CATS: The Jellicle Ball

A NOTE FROM MEGAN ANN

It’s rare for a musical as iconic as CATS to feel genuinely new, but CATS: The Jellicle Ball does exactly that. This bold revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic transforms a familiar theatrical touchstone into something urgent, communal, and electric.

First seen in its critically acclaimed, award-winning Off-Broadway run at the Perelman Performing Arts Center—where it was extended three times—the production is co-directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch, with choreography by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons. Rather than a tribe of cats in a junkyard, this Cats unfolds in a makeshift ballroom, reimagining the Jellicle gathering as a vogueing competition rooted in queer culture and the Harlem drag ball tradition.

Jonathan Mandell of New York Theater notes, ‘the production draws on a once-underground subculture chronicled in Paris Is Burning, brought into the pop mainstream by Madonna’s “Vogue,” and reintroduced to a new generation through FX’s Pose.’

Watching this community brought to life onstage felt like an invitation into a world I previously knew little about. That’s the power of theater at its best: it builds empathy and deepens our understanding of one another.