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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit vpm.fm to discover more. There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the one who died. I'm the one who died.

[0:29] Mike Abrams: Welcome to the wrong cat died. The podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. I'm your host. Mike Abrams, and today we have a special guest with us. He starred as Gus the theater cat and busta for Jones in the 2016 Broadway revival of cats. Welcome Christopher ger and thanks for joining us. Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. So I want to kick things off by knowing your history on cats. So before you played Gus, had you seen the show? Were you familiar with it? No,

[0:57] Speaker 2: okay, I had gotten the British cast out. My mom had seen it in England. She brought it back to me. I was 13 years old, big musical theater person, but not an Andrew Lloyd Webber person, interesting.

[1:08] Speaker 3: Okay, like, right. But she brought the

[1:11] Speaker 2: album and I listened to it, of course. And there were certain things that I responded to. Gus was one of them. So I actually was one of those kids who like, did Gus in my bedroom alone, over and over and over again listening to the album, but that's all I knew about cats. Never saw it, never saw a tour, never saw didn't even see the PBS video until the night before we started rehearsal.

[1:30] Mike Abrams: So the 1998 video, that's right, the night before. Yeah, because

[1:34] Speaker 2: I suddenly thought, Damn, I'm about to go into rehearsal with a bunch of dancers who grew up on cats. I should maybe get a little bit more a broader background on what's going

[1:43] Mike Abrams: so that was one of my questions. Did you interpret from John Mills or any of the previous performers? No, you when you were preparing? No,

[1:49] Speaker 2: literally, when I went in and did my audition, I did what I had done as a 13 year old kid in my bedroom. I just repeated that process, and they said yes, and I did a call back, and then I did the final callback, and I booked it so I hadn't seen anyone else do Gus

[2:03] Mike Abrams: at that point. That's amazing. And so can you tell we have a lot of non theater listeners to this podcast for Gus. You actually play more than just Gus. That's right show. So you play Gus Buster and Peter.

[2:15] Speaker 2: Yeah. Peter is a random cat. He looks like every other sort of Yeah, random cat out there, and is just in the opening number. Then you disappear. It's basically so they have an additional body for all the that dancing number. And

[2:29] Mike Abrams: how do they come up with Peter? I have no idea. There's Mr. Mass athletes, Rome, tuck Tucker. All these, well, crazy names

[2:33] Speaker 2: Peter is, well, Peter's one of the names that we say in the naming of cats. Okay, it's one of the ones that hadn't been taken yet. And I don't think there's a named cat in the show, like there's no random names. It had to have been out of the TS Eliot original text. And Peter is one of those names.

[2:50] Mike Abrams: Okay, so that's a TS Eliot question. How did Peter end up with all the rest of these? Right? Who knows? And so of those three characters, yep, which was your favorite? Oh, God,

[2:59] Speaker 2: I love guys. Yeah, absolutely. Well, he's an actor for one, yeah, he's, he's a character part, what we would call a character part in theater. He's, you know, he's not the hot, young, sexy one. He's kind of broken down. He's got a lot of history to him. Yeah, definitely. Gus.

[3:13] Mike Abrams: And how'd you play the parallels between the two? Because Gus is, you know, the very quiet, emotional character, and then you've got Buster for who's just kind of comes in with this, you know, this in the movie with the big spoon. Oh, totally.

[3:24] Speaker 2: And he's got a lot of bravado. Well, the thing that they have in common is that Buster is not really of the tribe. Buster is passing through. He is above all of these cats. And while I think Gus probably started as a part of the tribe his age, has kind of pushed him so off to far, to the periphery, that he, too, is kind of not a part of the tribe. He's not a cat who you see all night, who all of a sudden steps forward. We've never seen Gus at all until he is brought on stage to sing his song. Wow. Yeah. Okay,

[3:52] Mike Abrams: so when you think about you know, you've definitely been a part of the show. When you think of all the characters you've played, three, yep, if who's your favorite, not of those three, just in the show, and then who's your least favorite?

[4:07] Speaker 2: I'm asking characters, not people you perform, yeah, not people I'm performing with Absolutely. Carbuckety is the cat who I would say is my least favorite. Okay, both. And mainly, that's as I'm sort of responding a little bit as if I were Gus because car Bucha is one of the young cats. It's super athletic. It's one of the tumble tracks, and so it's, like, always very noisy, moving very fast. I find that very irritating. So carbuckety is my least favorite. Favorite is really tough. I mean, I'm a big fan of Grizz. Oh, I'm missing the freaking obvious because it's so close to me. Jelly Lorem is my favorite cat, because jelly Lorem takes care of Gus, yes, yeah, sings me a lot of song with you, yeah, and, and in fact, in the production, Sarah Ford, who played Jerry jelly Lorem, I could not have done my performance had she not been there. So, yeah, totally jelly.

[4:59] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Yeah, amazing. So I want to ask you about some of the rumor mills that I've read, because your characters have some very interesting ones. Oh, really. So the first is, there is a lot of rumors about the, what I would call the cat's family tree. Yeah. Do you have any insight into who is actually, who's who's daddy? Yeah. I mean, Buster seems to be the answer for a lot of that, or at least he's lovers with most of them. It sounds like, Yeah,

[5:28] Speaker 2: well, I mean, the female cats seem to carry on when Buster hits the property, so I'm assuming that he has gotten around to several of the lady cats. Yeah, there's a lot of, I think the only other cat who gets swooned over in quite the same way is Tugger, for totally different reasons, for sure, basically, bust was a sugar daddy. You know, he's, he's a high class he's got white Spats on. He's dressed in a tuxedo, and he goes to sugar clubs. He goes to really nice clubs,

[5:56] Mike Abrams: totally. So there, you know, it's, it's clear that it's gentleman's clubs, yeah, which is crazy again to think about. So I do have another piece that. So you listen to the soundtrack as a 13 year old, but you didn't go new. What is your opinion on parents bringing children to the show? I heard what you

[6:12] Speaker 2: said in the first episode. It's a freaky show. Well, let me tell you what I mean when I sat down that night before the first rehearsal and finally, loaded in a DVD I called a friend of mine who lived in the neighborhood, loaded in the DVD, poured myself a bourbon, sat there, watched the whole thing, and at the end, I turned off. Went, huh? So cats appears to be two hours of soft porn punctuated by three kiddie numbers, like children's numbers, and three contemplations on death and dying, yeah? But essentially, it's two hours of soft porn, right?

[6:45] Speaker 3: So, and they're in the audience, yeah? And they're all around

[6:49] Speaker 2: you, and they're dressed in practically nothing, yeah, yeah. But there's those kiddie numbers, there's enough. I mean, I don't think they, they didn't cynically set off to build a thing that would make everyone in the family happy, but what they did was they built a thing that would make everyone in the family happy. There's some truth

[7:07] Mike Abrams: to that. Yeah. There's also a lot of rumors that this is why there are significantly more furries in the world.

[7:12] Speaker 2: Is because of cat, because of cats. Oh, I never thought that thought before, but that I totally buy into that. Yeah, right. I mean, when I first heard of furries, the first thing I thought was, oh, it's like cats. It's a cat's

[7:22] Mike Abrams: convention. It's the rum tuck Tucker song, sure. Cavity song, done. Are the two sold that are, I believe that. So I'm curious. Now, I'm assuming you've seen the trailer for the new movie, yeah. And what are your thoughts?

[7:35] Speaker 2: Actually, NPR, called me up and asked me this question. NPR, big cats followers, I guess so. Somebody over there is a cat follower and had me on Twitter tell you exactly my experience of watching it. I I was at the Neil Simon theater when it dropped. I was watching the Cher show, wow. And I came out, my phone blew up, like, have you seen the trailer? Have you seen the trailer? I was like, I don't want to see this effing trailer. But I went home, bought myself a bourbon watch throughout and I'm like, oh, oh, that's good. Oh, that's too bad. Oh, my God, oh, well, that's wrong. Oh, oh god. That's strange. That doesn't look finished. I mean, it was just like every emotion you could have. My biggest thing was the minute Judy Dench set an actual line of dialog. I thought they're cheating, because in cats, you don't get to speak actual words. And clearly, they've written some lines, some like language for these cats to speak to make the story clearer, which I think is cheating if you can't do it with a

[8:32] Mike Abrams: song. So do you believe the story is clear? There's a lot of debate on that. In general.

[8:35] Speaker 2: You mean, if you just sat down at cats and watched, if you just watched, Oh God, no, absolutely no. I think it's a Rorschach test. It's, you know, you watch it, and then what do you think just happened? Yeah, that's what I think

[8:46] Mike Abrams: it is. So how would, how do you interpret it?

[8:48] Speaker 2: Well, it's hard because I was actually, well, that's funny, because I was, I did watch the video before Trevor talked us through the building of the back story. What did I think? Well, I essentially thought it was sophomore and kiddie numbers and contemplations on death and dying. I'm still unconvinced that what we watch at the end there is a cat being subjected to death. The one of the best responses we got from a little girl who saw the show she thought great parenting, right? Is that she thought that everybody else was all we that we were all already dead in cat heaven, and that Grizz was actually sent back to live again, is what she thought she had

[9:28] Speaker 2: Oh, I kind of think is that as hopeful it's like? So the ending is and you get to live, as opposed to and you get to die,

[9:33] Mike Abrams: but so my interpretation is that you get to die to start your next

[9:37] Speaker 2: life. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the intention. Is that the intention. Is that

[9:41] Mike Abrams: the intention? I think that's the intention. Yeah. So I read the, you know, I read the Spark Notes, version of what it's supposed to be, yeah, yeah. Okay. So what's the from the insider perspective, though? Yeah, what's the conveying message of what you're trying to, you know, to tell the story?

[9:53] Speaker 2: Well, you've just asked a very like, is there, what's the message? That's one thing, okay, right? As opposed to what's the plot or what's the story, not both.

[10:07] Speaker 2: what's the message. I never think about really, what Old Deuteronomy says. I think the message is, stop and consider if I had to pick a message for cats, it's stop and consider notice. Notice how this cat behaves. Notice how that cat behaves. Notice the cat that you don't want to look at, Grizabella, stop. Notice, give her a full that if I had to come up with a message for cats, okay, that would be the one I would hope to get

[10:43] Speaker 2: is a bunch of cats get together in a junkyard, and one is blown to heaven.

[10:49] Mike Abrams: There you go. I view it as my interpretation. My plot was that I'm watching some ABC singing show, yeah, like a competition, competition show, like the X Factor, or the voice, or American Idol, and older me is the one of the four judges, the only of the four judges, and each one comes up on stage and sings their song, and they get voted on and off by America. And one at the end wins, instead of a million dollars in a Vegas show, they die, they get to ride a tire into heaven. Yeah, okay, I buy that, and they belt out there. You know, the last number to one for your like,

[11:22] Speaker 2: lip sync for your life, right? Sing for your life. Yeah, okay,

[11:25] Mike Abrams: it's an interesting message. I never thought about it that way. I

[11:29] Speaker 2: just think about what. And this is stuff, you know, who knows if it actually gets across the foot lights, but Trevor Nunn, who was the original director, was our director, and who really wrote the story behind the whole piece, that whole that event that you talked about in your first episode, I think about Deuteronomy sitting there on the tire. Well, in the old days before selfies, no one went up and took a picture Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy simply sat there and meditated for that entire time. He sat there and thought about what he had just seen, which is the moment where the tribe rejects her for the first time in a really harsh way, and he sits there and thinks for 20 minutes about, how do I solve this problem of this tribe acting this awful way to this one cat? I thought I

[12:11] Mike Abrams: was going crazy because I did not believe that an actor in the performance would give up their intermission right to sit ups like they take selfies, right? Every single person now walks on stage.

[12:23] Speaker 2: How about that? It's a big part of the casting. And Q Quentin, old Arrington, who was our original Deuteronomy, was you couldn't have picked a better man for that job to be able to sing that role the way he sang it, act the role, the way he acted, but most importantly, to handle that intermission event every night, every single time. That's crazy.

[12:42] Mike Abrams: Yeah, so I want to go back to the room now. Great. There's one from New York, okay, that has very little writing on it. Okay, but it's between rum tuck Tugger and skimpel shanks. Something about the two actors in the New York cast had some kind of weird that's amazing. Those are the two you, yeah, some kind of weird relationship where they either It was either that they acted it out different like ways each night, or they actually maybe disliked each other at certain points. But there's not a lot written on it, but there is something tying those two together for the New York revival. Is

[13:13] Speaker 2: there? Is there a seed to the like, do the does the writer of this rumor have like an event that they

[13:20] Speaker 3: cite? No, it's just throughout the production. Well,

[13:23] Speaker 2: here's your rumor well, and here's me figuring this out without this is actually not well, this is a little backstage knowledge, but it's mostly just paying attention to what goes on in the story, which is, of all the cats up there, skimble is the most officious. He rules are the most important to skimble of any body up there,

[13:45] Speaker 2: that. Okay, remember that the person who says f the rules is Tugger, right? Which? Fair, right. So you have two actors who hunker down in those positions and are given leeway to respond to things night to night. So a Tugger, depending on who's playing it, and I've seen lots of guys play it at this point, could, like, you know, be screwing around behind you while you're trying to get something done. Now, if we're all good actors, and we were all good actors, there's a parameter around that game that you play. But if someone was to watch that from the outside, what they would see is a guy screwing around and another guy shooting dirty looks. Entirely appropriate. That makes sense to skimble shanks and Tugger because I know both those guys really, really well and they liked each other. Yeah, totally. I kind of going, Oh, I could see how you might see that story playing out. It's,

[14:42] Mike Abrams: it's rumor mill, yes. I mean, there's also rumor mills about their astrology signs, which is about the cats, yeah, which is also a very crazy rumor mill. Okay, so skimble shakes roof rule follower. It looks like during the song, he slips like a 20. To Old Deuteronomy, and my interpretation, since I view this right as a as a viewer who's watching a show, a competition show, right? I look like it's a bribe. Looks like

[15:12] Speaker 2: a bribe. You're positive that what you saw was skimble hands. Dude, money, not dude hands. Skimble my I saw it the other way, okay? Because I think who knows, you know? Well, in the in the little story, inside a story, that the skimmble Shanks number is because he's the railway cat, for those of you who don't know at home, so he's like the conductor of A which is a really cool, oh, it's great, because we build a train. But I think I'm not on stage for this, and it was many years ago, but I think that he gets tipped by different people during that as the conductor, like being a concierge at a restaurant. So

[15:48] Mike Abrams: maybe I saw the other maybe just saw maybe I'm writing it this way, thinking like, Ah, this is or driving his way, you're right

[15:55] Speaker 2: and I'm wrong. And Jeremy Davis, who played the role, figured out a way to didn't

[16:03] Speaker 2: untouchable. He is, a matter of fact, if he had been thinking about skimble and skimble did that, he would have been off the list just

[16:10] Mike Abrams: out right right away, not allowed. Not allowed. Okay, so before we get to my main question, which is my thesis, right? I would love to hear what you're currently working on. Oh yeah,

[16:23] Speaker 2: I'm in rehearsals. A matter of fact, I'm on my dinner break right now, working on an off Broadway production of a new version of Cyrano de Bergerac called simply Cyrano. It is a musical The guys, the twins, from the group the national are writing our music. Erica Schmidt is our director and the adapter of the piece, and Peter Dinklage is playing Cyrano.

[16:46] Speaker 3: Amazing. And when can we catch it that starts? Let's see.

[16:50] Speaker 2: It starts. The 11th of October. Is our first preview, and then we open in the first week of November, and it's down at the Daryl Roth theater Union Square. Amazing. It's a hot ticket. Can't wait small theater.

[17:02] Mike Abrams: Awesome. Yeah. Okay, so back to cats. Back to cats. My thesis, yeah, is that Grizzle was the wrong choice? So my question to you, yeah, as someone who is an insider, yeah, do you either agree or disagree with me? And if so, I will say there is a large team Gus. There is a large team Gus. I know, who would you? Who would you pick and lie. Hmm.

[17:24] Speaker 2: I always thought that I'm going to come at it from the GUS perspective. I always thought that Gus was dragged on into the junkyard to tell his story. And first, he's very, very feeble. He can barely get through it. And then as his memories come back to him. He starts to enjoy it, and he tells the story. I think Gus uses up his very last bit of life doing the number. My contention is Gus does his number. Then Gus crawls under a car and dies. And there's no coming back and there's no coming back, they end up he's had as many lives as a cat as a loud and that was and actually Q and I, as the actors playing Gus and Duke, spoke about that so that there was an understanding between us as actors, that there was no he wasn't like he was passing over me. He understood I was ready. I was tired. Please don't make me do this again, kind of thing. Yeah, you were done. Yeah, I was done. So there's that. I guess I'm for Grizz. I mean, who else is. I mean, the thing about you want to send, I think you want to send someone who's broken like you don't want to send someone who's in their prime, that's debatable. Or you don't want to send a kitten, because kind of what we had, we had kittens, we had young adult cats. We actually had, we cat kittens, we had teens, we had young adult cats. And then you kind of had your older

[18:39] Mike Abrams: and again, this is where the layers of cats in is bizarre, right? Is that doesn't come across. No. Where are the two Demeter and bumblerina who say those are adults? Okay, right? That makes sense. Have a past. Well, that also makes sense when you watch that number. That's right, they better be adults. Yeah, they better be adults, right? Okay, yeah. So you are in team Grizz.

[19:07] Mike Abrams: think there's a lot of choices. Well, I go run tug Tugger. He's a show stop. See, I

[19:12] Speaker 2: don't want Tugger to be rewarded because I come down on the Tugger is irritating. See, you don't like him. Okay. No, I find Tugger to be irritating. So

[19:20] Mike Abrams: all the female cats disagree with you. Of

[19:23] Speaker 2: course they do, right? I mean, if it, if it, if I felt it was like, truly a reward to go, then I'm gonna, I'm gonna pump for a jelly, I think jelly Lorem, yeah, yeah. And it's kind of a comics, how it's like when life in your life in the show as the actor, and then life in the show is the character combined. Not only do I think because jelly Lorman is so kind to Gus and treats him so very well, but the actress who has to play jelly Loram has to be able to sing legit. She's the one who pops all the high C's and all the group numbers. She has to be able to act the stuff she acts with Gus, and she has to dance in so many of the numbers. And it's not really a dance. That's track. So now you've got an actress, a singing actress, who's being required to dance a lot, so she's working her ass off during the show. So I think let's put her attire. I'm

[20:09] Mike Abrams: gonna pull up my jelly and Buster for theory for you. Oh, excellent, because I have my own take on this good combining a bunch of rumors right, to make my thought on how this works. Yep. So there's a rumor that obviously Buster Jones and grizzabella are friends, yep. And then when she gets annexed out, she's too afraid to talk to him again, fair, right? And then also, Grizabella and jelly are friends, yes, but they kind of have a falling out, yes, right? So there's a rumor that Buster fur and jelly or sorry, no. So there's a rumor that Buster and jelly have slept together. Oh, really. And so that is where my take is. Is that jelly gives up her chance to sing to Grizabella as an I'm sorry for sleeping with her friend? Yes. Deep

[20:58] Speaker 2: breathe. Is that right? I mean, is that right? You ask it like you didn't think through

[21:04] Speaker 3: this as you were preparing for the show? No, but I love that. That's my take dude

[21:10] Speaker 2: that lines up. I mean, everything you just said there, I'm thinking of actually internal acting moments that there would be no way you would know about that line up with all of that.

[21:19] Mike Abrams: So how else can I solidify this? What other parts of the show that I'm missing because I'm, you know, I'm reading rumor mills and watching this? Well, if you really

[21:26] Speaker 2: watch jelly Loram during the bust of her Jones number, and you watch how she specifically responds, that it totally lines up, that they would have had a relationship that was specific, then you when you watch jellies, because jelly gets really the first time, if I'm remembering this correctly, she gets really angry, and her hair really goes up, and the claws come out when Grizz comes out the first time. But by the time we get to the end statement of memory, jelly and I are both on the floor at Grizz feet, looking up at her, not in a hateful way at all. We both kind of feel for her as she gave up her apology. Wow, that's my take. I like your deep read here. That's that's what happens when you research this show way too much. It's also what happens when you don't have the wrong kind of baggage in your head to begin with.

[22:15] Mike Abrams: That's very true. Yeah. I mean, again, slate, seen this so twice now. Great. The New York both your cast. Oh, okay, good, good. I saw it, and then I had a friend that couldn't believe that I never see, and then read what I had said and said, We're gonna go we're gonna go ahead. And so that's my two times. And now I'm religiously watching the 1998 movie, oh yeah, to catch up and make sure I've got all the angles coming through here. Cool,

[22:37] Speaker 2: cool. It's interesting, though. So now there's a difference between that movie and what we did, because we had the, we had the Andy blankenbueler in, you know, who sprinkled his own stuff inside those stories.

[22:50] Mike Abrams: And there's been some takes. Like, there's been some differences too. Like, there was the London street cat version of rum tuck Tucker, yeah,

[22:56] Speaker 2: yeah, which was a terrible to know, yeah. I'm so glad we didn't do that. Yeah, no, you brought back the original. Kind of went back to the Terry man version. Yes, yeah, yeah,

[23:06] Mike Abrams: amazing, yeah. So for any parting words for cats fans out there, or just people listening who are not cats fans and trying to figure out what this

[23:14] Speaker 2: movie says? So, yeah, so that. So you're, you're doing a service to the world by preparing people for

[23:19] Mike Abrams: the movie, which none of us know what it's gonna look like. That's right.

[23:22] Speaker 2: And my contention is that that we should not, in any way judge it by that trailer. That trailer, here's this is me speaking for me. I think that trailer was rushed by the studios to get it out the weekend that lion king hit. I think the director had nothing to do with that trailer

[23:35] Mike Abrams: interesting, I really do. And it launched the same day as Top Gun, which I thought was an interesting choice, the Top Gun trailer. And they both haven't dropped

[23:43] Speaker 2: on this hour of each other, but I'm pretty sure the cats one is tied to. They wanted it in The Lion King

[23:49] Mike Abrams: and The Lion King, yeah, and there's, it doesn't feel quite like the play. The trailer doesn't for me. No, no, which makes me wonder what they're gonna do.

[23:57] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, here's what I would say to people about going to see the cats movie. It's what I say to people about going to see everything you just go and get on the ride and take the ride. Don't think too much about it beforehand. Just go. Carve out two hours of your life. Get a soda, popcorn, some popcorn, pour some M, M's into the popcorn. It's the best way to do it. And just go on the ride.

[24:22] Speaker 3: I would say, stop and consider dude. Call back,

[24:26] Speaker 2: yes, just Yeah. I guess that's what I'm saying, is just take the time. Just stop and consider it. Yeah. Well, I'm really looking forward to it. I can't wait. I think a bunch of us from the cast are all gonna go together. You should, yeah,

[24:39] Mike Abrams: I think you should go to the premiere. Why are they not inviting you to the premiere?

[24:42] Speaker 2: Please? There's a big difference between movie people and theater people, decimal points and other things.

[24:50] Mike Abrams: Well. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. I love it and tell us, how can we follow you on Instagram, social? Oh, yeah, it's

[24:59] Speaker 2: very. See Christopher GERD, G, u, r, r, all one word that's Instagram and the Twitter and Christopher gerd.com, is the website and check me out. Awesome.

[25:07] Mike Abrams: Thank you again. Thanks brother. Appreciate it to follow along. You can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died, or check out our website, the wrong cat died.com. Do.