The production opens with support from a host of big-name coproducers, including Cynthia Erivo, Law Roach, Lena Waithe, Jeremy Pope, and Andrew Lloyd Webber himself, who walked the yellow carpet in a structured white jacket and black tee. “It means a lot to be here,” he told Vogue. “I’m just delighted to be part of something which is this daring coming to Broadway.”
“Seeing how much the cast, the crew, the costume designers poured into the production is mind-blowing,” Roach said. Of the costumes, created by Obie Award–winning Qween Jean, he added: “Expect a reimagining of what we thought Cats could look like…. A modern interpretation of the original, which I love.”
After curtain, the cast, crew, and a host of high-profile attendees made their way to Pier 60, where more voguing was in store, albeit on the dance floor this time. From the bar, I spotted Dylan Mulvaney, comedian Michelle Buteau, and actor Denée Benton, who told me: “The dolls deserve all the love.”
Out on the Pier 60 patio, I caught up with the actor Peppermint, the first trans woman to originate a principal role on Broadway in 2018. Looking out over the river, with the skyline shimmering on its surface, she told me that Jellicle Ball was revolutionary not just for its vision but also for its casting decisions.
“It’s not lost on me that this show has a different meaning this time around,” she said. “There are trans people who have not been able to do Broadway because they’ve been told that this is not where they belong. I’m fortunate to have had a prominent moment on Broadway, and I was the only one at the time. To see an entire stage of people who are queer and trans…in front of a crowd of people who might never otherwise be concerned with their lives…it’s so beautiful.”
Back inside, André De Shields, who plays a wily, imposing Old Deuteronomy in the show, was just arriving, dressed in a powder blue paisley suit and a set of silver rings. “It was life reassuring,” he said of Jellicle Ball. “Especially in today’s brutal world of mayhem and mendacity and machinations, to spend two hours onstage with joyful people—it’s healing.”
Part of the magic of Cats: The Jellicle Ball is that it puts titans like De Shields, Tempress, and LaBeija onstage with more than a dozen cast members making their Broadway debuts, creating an intergenerational conversation full of reverence and respect.
“I am not acting at all—I’m actually starstruck when I have my moment with André De Shields,” says Teddy Wilson Jr., who plays Sillabub. “It’s baffling to me…. I strive to attain that level of security in myself.”
It was a thought echoed to me throughout the night by many members of the cast, ready to show the world their gifts. As Dava Huesca, the acrobatic dancer who plays Rumpleteazer, put it, tucking her pink hair behind her ear: “I just feel like I’ve arrived.”
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