Musings & Reviews

Or: I had a ball at the Ball

This was different. The Jellicle Ball is special in a way that nearly defies articulation. As I sit here ruminating on what these past months have meant to me I am overwhelmed with a bevy of emotions. In many ways, the Ball felt like more than just another Broadway musical. Since March, the Broadhurst became a haven for people who may not have even realized how badly they needed it. I often joked that attending the show was like going to church, but I don’t think that was a joke at all. The safety, the love, the joy, the liberation that this show provided me and others is intangible and irreplaceable.

Here was a troop of brilliant artists laying themselves and their bodies bare on stage night after night, giving everything they had to bring ecstasy to the audiences. Here was a show centering black and brown queer and trans artists of all body types at a time when homogenized thinking and terrifying fascism was rooting its mundanity and evil throughout society. Here was a show that said fuck your rules, fuck your heteronormativity, fuck any and all expectations and just went for it boldly and beautifully. Here was a show that changed my life.

I am 39 years old and I have never felt more sure of who I am or more comfortable in my own body. Although I was openly nonbinary before the Ball came into my life, I don’t think I fully understood what that meant for me or how to reconcile my identity in a cogent way before my journey with this show. To watch these artists perform with abandon, to see how brilliant the dramaturgical synthesis worked between Ballroom culture and the original material of Cats, sent shockwaves through my neural pathways that are still reverberating. I am a more comfortable and complete person than I was just a few months ago, and I am perhaps happier with myself than I have ever been.

The Jellice Ball was also about community, generational love, and found family. This most deeply reflects in the story of Sillabub, the youngest and most curious of the cats. Through her connection to Grizabella and the way the rest of the cats take her under their wing, we see how our queer elders can inspire us and show us the way. There is acceptance, guidance, connection, and love. And it works both ways, because Sil is vitally important to Grizabella rediscovering herself and learning how to love who she is. These cats, these Jellicle cats, this magical group of characters and the performers who breathed life into them illustrate and emphasize the power of found family. The paradigm of Ballroom culture with its houses and their mothers is a beacon of how we can love and support the people we meet and care for, how found family can ultimately be as if not more important than our blood relations, particularly for those who have been othered or ostracized throughout their life.

A community formed around this show in a way that felt singular and rare. In a potent example of life imitating art, the notion of found family expanded far beyond the constraints of the material and the stage. On a personal level, I formed bonds with many of the cast members and creatives on the show. I grew to care deeply about these artists and showing up for them and gassing them up became as important to me as the show itself. There was a mutual two way street of shared energy and passion. At risk of sounding delusional or breaking the acceptable barriers of parasociality, I am hopeful that some of these relationships will continue on.

On top of that, the magic and safety of the Ball affected my personal life and relationships in myriad ways. My bond with certain friends I knew prior strengthened and grew deeper over our shared experience revisiting the show together time and time again. I brought so many important people in my life to see the show because I wanted to experience it with them, to bask in their reactions and share something with them that meant so much to me. I brought my Mom, one of my sisters, my niece, many of my closest friends, former colleagues, a lovely couple we met earlier this year on a Disney Cruise! My partner and I went many times together, and holding their hand and crying together time and time again was an unforgettable bonding experience. I met new people who shared in my love of the show, a few of whom I am now thrilled to call my friend and one in particular who is now, quite simply, family. In a very short period of time this person and I latched on to each other deeply, and I love them with my entire heart and know they are going to be a huge part of my life for the rest of it.

I am a theater professional. I have worked in the industry since 2016, and although I am not necessarily anyone of particular note, I have had my successes. I have won a Tony Award, my partner and I lead produced an Off Broadway show that played at Theater Row (the most rewarding and traumatizing experience of my life,) I was a founding producer of a very successful concert benefit series, etc. I know a lot of people in the Broadway community. Actors and producers and writers and stage hands and on and on. For the briefest of moments I wondered how it may look to some of them that I was returning to this show time and time again and essentially behaving like a superfan. And as briefly as that thought entered my head, it left. I remembered that I don’t give one single shit what other people think about me. As long as I am not hurting myself or others, I am going to act in exactly the way I see fit, loudly and proudly, joyously and whimsically. I am going to embrace what I love and shout my passions from the rooftops. This notion is particularly important to me considering the times we are living in and the social and political ramifications we are all faced with on a daily basis. This also ties in perfectly with the thematic elements of this production. Be yourself. Be exactly who you want to be and fuck anyone and everyone who may judge you or look at you differently because of that. That is their problem, not yours. On top of that, it seems to me that those who have their hand in making theater should be the ones who are the most passionate about it. Who love it so much that they consume it voraciously and with immense joy. Not the number crunching, mundane, data driven folks who seem to make up the preponderance of theater producers and who, if my estimation of this particular show is correct, have no idea what they are doing.

I attended both shows on closing day and I am not afraid to admit that I sobbed through both of them. That this show was taken away from us so soon feels like a crime and it is also indicative of the ways in which commercial theater and Broadway in particular have changed so significantly and distressingly over the past years. I found myself thinking about all of the special moments I was able to experience over the run of the show. The fabulous guest judges, brilliant understudy performances (Baby as Skimbleshanks! Ken as Old Deuteronomy! Bryce basically carrying the show on his back with multiple performances of split tracks! Ernest joining the show later in the run and seamlessly fitting in and shining as Etcetera or Mister Mistoffeles, Kya stepping in like the superstar she is as Macavity, and every swing who gave it their all) talkbacks, and more. I thought about how excited I was every time Rebekah Bruce (a friend and former colleague) was announced as conducting the show. I thought fondly of the front of house staff and bartenders, of the security guards, of Eric and his lovely handling of the judges, of every last person who was an invaluable pillar of this magical sanctuary that was Cats: The Jellicle Ball.

Mostly, I reflected back on how significantly this show altered my very being. For four and a half months, The Jellice Ball was everything to me. It gave me a newfound sense a self, it affected my personal relationships in so many beautiful ways, it inspired me to continue on creating art and helping lend a voice to those who are so often left voiceless. I am filled with immense gratitude and love, and although I am going to miss the show dearly I am so enormously glad it happened at all.