*Cats: The Jellicle Ball,* Aug 6 2026
- ladiesvoices
- 3 days ago
- 8 min read
Scott and I saw *Cats: The Jellicle Ball* on Broadway on August 6, 2026. It’s a reimagining of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical *Cats,* set at a drag ball in Harlem. I had heard about it when it was playing off Broadway last year and was intrigued. My friends Karen and Liz saw it on Broadway and were crazy for it, said it was a smash and so much fun. I have no familiarity with *Cats* and have always distrusted it so I resisted. Scott (a very dear friend from Wisconsin) was eager to see it and made a special trip to New York. He was staying at my apartment for a week after I left for a vacation in Bilbao so as a thank you he bought both our tickets. And really great seats!
Here they are performing the opening number on The View:
It was astonishing. It wasn’t one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen but I have never enjoyed a show more in my life. To put it a different way, I’d never had so much fun at a show, a show had never given me so much joy. Scott aptly described it as “a celebration.” It was a celebration of the Black drag culture, its traditions, its overwhelming talent, its fierceness. And the audience was there to celebrate them and to share in the love. I thought I had been to shows where the audience was insane - - well, those previous audiences were total amateurs. THIS audience was wacko, straight to the loony bin, straightjacket insane.
I want to start by talking about the audience because they were such an essential component of the success of the show. It was sold out and we saw one of the final performances - - we saw it on a Thursday and the show was closing on Sunday, so it was an even more amped up level of excitement, a greater sense of occasion. Karen made the point that it was probably a lot of repeat customers, people who had seen the show numerous times already and were going to see it one last time.
We had a celebrity in the audience, the handsome leading man Tony Goldwyn, best known for playing the bad guy in the movie *Ghost.* It’s always interesting seeing actors in person, to see what they look like in person. He was a low-key sort of devastatingly handsome, not screaming at you but unmistakable. I was tempted to talk to him (I’m the master of knowing what to say to a celebrity - - I would have said how much I enjoyed his performance in *Network* on Broadway in 2019) but he never got out of his seat and was constantly talking with his friend.
I did interact with another random person on the audience, a cute young redhead wearing a cotton cable knit short-sleeved sweater in beguiling shades of turquoise, beige, and peach. I said, “That shirt is really cool, where did you get it?” He said, “H and M! On sale!”
There were two gay boys sitting behind the stage, a wonderful study in contrasts. Both were white boys apparently in their 30s. One was Divine and Life Itself, the other was Not a Good Representative of Our People. Divine and Life Itself was singing along with every word of every song, clearly he had been listening to the original cast recording since he was in the womb. He was having the time of his life, it was a deeply meaningful experience for him. Not a Good Representative of Our People was posing and talking with his friend in a coy manner. There was a lot of tossing around and rearranging of his long and lustrous hair, he saw himself being played by a young Rita Hayworth in the movie of his life. We weren’t buying it, we were not fans. He thought the show was all about HIM. He was wrong.
The show won two Tony awards. The Tony for best direction of a musical was shared by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch. I think we can assume they came up with the concept of the drag ball setting, they decided how it would be laid out. And Qween Jean won the Tony for best costume design of a musical. The costumes were not just outrageous, they were unimaginably opulent, inventive, and full of impact. Each outfit was meticulously balanced for silhouette, color, and texture and the collection of outfits onstage were curated to make a dazzling and harmonious mélange.
The show was bookended by two elders, one from the Broadway world, one from the drag ball world. André De Shields played Old Deuteronomy, the Jellicle leader. He was understated in his grandeur, effortless in his command of the stage, worthy of our reverence. He was introduced by Munkustrap, Master of Ceremonies, who said, as Old Deuteronomy was about to appear, “Please stand if you are able!” I was never at a show where they front-loaded a standing ovation.
Scott saw a deeper level of meaning in his appearance in the show, if you see it in the historical context of his Broadway career. His first major Broadway appearance was as the title character in the original cast of *The Wiz* in 1975. That show is an all-Black reimagining of *The Wizard of Oz.* It was extraordinary for its time but in retrospect it seems like it was written and produced to be acceptable and palatable for a white audience. Fifty years later, De Shields, who is an out gay man himself, was now playing a resolutely queer character in a reimagining of another established product. And this time it was 100% true to its own aesthetic, it had no interest in whether or not Whitey McWhiterson understood the show or even came to it. It knew that it would find its audience and holy crap, it did. It was a thrill to see De Shields so deified in this show.
The other elder was Junior LaBeija of the House of LaBeija. He played Gus the Theatre Cat and had one song in the second act, which he talked-sang in a charming manner. LaBeija is an elder of the drag ball culture, he had a prominent role in the 1990 documentary *Paris is Burning* (an introduction for many of us to that world), he served as the host of the ball in many of the balls featured in the movie. He was seated in a box seat for the first act *Cats: The Jellicle Ball.* Scott noticed that he was lit and giving a performance from his seat, not ever drawing focus but always playing the character of a drag elder watching the ball. It was meaningful having there him as a stamp of approval from that community.
There were two guest judges in our performance, I assume this was the case in each performance, with different people serving that purpose, possibly repeat offenders. We had drag icon Charlene (who I didn’t know, she was a delight) and Tony-winning actor Darren Criss (who I do know and adore). Scott and I saw Criss in *Hedwig and the Angry Inch* on Broadway a few years ago. His catapult to fame was as a sweet young gay boy on the TV show *Glee.*
It was an interesting experience for me, to be introduced to *Cats* in this context (I saw the movie but we’re better off not discussing that debacle). I liked the music more than I expected. The tunes were catchy and singable, with flashes of faux baroque, and a couple of songs in the first act had a charming English music hall flavor. I seriously hope we will get a cast recording of this production, I want to relive it.
I’ll mention a few of the performers. “Tempress” Chasity Moore played the leading lady, Grizabella. She sings the show’s break-out hit, “Memory,” in both the first act and the second act. She sang it as a bag lady in the first act - - the character was being set up as a past-her-prime better-off-forgotten fossil of a previous era. The second act started with a video montage that showed images from the Black drag world going back a hundred years. They capped off the montage with clips of “Tempress” Chasity Moore as a dewy young gorgeous queen.
Somehow she got redeemed and given a makeover by the second act. The hair and makeup were gorgeous, she was wearing a long muted leopard cotton coat in shades of brown and black. I could tell by the way she was holding it closed that we were going to get a big reveal and sure enough at the big key change, when she sang, “Touch me! It’s so easy to leave me!” she opened the coat to reveal a drop dead gold sequined gown. The fit was devastating, the boobs were up and out, it was a shocker. The audience went ballistic. I said to Scott later that I think maybe her singing wasn’t so extraordinary - - the screaming ovation was for the song and the gown! And yes, thank you for that!
Leiomy played Macavity the Mystery Cat. She had presence, baby. One of the inventions of this production was to have many of the songs be presented as showdowns between two or more drag houses in different categories. The Labels category showed three members of the Haus of Dots wearing unbelievable black and white polka dot ensembles. Each outfit was made of ten to twenty different fabrics, dots in different scales and arrangements, all in black and white. I thought it couldn’t get any better than that but then Miss Macavity arrived wearing a tangerine pantsuit - - a gorgeous outfit and a great color for her but as fashion it didn’t have anything near the overt artistry of the outfits we had seen on the polka dot trio. Yet Miss Macavity was the winner because she DELIVERED. Oh my Lord the attitude and the elegance, it was something to behold.
Magical Mister Mistoffelees was played by Robert “Silk” Mason, a Founding Mother of The Royal Haus of Silk. They appeared to be eight feet tall, thin as a reed, tossing their long black hair like a dream of Cher, walking like no one had walked in world history. And the dancing! At one moment they did a long, slow descent to the floor in a split. Unbelievably long and slow, it felt like it took about five minutes for them to get from upright to on the floor in a split. Seriously one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. Here they are in a little PBS interview:
The drag culture is there to honor drag queens and transwomen but there are always a handful of cisgender men there to give the girls something to ogle. That role, Rum Tum Tugger, was played by Sydney James Harcourt, a drop-dead gorgeous man with a science fiction body, each muscle doing exactly what it was created to do, the whole package smooth and cappuccino gorgeous. He was in the original company of *Hamilton* on and off Broadway and I read on his Wikipedia page that he was also part of the ball culture. Maybe he still is! He’s an embarrassment of riches - - not only handsome, not only giving the body, but what a lovely voice and piles of charisma. He went to the judges’ table at the end of his number and his slow, slow approach to Darren Criss to give him a kiss was to die for! Everyone in the audience wanted to be the recipient of that kiss. My wish is that his stellar performance in this show will get him cast as Lafayette and Jefferson in the Broadway company of *Hamilton,* he would be sensational in that role.
Here's Harcourt (and many other cats) in a promo video:
In closing, this is hard to articulate but I’ve never been at a Broadway show that gave me the sense that it was only happening that night. It had such impact and was so special and exciting, it didn’t seem possible that it had been doing eight shows a week for four months.
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