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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande, Hi, I'm Cynthia ARIBO, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network, visit vpn.fm to discover more.

[0:13] Speaker 2: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm a wrong one died. I'm a wrong one died. Welcome

[0:27] Mike Abrams: to the wrong cat died. The podcast. Break down the cat's atrophy. I'm your host. Mike Abrams, today we have another amazing guest. He has a new book coming out that I'm excited to talk about, called on Bette Midler, and he was also skimble Shanks in the US national tour, four of cats, so welcome. Kevin Winkler, thank you for joining me, Mike. It's great to be with you. Thanks. I have talked to a lot of your cast mates, and I love it. And then I'm also really excited because I read your book. I appreciate you beginning the chance to read it. And there are, I'm so excited to cast cats in the Bette Midler movies with you later, and talk about your book and the inspiration, but we got to start with cats, so it's fun to talk to your tour predates that 1998 movie, and so you don't have that same experience that a lot of the newer castmates have, of like they grew up with it, or they saw the VHS. So I always love to hear what was your introduction to the show. When did you first see it?

[1:21] Speaker 3: Well, I'll tell you, I actually had a very, very tortured history of auditioning for this show. Oh no, did you want to hear that? You want to hear that origin story I knew about the show when it opened in 1981 in London, of course, it was a huge hit, and it was covered in press, national magazines, newspapers and so forth. And then when the show was announced for Broadway, of course, that was the show for dancers. So everybody who was a professional dancer was excited to audition for it, and it's hard to it's hard to remember now, but back in 1981 82 it was, it was the show everybody was talking about. And when the schuberts produced the show on Broadway, they gave the show its flagship theater the Winter Garden on Broadway, and they moved out 42nd street, which had opened there about a year and a half earlier and was a huge, huge hit. They moved 42nd street out into one of their other theaters and did a multi million dollar reconfiguration of the orchestra section they they built out the stage into a thrust. And I can't remember all the stuff that they did. I think they did something to the stage floor to hold all the hydraulics and so forth and give it a more environmental staging. And I remember getting the cast recording, the London cast recording, and listening to it. And I actually went to the first equity open dance audition for the Broadway production. I remember it was February 1982 and the reason I remember this is because I was, I was in another Broadway show at that time that didn't run very long. I think we ran a month, maybe a little longer, and it we were running during the month of February, and all the dancers in that show went, we all went to audition for cats. These are the open equity dance calls. And the audition was at the Winter Garden Theater, and Jillian Lynn, the choreographer, was there, and it was an absolute mad house. It was like that opening scene in the movie, all that jazz where there's a big cattle call audition on stage with hundreds of people. It was just like that. Only only this is all men, but women had a separate call. And what I remember about it was it being very chaotic. There were literally hundreds of guys on stage trying to learn this combination. We learned the Jellicle Ball combination. And it's not a particularly difficult piece of choreography, but it is if you're trying to see older 50 other guys to learn it. And they didn't give us a lot of time to really get it in our bodies, and we ended up doing it in big group that like 10 or 15 at a time. And I don't function well at audition, or I didn't function well at auditions like that, and I got cut immediately. But I kept going back. They kept having more auditions, and I just kept going back and auditioning. And the show opened in, I think it was October of 82 and they had auditions for replacements and so forth. And then not, I can't remember how long, maybe a year went by, and they had auditions for the first national tour. And I'd been going back, as I said, going back to the. Auditions. By this time, I knew the Jellicle bowl backwards and forwards. I could do it in my sleep, and I started getting kept at the auditions. And I had seen the show after it opened, and I knew that skimble Shanks was the role for me. I knew that was the role that I wanted to do in the show, and I knew I was fully capable of dancing it. And so, you know, sometimes it's just a matter of getting people to see you, you know, yeah, so like national tour, first national tour, I go to the auditions, and I got kept to the very end that several seemed like several auditions. And we thought, I know. I remember, during this callback process, they gave us tickets to see the show. So Richard, my husband, and I, went to see the show. We'd already seen it once before, but we saw it again, and we anyway. We went. I went to what, what I thought was the final callback, and we danced and we sang, and I don't know it seemed like we were down to 1215 guys on the stage that day. And I didn't see anybody else that looked like they were a skimble shanks. I saw guys that looked like a monkey strap or a Tugger, or what are the acro guys, the guys that did acrobatics. And I thought I had it. And they were saying, we start rehearsal on this day. We open in I think they said, either Boston or Chicago, and these are going to be big, pretty lengthy, sit down engagements, 234, months in major cities. Yeah, and, and I, I thought, I have it. And a couple days after the audition, I had to go to to Oklahoma, where I'm from, for a family event, and I flew out. And I was literally flying, both literally and figuratively. I thought, I'm getting this national tour. I'm going to I'll stay with her for a couple of years. I'll put a lot of money in the bank. Richard will come and stay with me. Maybe I can, maybe I can get into the Broadway company, because we knew the show was going to run forever. Yeah, now and forever. And I was just, I was on a high and I got got hold. I was telling everybody, they were all excited for me and oh, we're going to come and see you, yadda yadda. And who was at my mom's house, and I got a call on my answering service to call the casting office. And I remember saying to my mother, oh, I guess they're calling me to set up a time contract. So I call, I called them, and he said, We need to see you tomorrow. And I said, Oh, wow. So what they said, We need to see you tomorrow. And they didn't tell me that. I found out later that Jillian Lynn needed to see everybody before the fight casting this final. She had the final, okay, and they said, We need to see we know it's fast, but we need to see everybody tomorrow. I said, I met this, this thing, with my family. I couldn't go, I couldn't get back there in time. And they, I told them this, and they said, Oh, okay, thank you. And I said, What? What? I said, it's so pitiful. I think. I said something like, Does this mean I don't get it? And they said, Oh, don't worry. There'll be lots of other tours. There'll be replacements. Show's gonna run a long time. So I put down the phone. I had to go tell everybody that you can cancel your plans to come and see me wherever, because I'm not doing, I'm not doing this tour. So I was pretty I was pretty bummed about that, so I went back to New York, and I kept auditioning for the show. And time went by, I don't know, a year and a half to a long time, and I just, I kept auditioning. And then we and I was doing other, you know, I was working. I did another Broadway show that closed very quickly. I was working and going in and out of town during this time. And then we get to the, I think the second national tour was the sit down company in LA, right, yeah. So this was a third national. And went to those auditions, got called back, got great tickets to see the show again. And I remember the they were they that rehearse, the audition process was very long and drawn out. And that summer, this is 1986 this is something like, I want to say, June 86 and I had gotten a summer stock tour of The Pirates of Penzance at summer so I was, we were touring in the New England area, okay? And I was going to be gone for eight or 10 weeks, and I was the first city we played was, I can't remember the name of the town, but it was somewhere within driving distance of Boston. So we got to the sea. We rehearsing. That's the first city we played. And they called me and they said, We need to see you next week for the callback. And I said, Well, I'm in, I'm in whatever town this was. And they said, Well, we really need to see you. And so I figured out the logistics, and I went to the this was maybe the general manager, but the theater we were playing, and I asked him if I could borrow one of the theater's company cars and drive to Boston and fly into New York to do this audition the next week. And and he said yes. So the day of the audition, I got up at something like 430 in the morning, and I drove to Boston, parked the car at the airport. I took you probably, you're probably too young to remember this, but there was a lot of budget airlines that started popping up in the 80s, and they're one of the most popular. Was called people's Express, okay? And they were, they was a super, super cheap, no frills, budget airline, course, and everything's no frills now, yeah, but the back get it was a novelty. And you, I think you could get a round trip ticket from Boston to New York for something like 2999 Wow. And I remember you didn't you had to pay on the plane. They would just swipe your card on the plane, flip out of us. It's like the vibes, like taking away, how bus, right? So, so I took the plane from Boston, New York. I took a taxi from the airport to the Lyceum Theater where the audition was. I think it was a 10 or a 1030 audition. Danced for, I don't know, hours. We sang. They, I think they made some cuts. I was there till the end. And again, I thought this was, I thought this was the final callback. They said, we start rehearsing on this day. We're gonna open wherever. I don't remember where it was. And so they said, Okay, we'll be in touch. So I left the theater, took a taxi back to the airport, flew back to Boston, got in the car at the airport. I'm looking at my watch, saying, Oh, it's five o'clock. Everything's perfect. The show's not till eight, draw drive back, get the car back, eat something, warm up, get to the theater. Nope. Everything's working like clockwork, and I got this job, yes. So I get in the car I'm driving, I go out of the parking lot, I get onto the freeway, and the car dies, the car stops, and I literally kind of coasted over to the lip of the freeway. Couldn't figure out what's wrong with this car. No, no gas is fine. I could it wouldn't, don't know what's wrong with it. This, of course, is in the days before cell phone. Yeah, I walked, I don't know, a mile to find a pay phone, kept the emergency lights on the car on the freeway, called the theater, said something's happened to the car. They were not happy. They said, Stay where you are. We'll send AAA to try to get the car started. So now it's 536 637 it took them forever to get there. Now I'm really hungry. Um, they finally arrived. They can't get the car started, so they said we're gonna have to tow it to a garage. Now it's about 730 it's half hour. The show's at eight, and I call the we get to the group, we get to the garage. Finally, I called say, I'm here at the garage. They said, You have to get here. You have to get here. We have can't start the show without you. And of course, this is summer stock, so there's, there's no understudies, no strings or anything like that. So I finally, they finally let me go. I took a taxi from the garage to the theater. I think the taxi cost me more than the round trip flight to New York. Yeah, yeah. I got there about, I wouldn't say, 10 after eight, 815, really late. Really late. They they're all standing there waiting for it. They slap my pirate hat on me, throw me out on stage. All I remember is doing the first act of Pirates of pinzants in sneakers. So the next day, I find out the car was a was told the car was a total loss. There was something wrong with the transmission or the engine or something, and it was an old car. Anyway, the producer of the theater was furious with me. He said he was going to bring me up on charges with equity. And I said I got permission from the general manager to do this. The stage manager of our production of pirates was mad at me because I said, I'm probably going to give my notice and have to leave the tour a week or two before we end. How could you do this? You don't know how expensive it is to replace someone for a week. The only people who weren't mad at me were the other performers, the other actors of the cast, because they know what it's like to juggle jobs, for sure, line things up, you know, for employment. So you. I thought, All right, enough of this. I'm going to be leaving soon. And on to cats. Well, they didn't call. They didn't call. They didn't call. About three weeks later, they called, and they said, We need to see you back again, again, two or three days. It wasn't the next day, but two or three days. By that time we were in, we were in Maine or New Hampshire, some someplace where I could not physically get into New York. And and I, and it was, I guess it was another Jillian Lynn situation, where she could see everybody, I'm assuming that. And I remember talking to the copy on that from the casting office and saying, I said, Look, I've been auditioning for this show for four years. I've been down to the wire on two national tours now. I said, can't you extend this courtesy to me? And you know, cast me without having to fly back for, you know, an hour. And he was the poor guy I was talking to was just a casting assistant. He pulled and he said, Well, hang on. So he put me on hold for a long time. So I guess he was talking to someone, and I'm thinking, Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please, please, please, let them come back and say you don't have to come in. So we got back on the phone and he said, No, no, you have to. You have to come in. So that was the end of that. So cats three was out the window. So I got back to New York and after the pirates tour, and it wasn't long, I wouldn't say, like, three or four months maybe, and I had been, I was doing something else in between this three, four months later, they had auditions for the fourth national, the bus and truck. And I remember saying to Richard, I said, I don't care if my mother dies. I am not leaving New York until I get that fucking contract. Yes, so, and it's, as it turned out, it turned out to be the audition process for that tour turned out to be a nothing burger. I think I did two auditions, and I guess by that point, by the time they got to the bus and truck, Jillian Lynn didn't care anymore, so we didn't have to see I don't think she ever saw our company. And that's too bad, actually, because it was a really, really good company. And I know some of the I know several people from Gatch Neufeld, the general managers. Several people said this is one of the strongest companies of cats that they had. So So anyway, I got the contract, and I did the show, and I was with the I was with the tour for about I was with the show for a year, and I thoroughly enjoyed, I had a great time, lots of great experiences, and it was a really wonderful group of people. Yeah, I know you've probably heard that from the people you've interviewed. Really just a nice, very congenial group of people. And everybody in the show was terrific, the Grizabella, that monkey strap, the tugdur, the deuteron, everyone was terrific in the show, and I had a great time. But I think by that point, after all, I'd been through, I think the bloom had was off the rose a little bit. Yeah, and I remember about the first time we did, the first time we did a series of Back to Back split weeks. You know where you do two shows, sometimes three shows in a week. I remember talking to Richard on the phone. I said, I'm going to stay with the show a year. And I said, and if I'm enjoying it, if I'm still enjoying it in a year, I'll stay with it, but if I'm not feeling it, I'm gonna leave after a year, because I found the show. There wasn't one particular element of the show that was grueling. It was just the totality of doing the show, which is a tough show to do. It's demanding, and the traveling, we mostly did one week stops. There were some two week stops, which are great. We mostly did one week. So those weren't too bad. And then we did, they would, they would kind of bundle a lot of the split week up. And the split weeks were really tough. Where you do, yeah, as I said, two or three weeks, two or three cities in a week. And I'll stop there. I'm gonna start Yeah, Frankie, but Well, let you ask me questions. Let's

[19:25] Mike Abrams: stop there before Yeah, we don't get to the cranky part. I have a couple follow ups, just because I think that it's a fascinating story, because it sounds like it was almost six or seven years from start to finish before starting auditions to casting.

[19:38] Speaker 3: I was about, it was about five years, five

[19:43] Mike Abrams: years, okay, and it would, but it was four or five different productions at that point. It was, you know, tour one, Broadway. Tour two, in LA. Tour three, when you had all the replacements on Broadway every all the different times. Yeah. So one question, I think, is, uh. Um, one is just as you were telling that story. So much of it, I kept thinking, I can't fathom, like, the everything you're dealing with in modern society, if it was today, is solved immediately. You know, like, like, you could just hop on a camera and Zoom, zoom your way in. I could go into a studio. Your car breaks down, you can get on an Uber real quick. You could just have taken the train from Boston, yeah, New York really fast and made it each way. Like, there's just so many things that that's, you know, fascinating to hear is like, that's hard to deal with back then. When

[20:35] Speaker 3: I think about it, I think, how did I, how did I deal with all that? Yeah, you know, you just

[20:40] Mike Abrams: do, yeah. The other thing, the other question I have is, I mean, it sounds like, as someone who's not in this world, I'm sure, you audition for stuff all the time, like you're just constantly doing that. Is this, I mean, is this so much more that you audition for one show because of the desire to get it, or just because it happened to have a lot of opportunity. Like, how does that work? Is it a like, were you leaning in as, like, I really want cats, or is it a little bit of like, here's another cat? Like, there's so many open calls and auditions that I could do. I just happen to have a long history with that. But you also had a long history with phantom or, you know, something else that, like, also had a lot of tours and different productions. Well,

[21:23] Speaker 3: it was a combination, you know, you just, you audition for what's available, yeah, and catch, you know, catch was, as I said, a phenomenon. It was a long running success. There were always, they were always doing auditions, there were always tours, there were always replacements and so forth. So it was always there. And I was, you know, it, I guess, in my dancing prime at that time, yeah, and, and I remember, so you just go, yeah. And I remember, I remember thinking, I know I can do this show. I know I can do this show. I can play this role easily. And it's just a matter again, of people seeing you and just seeing you so and it also it wasn't like I was obsessed with cats. I wasn't, because I was doing a lot of other things. I was doing lots of other jobs and going in and out of town. And I said, like I said, I did another Broadway show, but it was always there. And it, it just seemed like, damn it, I should be in the show. But it just took a little longer than I that I had anticipated. Yeah, I want to,

[22:32] Mike Abrams: I want to hear a little bit because, you know, I've talked to, to your, a lot of your cast mates, and really kind of got a lot of the root of what I think was like the introduction to the story and all that different stuff. But I love hearing stories from tour. So fast forward to now. You get it. What were some of those memorable moments and maybe the positive ones? You know, since you said you had the cranky moments I want to hear I wanted the fun, funny, you'll never forget this for the rest of your life. Type of things during that year that you were on the skims,

[23:01] Speaker 3: oh gosh, let's say, I don't know how funny they'll be. Ah, let's say I was thinking about this because I knew you were going to ask me, I can tell you some of the cities that I loved playing, some of the towns we played that I loved. I really loved the Pacific Northwest, and I hadn't really traveled to that part of the country before I know we played two weeks. We played two weeks in Portland. Portland's a beautiful city. I just loved it Portland, and we played two weeks in Seattle. And the two weeks felt so great, because you could kind of settle in and have a breather a little bit. And I remember Richard came out and stayed with me when we were in Seattle and we traveled. We took a day trip to Victoria Island in Vancouver, outside of Vancouver. That was gorgeous. I loved, I loved Miami. We played two weeks in Miami around Christmas and New Year's. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, and weather was great. And that was, that was just terrific. New Orleans. I really liked, I'm sure you've heard the story about poor Grizabella being mugged the day, the day we get to New Orleans. New Orleans was I loved it because we stayed in the quarter. Our hotels were in the quarter, the French Quarter, okay, they I just love the quarter. I didn't feel nervous or apprehensive walking around in the quarter. I would, I wouldn't go out at Site two or three o'clock in the morning, yeah, but during the day of the evening, I had no compunction about being out. But the theater we played once, theater we played was just outside the corridor, and it was in kind of a funky neighborhood, yeah, and so it was, you kind of had to. We didn't like to walk back and forth by ourselves. We, you know, we travel with others. Oh, I'll tell you something. Oh, I'll tell you. Funny story, we we played a week in Salt Lake City, and that's the cleanest town I have ever been in in my life. Yeah, it was the cleanest town you could eat off the street. And a bunch of us went to a bunch of us went to, oh, we visited the Mormon Tabernacle, and we visited their, you know, their Visitor Center and everything. And they're very aggressive about getting your name and address when you would visit the Norman, the Mormon Tabernacle and their Visitor Center and everything. And I remember, I remember saying just people don't put your address down because they're gonna send Mormon boys to your door to they're gonna send more boys to talk to you. You know those guys who look this is before Book of Mormon, but,

[25:50] Mike Abrams: yeah, before, before it got a little popular, right?

[25:52] Speaker 3: But they're gonna send those boys with white shoes and black ties to your to your house. Yeah, mission trips, for sure. I can't remember who it was, but a couple people wrote their names, name and address, and some of them were living with their parents at the time, and sure enough, about a month later, Mormon boys showed up at their parents house in New Jersey or or Nebraska or wherever to talk to their Catholic mother or their or their Jewish mother or whoever. So that was kind of funny. You heard about, I'm sure you've heard about the the fire that that went through one of the busses, one of the busses, yes, we had, that's the early the tour, we had flown into Nashville, and we took, we took busses from the airport to the hotel, and I wasn't on the bus that caught fire, but half the cast was and something, the engine or something. And no one was hurt, but it destroyed all of their luggage, their clothes, yeah, everything. I mean, I have to say everyone kind of handled that like, you know, very zen, like they were pretty cool about it. And I'd say I probably would have had a nervous breakdown if that had happened to me. But most people didn't, didn't have a didn't have an issue with it. I'll tell you something that I something I really loved about the tour. Seriously, you know it. And this may sound superficial, but it's great to be in a hit. Yeah, it's always good to be in a show that people really want to see. And, you know, cat, like I said, was a phenomenon, and everybody knew about it. There were all these big companies of the show out. It was the first cats. Was really the first big, mega musical to come along. This was before Les Mis, before chatter, the opera, before Miss Saigon. So we were almost felt like rock stars when we would come into, especially a smaller town, and we we were sold out all the time. I once in a blue moon, you'd see a few pockets of empty seats here and there, but we were sold out all the time. Standing ovations every place we played. And people loved the show, and it was also, it also had intergenerational appeal. So there were people brought their kids. It was, you know, it was a family event for a lot of people. And so it was really, it was thrilling, really, to to do the show and to be true, you know, to be treated like that, and it feels good, you know, to be in a hit. It makes some of the slipping worth it.

[28:46] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I think it's the tours are interesting too, because, you know, growing up in Indiana, they get five to eight Broadway on tour shows a year, and you get this, the season gets announced. And there's usually, I'm not gonna throw any shows on the bus, but there's usually a few where you're like, Wow, that is gonna be awesome. Like, really excited. And there's usually one or two where, like, yeah, okay, we'll see. And they have a lot of season ticket holders who buy the whole season. And I've been to a couple where, you know, pre moving to New York, where I went, and then I was excited for it in high school, or whatever. And then the season ticket holders are usually an older generation. Weren't, and they showed up and leave, you know, 10 minutes an hour a half, yeah. And cats was never that, you know, cats falls into that bucket of, oh, where this is a we know what this is. This is big. We're gonna go see it. And so it's fun. When you have a show like that, it's definitely the Anticipation is high. Because, like, you know, we just had Hamilton last year, I think in Indiana came through, and every night, as filled as you can be, everyone's super excited. And, you know, you get that, that energy from it, because it's only there for a week or two weeks and and then it's another. Couple months before the next thing comes through. Well, exactly,

[30:02] Speaker 3: you know, cats was really a kind of an anchor show for a lot of season ticket, yeah? Season ticket, seasons, uh, people would buy a show like you said, dates on. You know, cats be or Hamilton today, or, yeah, mamma mia 15 years ago, or whatever. I

[30:19] Mike Abrams: think Mama Mia is anchoring again, yeah, yeah, that kind of circle. It never goes

[30:22] Speaker 3: away. It never goes away. So, yeah, it just it felt good. And you know, everyone who's up, who's ever been in show business has had the other experience of being in shows that weren't very popular, and, yeah, you were playing to half empty houses, and that's always a drag. Yeah,

[30:39] Mike Abrams: it's gotta be harder. You gotta bring the energy. So this

[30:41] Speaker 3: was, it's great to do it to be in a hit. Yeah, for sure, we're going

[30:45] Mike Abrams: to take a quick break, and then we back for more of the wrong cat died. I want to make sure we talk about your book and spend some time here. So I read it. I was fascinated by it, because you very early in the book, you wrote something that I was like, This is me and and it like, kind of stuck with me. And then I learned a ton, as I read it is that you said that there's a whole generation of people that grew up knowing her mostly from Hocus Pocus, or from, like, the more newer things, and not this, like vast history of her before. And that was me. I knew her from The First Wives Club, Hocus Pocus, like that couple section movie, just based on my age, and then I learned a ton about, like, it was fascinating to read your history. So I want to first start by like, how did you decide? I know you've written a couple books. How did you decide to tackle this top Well,

[31:33] Speaker 3: I'd written two other books about about choreographers. One was about Bob Fauci. The other was about Tommy Tune. And, you know, I always, I've been a long term fan of Bette Midler. I'm not a crazy fan. I'm not someone who, if she's playing three nights in the city, I don't go every three. I don't go all three night. But I followed her career very intently, and she she spoke to me, I think she spoke to a lot of people of my generation, certainly a lot of gay men of my generation, because she was kind of a maverick, kind of outside the mainstream. And she, she, she, she spoke to us in a way that a lot of performers to gay men. But her, her appeal went much further than just gay men, but I had come to feel that over the last, I don't know X number of years, she people didn't really know who she was, just as you said, you know, people knew her from the first wines club or hocus pocus and so forth. And you know, celebrity is very is very fleeting. I'm as I get older, I'm, I'm continuously caught up short by how how many, like actors or singers or musical groups or playwrights who were so important to me when I was growing up, who learn so large in popular culture? No one really knows. No one really knows about, you know, yeah. So I just, I felt like she's someone whose career needed to be talked about and written about. And I thought, Well, why don't I do that? Yeah, someone's gonna do it. Why not me? And so I really wanted to make the book a deep dive into her career as a multi platform artist, as someone who has had a tremendous, tremendous success and influence both as a stage star, because she's really, when you get down to it, she's really, first and foremost, a theater artist, yeah, a recording artist, an actor and Movie and what I call kind of a TV personality, you know, a presence on television and, and I wanted to get deep and really go into some deep cut and the career,

[33:53] Mike Abrams: yeah, it was a lot of things I definitely did not know about and, but, you know, I'm also probably not the core audience of her and the just given just the time that she really had, most of her fame and career was when I was extremely young or or even even predate me. Yeah. But it was really interesting to read because, like you just said, it's the multi hyphenate piece of it, of of what she like, the bouncing back and forth between all these different things, and being so good at all of them almost makes it a little challenging. Of like she didn't, it's your book highlights this so well, but her career maybe didn't have that peak or that arc that others have, because it wasn't like, I'm just the movie star of movie stars, or I'm the number one Broadway person. It's like you kind of did a little bit jack of all trades of sorts, and did so much so well, that it's like you're well known in pockets, but not like historically well known and all the rest.

[34:52] Speaker 3: Let me ask you something, have you ever seen the rose? No,

[34:57] Mike Abrams: and I so I was looking through, uh. Just her IMDb, just to see what the TV and movie film credits were like. That was where I started. As I was, you know, after reading your book, and then also, just I wanted to, we'll get to casting cats into it a little bit. And I was like, the couple, what are you known for? It was, it was beaches, I think. Did you see the the roses? And then it was hocus pocus first, what, you know, set for wives and the other ones. But it was, I was like, there's a whole lot on here. There was, there's, I think, a Seinfeld credit, and there's a, yeah, you know, there's a bunch of, like, one the nanny and single episode credits on there where I was like, Yeah, you know, at that point, of course, you know who she is. Like, she probably popped in for a cameo on a bunch of these things too, playing herself. She played herself, played herself. Yeah, exactly. But

[35:44] Speaker 3: you know the rose, I hope you got hope you get a chance to see that sometime, because that was her first film. And if you watch that film, she was, she was stupendous in that film. She She changed the way she moved. She changed the way she sang. It was a tremendous performance. And it's a movie that's kind of been forgotten, and she's never had a role like that since, since 1979 and that's a film that I don't know it's, I don't think it's on any streaming platform. Just

[36:18] Mike Abrams: looking up right now to see. I don't see it on anything right now,

[36:23] Speaker 3: no, and it's really a shame that's kind of been lost. And she, it's one of the greatest performances in a film I've ever seen.

[36:30] Mike Abrams: It's pretty remarkable. Yeah, it doesn't look like it's anywhere. Yeah, it's really,

[36:35] Speaker 3: it just, and, you know, and then she also, she had a big, uh, run of of popular comedies in the 80s, down and out, Beverly Hills, ruthless people, outrageous fortune beat a big business. These were big hits. You know, she was the top one of the top box office stars. Yeah, period. But it seemed, you know now, it seems so long ago,

[36:58] Mike Abrams: yeah, looks like you can rent it. So that's their way around the road. Yeah, you can rent it on the Amazon and couple other things. There's a terrific,

[37:07] Speaker 3: there's a terrific criterion disc of the rose on the Okay, that's fantastic. And, and there's their interviews with her, and the people that the music together and so forth. Okay,

[37:18] Mike Abrams: I gotta, I gotta add that to lists. Here, I add that to your list.

[37:22] Speaker 3: Oh, go ahead. I want

[37:25] Mike Abrams: to. I want to, let's I want to cast. This is the game I wanted to play with, okay, with Bev Aler, so I picked some of the movies, and what I want to do is I like thinking, I picked the ones I've seen, or at least I know enough about, or the couple I didn't know anything about that. I just read the synopsis and did my best. What I want to do is I want to take which cat character, so like, which skimble Shanks, Macavity, Grizabella, Tugger, Gus, whoever could we insert into the movie, and they would fit fine in the the like, the the way that the movie was built the characters, the story, like, who would fit best in the movie, and, like, what role would they play? Oh, we just added them in. I think this is the fun way to do this. So I'm gonna start. I'm gonna start and challenge you on the rose, because I don't know anything about this movie, so I'm gonna have you tell me which cat can we put in the Rose?

[38:18] Speaker 3: Well, she play in the rose. The rose is sort of a fictionalized story inspired by the story of Janice Joplin, okay, who, who, you know, who, whose flame burned bride and then died very, very early. So I would say Grizabella could give rose a run for her money, in terms of, in terms of galvanizing the audience and out singing her, she could do a sing off with the rose between Grizz and the rose. I think it would be. It'd be a toss up as to who would, who would come out on top. I like it. So about grit, I'd say Grizz for the rose. Okay,

[39:00] Mike Abrams: yeah, there's another troubled star, exactly. Okay, let's do hocus pocus. Oh,

[39:07] Speaker 3: my God, oh, let's say, All right. Well, oh, well, the Hocus Pocus, both the hocus pocus movies. There's a cat that, yeah, that plays a prominent role. So I would say, Oh, I don't know, either Macavity or maybe Mr. Bistofolies. I could see that cat turning into a singing dance thing, cavorting cat doing doing a virtuoso ballet turn all over the screen,

[39:37] Mike Abrams: definitely. So I had both those written down too. Those are the exact two I wrote down, because I thought same thing. I actually just re watched it. Because it was the whatever anniversary of hocus pocus. They put it back in movie theater.

[39:48] Speaker 3: It was the it was the 30th, 30th, yeah, so

[39:51] Mike Abrams: put them back in theaters. And I actually went around Halloween and saw in theaters again. And it was such a fun re watch to be sitting in. A really big AMC type of theater. But yeah, I thought mccaviddy or mistools. And I think I based the same thing as I thought about the cat in the movie. Yeah. I was like, which one fits? Okay, let's do beaches.

[40:14] Speaker 3: Oh, beaches. All right, let's say beaches. Well, the character she played at beaches is, was sort of kind of modeled on her, on niddler herself, a very flamboyant singer, actress who was always talking too much and getting yourself in trouble. Let's say I, I, I could see, I could see, uh, bomb ballerina or Demeter, okay, dropping in to do a sexy, do a sexy Macavity as kind of doing a special guest appearance, yeah, during one of, during one of the on stage moments in that show. So I

[41:00] Mike Abrams: didn't, I haven't seen this movie. I had to, kind of, like, read up on it. It sounds like it's her, like, reliving her career, almost. So I kind of, I wrote Gus into it, of like, oh, that's a great this moment of before reflection,

[41:13] Speaker 3: reflection on his former glory. Yeah, that's, actually, that's, that's a more apt, that's apt character to put that, yeah, okay. The

[41:24] Mike Abrams: reason I do also is I tried not to overlap, so I would, we'll go the next one, which is The First Wives Club. Oh, well, there you got ball. You read it. That's right, that's where I had the two of them. They're perfectly fit for that, for that movie. What about stepper wives?

[41:41] Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Well, that anything goes with that. Let's say effort

[41:45] Mike Abrams: wise. I think the one I picked, I'd be very shocked if you say who

[41:49] Speaker 3: was, who was jelly Lorem. Now I'm forgetting who's jelly Lorem. She was Gus caretaker. Okay, who's the one? Who was the character, the female character, who does the dance at the beginning of the early the show. Any dots? Jenny, any docs? Yeah, I can see Jenny, any docs, kind of popping in there, and in Stepford, USA,

[42:13] Mike Abrams: definitely. So that was one of the first things I wrote down. And then I kind of thought about at a different angle, and I thought with the the way it kind of works, that maybe bustafer is one of the husbands, like, maybe he's, yeah, fit as one of the husbands. He's lives this posh life and eats it's heavy. And

[42:31] Speaker 3: Alan thought about that. Dev, yes, that's much more. That's a much more apt, uh, character to drop into the shepherd wives. Yeah,

[42:39] Mike Abrams: yeah. I forgot. Okay, we gotta do one more. What about gypsy? Well, gypsy

[42:44] Speaker 3: is a stage mother, yeah, and it takes place in the world of vaudeville or burlesque. So let's say, is there someone who there's someone who's, there's nobody in strips, in a cat? Oh, well, why not skimple shanks? He has a specialty. He has a specialty number in cats. I could see him plopped down into a vibe built stage. Why

[43:10] Mike Abrams: not one of my first jokes I made? Because when I knew very little about cats was I was concerned watching skimple Shanks because it looks like he strips his clothes off. And I think it's like someone explained to me that he's taking his his clothes off to get put into pajamas, wherever like to go on the train. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's just part of the choreography. But the first time I saw it, I'm like, is he taking his pants off? Like, what's going on here? So yeah, so I think that fits. I i had it put Grizabella here because I did not have her in the rows. I just thought, with the her troubled past, that maybe the the part where she wasn't with the tribe pre, you know, like we have the little bit before and, yeah, her returning. We don't really know what happens in the other part, sounds like it wasn't good. I thought maybe that's part of her story. Yeah. I hadn't thought,

[43:58] Speaker 3: Oh. I thought that's, yeah, that would work too. Like gimbal. I'm, I'm very partial gimbal, I have to say, having played

[44:06] Mike Abrams: hard, I love it well. So how, how can people get the book? When? When's it come out? I'll link everything to as well, right? Thank

[44:14] Speaker 3: you. Well, the official pub date is May 21 right? But I know, the last time I talked to oxer publisher, they said they're going to start sending pre pub copy. If you order from Amazon, for instance, they'll start sending both pre pub copies out end of April, end of this month.

[44:34] Mike Abrams: Okay, so, yeah, this will come out right around the publishing date anyway. So cool. Basically, at this point, go order it and you'll get it. Go

[44:41] Speaker 3: order it and buy it at a bookstore. If you can find a bookstore these days, yeah, you know, there's still some, there's some especially,

[44:47] Mike Abrams: yeah, support local bookstores if you can, be great, although you can have to go to Amazon to watch the rose so you're gonna why

[44:59] Mike Abrams: let's. Do some rapid fire. Okay, if you could be on for cats for one night only. Does not matter, male, female, any character. If you could just do perform one night, who would you want to perform as?

[45:12] Speaker 3: Oh my god, let's say, Well, I always wanted to get on that tire. So I guess I'd say Grizabella, since she has the show stopper. Yeah, she's got the showstopper. And if I could sing like that, I'd be very happy sing like that and then go to heaven, and then ride the ride, the magic ride, the magic tire. I would definitely

[45:32] Mike Abrams: do that 15 minutes on stage. That's all you need. That's all you need. Who are your favorite and least favorite characters. Which cats do you love, and which cats were you just like, I could deal without. Oh, that

[45:46] Speaker 3: Jimmy, any dot I thought was was, uh, annoying I could do without her.

[45:52] Mike Abrams: All right. I love that you answered that first, because I usually have to pull people to, like, criticize a cat, and they're just like, nope. Jenny, any

[46:02] Speaker 3: Oh, my favorite. Well, I Yeah, you know, I'm Team skimble. I'm Team skip. Let me

[46:08] Mike Abrams: I want to take skimball out because I know, like, obviously you performed as in for a year. You have a liking and you said at the very beginning that you are skimble Through and Through as you know, like you right away. Yeah, so let's take skimball out. Who's your favorite non skin, all right, let's

[46:23] Speaker 3: say, Well, I loved, actually, I love mccaffity, because that they he just sort of shows up as this phantom in his fabulous costume, scares everybody to death, and then gut leads, yeah, so I always was a little partial

[46:40] Mike Abrams: mechanic. Okay, what's your favorite song from the show?

[46:43] Speaker 3: I think, I think I'm like the Macavity song. That bomb and Demeter me too. That was my that was one of my favorites. Yeah, okay.

[46:51] Mike Abrams: I always ask one fun one. And we did cast in cats into Bette Midler. But I want to ask if you were going to cast Bette Midler at cats at any point in her career. So it doesn't have to be now. Could be early. Who would you want her to perform as I think

[47:06] Speaker 3: there are a number of roles she could play. Okay, let's, let's hear she could Well, I think obvious, because there's so much drama in surrounding the character. He should be a great Grizabella, because, again, because of the draw, she would bring the drama to that character, but I think she could vamp. She could Vamp as bomb and to meet or Demeter in the Macavity number. She could, even though I find the character annoying, she would be funny as Jenny, any dots and I, and I could also see her because of the she has a maternal, nurturing quality to her. I could also see her as jelly Loram, yeah,

[47:48] Mike Abrams: I have one that I think I would love to see. So I thought Grizabella, too. I was like, you know, and I agree with you, she could do the rest because of her humor and how, like, witty and, like, she can be a little all over the place, in a good way. She could be such a good Tugger, because she would be able to, yeah, be able to kind of go, I, you know, there's a little bit more freedom to kind of improvise in that one, like in that particular character that I could see, you know, like there was in 2016 I think Tugger used to occasionally come out into the crowd, and, you know, she would just, I think, live off of that freedom. Yeah,

[48:26] Speaker 3: there's a little bit of, you know, there's a little bit of the Divine Miss M in Tugger, or she could bring the divine missam to talk, yeah, definitely. Oh, that's a great idea. I hadn't thought about cross, cross gender casting, but that's great.

[48:39] Mike Abrams: They're just cats. They're just, they're all cats. I try not to you can't really think too much

[48:43] Speaker 3: about it. Yeah, that's good. I'm thinking to binary. I'm thinking to binary. Okay,

[48:48] Mike Abrams: million dollar question, and I hope you you were ready for this, but I've argued at length that I don't think Grizabella is the right Jellicle choice, so I want to hear you. Kevin, if you are making your Jellicle choice. Who are you picking,

[49:01] Speaker 3: Mike? I think you know the answer. I am Team skimble. All the way.

[49:06] Mike Abrams: I love it. I'm Team Give, give skimbles. Defense. He, well, first,

[49:10] Speaker 3: you know he's, he's one of the older cats. He's, he's a, he's a contemporary of grizzabellas. And so he, he's older. He, he deserves the rest. He's been putting that damn train together for years. I he, you know, I think of the, you know, I think of the tire as, sort of, you know, his Assisted Living Center in the sky. So he, he's, deserves his rest. Up, up. He goes,

[49:42] Mike Abrams: I love it. Yeah, I I think he's, he does not get a lot of like, thought into this choice, even though he is on the older side for the, you know, in the generationally, he falls in that first bucket, because he's kind of viewed as the uncle. And he comes in, he's got this, like, upbeat, kind of bouncing around. Song, but he deserves consideration. I agree. I

[50:03] Speaker 3: don't know, you know, maybe I'm feeling that way now because I'm at a certain age. And actually I, I my relationship with a lot of the people in that tour was actually kind of similar to people in the younger kid, because a lot of the people in the tour were, are much younger than me and and the older I get, the more I think gimbal deserves his props. And, yeah, I think of it as that great assisted living setter in the sky. And he's, he's deserving of it. I love

[50:38] Mike Abrams: it. There's that's any non Grizabella vote is a good vote in my book. So what do you have against Grizabella? Honestly, nothing. I don't have anything against it. I against her. I think it's a wonderful number. I thoroughly enjoyed every piece of that. I just my my real take. I mean, you know this, this started as a joke. It started as a very quick one liner, witty joke. I don't think that if she did, if you're telling the redemption story, I don't like the idea of the redemption story ending, at least the way I originally interpret it, with murdering her. You know, it's like, yeah, like, let's like, if you, if you view it from a reborn and it's coming back, I just like, if you, you spend all this time getting your family to re accept you spend some time with them, like enjoy that moment. And so that's my biggest kind of argument against her, is I want her to have that moment. I want that same story, but I want her to spend the whole year with her family.

[51:36] Speaker 3: That's a nice way of putting it. That's a nice way of that's a nice, big hearted observation about it

[51:45] Mike Abrams: took me 160 episodes to get to that. You know where we are. I originally made a joke because I just thought I saw a I saw my original Grizabella was on The X Factor. And that was lens I came into the show with. Was this feels like an X factor on drugs, like everyone's singing, you know, it's like each cat is doing their song, yeah, to for competition to win at the end. And I was like, it's kind of weird. It's a little off. They're cats. They're bouncing around. There's this, like, a little interlude in the middle where they tell a story. There's some, like, weird dance numbers, and the part that doesn't feel like it's them trying to tell their their things, I kind of like that very first viewing for me was that was, what am I watching? Yeah, because I knew nothing. Yeah, I didn't. I couldn't have told you a single thing besides memory going into that show. And so having that, knowing that this was an X factor person, I think that's what brought me into that view. And at the very end, I kind of like, walked out with a well, what performances were the most memorable? Obviously, memory is going to be that. But I loved Tugger Mustafa, these numbers. I thought Mungo Jerry, Rumble teaser is the only song I sang for the next like, month. Oh yeah. And then Macavity is, like, incredible to, like, listen to, and the dance and the, like, the two of them together. So it just was, like, if I'm voting, if I'm America voting, I'm not sure I'm picking memory. Yeah, that's kind of the root of where I started this. Yeah, it was, yeah, I'm not sure I'm picking it. Now I've evolved it to where I have my heartfelt Don't, don't kill her, let her live with her family. But it was, it all stemmed from that.

[53:24] Speaker 3: That's, that's a really interesting take. That's an interesting and I don't know if I've ever spoken talk to anyone who, who, who came to the show and knew nothing about it. I knew. How old were you when you saw it? Oh,

[53:37] Mike Abrams: I mean, I just moved here to New York, so I was in my 20s. I was, it wasn't so the thing is, growing up in Indiana, when it came through and it was all that regional stuff, my mom brought my sister, she just never brought me. I grew up playing sports. I was probably, I grew up playing hockey. I was probably traveling around the Midwest playing hockey. It just was one of those things that it wasn't that we were voiding it. It just didn't happen. And then I moved right. I think, like it opened in 2016 I moved in. Think it opened in June of 2016 I moved to New York in May of 2016

[54:09] Speaker 3: this is the, this is the Revive, revive hats. Yes, yes, yeah.

[54:12] Mike Abrams: And so I just ended up at a preview. And because I was, you know, at that point, I had, I knew I loved going to theater. I was always entertained by musicals. I was living down the street, yeah, from the mall, yeah. And you know, when you're in New York, it's, it's very different. It's, I think the thing about theater is that it's, it's, there's conversations about its accessibility right now with costs and all the other stuff. But when you live here with lotteries and rush and a lot of other things, if you can go on a Tuesday night or a Wednesday night on the spur of the moment, on the spur of the moment, then you can really go in a very accessible moment. Now that's not accessible to most other people, which is the challenge, yeah. But I was, I was living so close that if I finished work early, I could just walk to a theater, buy a ticket for a fairly inexpensive price and have. It's an amazing experience. And so I had known cats from the punch lines, because it's in Friends and Family Guy and Kimmy Schmidt and all the modern family there's all of these moments, but I knew memory was only music. I knew, yeah, and I very probably to a detriment to myself. I don't like to go in knowing anything. I don't listen to cast recorders before. I don't like, read synopsises. I All I ask at this point is run time. Just like, How long am I gonna be sitting there? Because I like to know that. And maybe just like, is it? Is it uplifting sad? Like, just like, give me the the emotions that I might be feeling. And it's gotten me into some trouble, because I've walked into some very, very heavy shows that I did not know were very heavy. And I've walked into some where I did not know they were hilarious and loved it. And but I've always done that. I don't I like to go in cold. And so there's some things now it's like you can't avoid with social media, just in general. And, yeah, but there's still plenty of of these, like original, deep Broadway things that if it's pre 2016 I probably know very little about it, and it kind of makes it fun, because, yeah, say it makes it fun for the show in itself, because I, you know, people are in all these other things. I've never seen Chorus Line, I've never seen a lot, I've ever seen chips. I've never seen a lot of these, like classics, because they weren't here, yeah, when I was here, and that is made it fun. Well,

[56:24] Speaker 3: one thing they're always doing Gypsy, so the next time they do Gypsy, a revival of Gypsy, you'll have to go. There's

[56:29] Mike Abrams: a lot that's happening, even this year, that I can't wait, that I'm, like, really want to go. I mean, Sunset Boulevard is coming to New York. There's all these I can't, like, I'm trying to figure out if I can get to the west end to see Starlight Express. And there's all these different things happening, and I love when they're being revived. Like I saw spam a lot, a couple times recently. And I mean things that, again, I didn't know a lot about it because it predates my theater. You know what

[56:54] Speaker 3: you need to go see, uh, city center on course, is due in June. Is doing Titanic, I Yeah, and you got to go see that, because that's a really great score. That's a true I,

[57:05] Mike Abrams: it's on my plan. Yeah, A, we have a, there's a very good theater person who's used to work with our network and everything, who I'm pretty sure is the reason that they're doing that show, because it's like, her obsession with Titanic is is bar none, and so she's hyped up. So many people to go see that show that. I mean, good, good. Oh, you'll do. You'll like it. You'll enjoy it. If not, you know, I'll just go back to Titanic and I'll get the, you know, the that's sort of the hilarious version of it is very different,

[57:34] Speaker 3: but they're two sides of the same coin. Oh, yeah, two sides of the same coin.

[57:39] Mike Abrams: This has been so fun. I encourage everyone to go, go get your book, and I'll link it so everyone can find, find it and give it a read and enjoy the we'll go. We'll have to all go watch the rose and talk about it, please. So thank you for coming on and sharing your story.

[57:55] Speaker 3: This is great, Mike. This has been fantastic. Thanks for Thanks for having me on. Thanks for the shout out for the book, I really appreciate it. And Rock on skimble.

[58:04] Mike Abrams: All right, yeah, we got another skimble Vote adding that to the list. So this has been fun. So thank you, and thanks everyone else for listening to this episode of the wrong cat died. The podcast. Break down the catastrophe. To follow along. You can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, or any analysis podcast. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, tick tock and threads at the wrong cat died. Or check our website, the wrong cat died.com.