a kaleidoscopic ballroom competition. The Broadway Show correspondent Perry Sook chatted with Hauck in her studio about the collaborative process of bringing a glittering ballroom environment to Broadway.

Speaking to the cross-cultural nature of this particular project, Hauck says, “It feels radical. To do this, the complete re-imagining of ballroom culture in the world of Cats, the seamless fit of that because of the incredible genius of our directors, our dramaturge and our choreographers. And then they hand it to you and they're like, ‘Okay, let's make a ball.’ It just doesn't get much more exciting. It's a thrill. It feels like stepping on sacred ground.”

During its off-Broadway run, The Jellicle Ball was staged in-the-round. When it was announced that the show’s Broadway transfer would take place at the Broadhurst Theatre, many wondered how the immersive staging would translate to a proscenium-style space. “Downtown, we had a 50-foot runway by the time we were done. Cafe tables all the way around, audience all the way around that and action everywhere,” explains Hauck. “So [we had to find] a way to do that in a Broadway house, which architecturally is designed for a very significant use of the downstage center area and not for upstage, downstage action, and to not see past the orchestra pit.” Leave it to Hauck to rise to the occasion, erecting a catwalk onstage that protrudes into the audience with adjacent runway seating for those who want a close-up view of the action.

“I think the thing about this project is finding a way to make the room comfortable, easy, embracing, and then get out of the way,” says Hauck. “My hope is that it will be possible for people to actually forget where they are, forget that they're in a Broadway house. Balls happen everywhere, so we just put ours here.”

Hauck has taken extra care to make sure the physical demands of the performers are accounted for. “This kind of choreography, which is phenomenal and incredibly intense, is incredibly hard on the dancer's bodies. There wasn't too much I could do to help, but the runway is sprung to help take care of them and that's sort of a quiet detail that nobody should notice,” notes Hauck, referring to her use of a shock-absorbent surface typically reserved for gymnasts. “Everything I've done, I hope nobody really notices.”

Hauck's approach to design is driven by meeting the dramatic demands of the piece. "The need of the story comes first, but those moments are cathartic for the characters. Something huge and emotional is happening in the story and there's an opportunity for the space to take you on an emotional journey with it and for the changing of the space to have an emotional impact on the characters in the story. And that has to come from the material and then we find it as we find it.”

To most accurately recreate a ballroom atmosphere, Hauck turned to those around her for insight, while also doing her own independent research. “We have legends in the room who are readily accessible for all of the history of ballroom, but we did a deep dive on how these rooms feel, what's important about the vibe, what's important about the texture, all the different ways they can lay out and what makes it feel like a true ball with the sort of mayhem that comes with that,” says Hauck, adding, “There's so much happening in every pocket of a ball that you can't actually see it all. So it's really fun to figure out how you can make a space that allows for a kind of chaos, which is a great assignment.”

“The space is completely porous so that the cats can come from anywhere,” teases Hauck. “We're using every inch. Any place they'll let us use, we're going to use.”

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