When, last year, the shiny new Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC) in Lower Manhattan announced the shows that would inaugurate its state-of-the-art theaters, a revival of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Cats set in the Harlem ballroom community raised more than a few eyebrows. The 1982 musical has its devoted fans; the original production ran for 21 years on the West End and 18 years on Broadway. But a catastrophic film adaptation in 2019—and the theater-kid uncoolness that has always pulsated beneath the plotless piece—made it tough to imagine it working.
So, more than a month into its mega-successful run—beloved by critics and audiences alike (today, the production announced its third extension)—how did Cats: The Jellicle Ball pull it off? For one thing, through an honest and open engagement with figures from the ballroom world, some of whom were cast in the show or brought onto the creative team. The creativity is most dazzling in the choreography by Omari Wiles, a ballroom figure who has worked with Beyoncé, Madonna, and Janet Jackson, and Arturo Lyons, another scene icon best known outside the balls for participating in (and, one season, winning) Legendary, HBO’s voguing competition. In this production of Cats, we’re not learning about a mystical group of feline cats hoping to ascend to another life, but getting a glimpse into a community of glamorous humans—predominantly queer and of color—competing for trophies in runway cat-egories.
“I have rarely seen an audience respond with as much joy and love,” Lloyd Weber said of the show in a recent statement. “The atmosphere was, quite simply, electric. Cats and ballroom culture both emerged in the same era and I am delighted that, all these years later, they are intersecting once again.”
To find out how Wiles and Lyons brought ballroom magic into a classic piece of musical theater, Vogue spoke with the pair, as well as two of the production’s breakout stars—Chasity “Tempress” Moore, who lends Grizabella the Glamour Cat an unforgettably poignant air, and Robert “Silk” Mason, who turns in a gag-a-minute take on the magical Mr. Mistoffelees—both of whom also hail from ballroom. These conversations have been edited and condensed.
