This is my trip report for the fourth and fifth live performances of Cats that I have seen. These are getting combined into one report because they were in the same week, and at the same place - the Pantages Theatre, Los Angeles. Because it's two shows in one report, I'm doing it slightly differently than the others...

So. Two performances of Cats in the same week. Can you believe my luck? Thank Bast for Naw-Ruz (Persian New Year), when my parents gave me TWO TICKETS to Cats! They let me choose the dates, so I got them both for Los Angeles, as it's a good deal closer to home than Santa Barbara or Redding. ;)

To the first perf, I dragged both of my best friends along - one, Threnody, is as extreme a Cats fan as I, but the second, who goes by the name of Crow online, had only seen the video infrequently, and though she likes it, she's not the fanatic Thren and I are. But I imagine she enjoyed the show...

For the first one, my mother dropped us off about an hour early (this was on Saturday, April 12th). We went inside, oohed and ahhed at the theatre (the Pantages is, for the record, a stunningly elaborate and beautiful building), and headed instantly for the souvenir kiosk, as the doors were not yet open. Thren bought a souvenir programme, and we all got Playbills. After hanging around and schtuff we went inside. Lovely set. Lovely ceiling. Lovely seats! We had quite good seats, aisle on the right centre section. Nice. Chattered a bit, then quieted down as it started. Cats ran through - wunderbar! They ran within TWO INCHES of me. I could of grabbed Rumpelteazer's tail... but I refrained. Unlike London. ;)

Show was great. I won't go into specific notes cos I can't find my notebook, pout. What I have is the notes from my LiveJournal, in green, with the white being added later stuff:

Cats was super awesome.

Dee Roscioli, while not being my top choice for Grizabella, did have a most amazing voice. She was just a bit too strong, too forceful - for Griz, I like the softer, more vulnerable interpretation (aka, Gretchen Goldsworthy!).

Josua John Edwards was (as Faboo said) an Elvis-like Munkustrap; too comical for my taste.

Karl Warden is the GREATEST Plato/Macavity EVER. Sorry, vid-fans -- not even Bryn Walters can hold a candle to this guy. (Kwa!) At the stage door, we asked him which cat Plato is, and he described him for us. So the next time we worked it out.

Ronnie Nelson understudied Rum Tum tugger, and now he competes with John Partridge for the Best Tugger in History. ^_^

Eric Shorey (u/sing Pouncival) made a very ky00t little Poucni - not quite so much personality as Dave Blonn had, but awfully adorable nonetheless. And, really, I think you'd have to seriously /suck/ to be a bad Pounci! *g*

Joey Abramowicz (Tumblebrutus) had a very nice nose. *g* Long story, there. We finally managed to work out which was he and which Plato, by the final number... (funny story there, too - Thren & I, throughout the whooole show, kept whispering to each other, "Okay, so, is THAT Plato? Up on the car, with the paler coat and the eye patch?" "Yes, definitely him. No, it isn't, that's him on the tire with the spot beside his nose!" Finally, the first time Macavity comes out, I said "Well, at least we know THAT is DEFINITELY Karl Warden!" ...and out comes the real Macca, the previous having been his decoy. -.-)

Mario Martinez (Mungojerrie) & Katy Burns (Rumpleteazer) were very cute, they worked quite nicely together. Burns had a lovely little voice, & Martinez was adorable - kind of Mungojerrie-goes-New-York, rather than the usual Cockney-type. I liked the littlke bit where he carried Teazer about on his back... impressive, really. *g*

Martin Hurt (Old D) was, eh, mediocre - no one is ever so good as Ken Page. But he did a fairly decent job.

Ryan Jackson (Misto) ROCKED! He was adorably kittenish - the first performer to actually convince me that Mistoffelees (or Quaxo as the case may be) IS a kitten. Jacob Brent just never convinced me, Cameron MacKenzie didn't really act much, and McCree O'Kelley seemed older. Between Jackson & O'Kelley for the Best Misto award. ;) I did like the RTT/Misto stuff going on last time, there was very little of that with Ronnie & Ryan. Oh well. Still ky00t. ^_^

Nicole Johndrow as Jellylorum and Griddlebone was very pretty, lovely voice, quite nice all-round. What was up with her wig, though?

Adam Lendermon - so-so, okay, not as good as he could be but not awful.

Jean Michelle Sayeg (Victoria) - I dreamed about her on Saturday night, after the show. Her & Taye Diggs and the cast of Sound, all at Denny's, giving out autographs... anyhow, she could have been better, but she wasn't terrible. *g*

Staci Rudnitsky (sp?) (Jennyanydots) - she was a little boring, but she was a good dancer, I liked her voice, and she certainly did get the Gumbieness of her character across - she slept most of the time!

Jacqueline Stedman (Sillabub) was, like a lot of Jemima/Sillabub's it would seem, a little personality-less, and her voice was kind of thin and sharp. V. forward. No one can beat Veerle Casteleyn, I'm afraid.

Kevin Wanzor (Gus, etc) - Nice. Beautiful voice, I liked his interpretation. Great, very amusing Growltiger. *g* Good job all round. I didn't recognize him at the stage door, for which he was grateful *g*. However, the problem was that the Souvenir Programme insert claimed that William Hartery was still in the cast, and I didn't bother to read the playbill (hey, the insert had photos!). So, until Wanzor signed my playbill, I didn't notice that he was Gus. ^_^;; I /did/ think Hartery was doing the role very differently this time...

Robin Wilner & Lucie Wood (Demeter & Bombalurina, respectively) had the world's oddest wigs. Bombalurina's was even bigger than the infamous Japanese Beast Wig, and Demeter seemed to be sporting some kind of afro. Wilner was the kind of weak, too-easily-terrified Demeter that I'm not so hot on (I like Aeva May's stronger approach); Wood was the first Bomba I've seen who really got me convinced that Eve St-Claire's evilness is canon. *g* Not much sistery-ness between them, more like... *g* so like I said, I could see the Millhaven parallels...

Andrea Young (Cassandra) is perfectly okay but nothing special. No Cassandra yet has ever truly intrigued me, though, so it probably isn't Young's fault. Although Rebecca Parker's voice and eyes I love. ;)

Okay, so the cast was mostly terrific. *g*

Cats who ran down our aisle: Munku, Vicky, Teazer, Jelly, and Skimble. And Skimble led Old Deut down our aisle, Grizabella went up and down it a couple-a times, and the fake-Deut went down our side. ^_^ Muy cool. Some day, I want to be the lady in that SR seat who the Tugger dances with...

Those notes mostly stand for the following Sunday as well, closing night at the Pantages, when Threnody's mum dropped us off, this time just me and her, and IN COSTUME. I had on my black stuff but with my white tail and some kind of white, fluffy makeup, and Thren had on a semi-Plato deal. I thought we did a damn good job, though no wigs - this time just ears on headbands for each of us. Despite which, a lady in the audience asked Thren to take off her ears. Most people have heads taller than those ears, but whatever.

Anyhow, didn't get nearly as many weird looks as we'd expected... few people talked to us, asked if we were in the cast, that kind of thing. One family stood and gaped at us, most amusingly. Very Kodak Moment. A guy asked if we would pose for a photo with his daughter and wife - we explained that we weren't in the show, just fans, but he insisted, so... ;)

I bought a baseball cap. ^_^ It has since become my TradeMark fashion accessory, despite a certain Toto stealing it (long offline story).

We got our playbills and waited around a bit for the doors to open, chatting with the usher - he asked us if we thought being in costume would mean we got to go onstage, joked a bit, that kind of thing. He also informed us that we had to be "really really flexible" to be in Cats.

Then we went in. Basically same seats as last time but flipped to the other side of the theatre, and two seats away from aisle. Pout, pout, pout. Blonde lady in front of us started talking to us, and during the intermission asked what the heck was going on with the story, so we explained that. The usher, the same one who was joking with us, told a couple of people that their seats were "right past the kitties". We're landmarks! I love going in costume, no matter what some people say... *scowlfulness*

Anyhooz. The show was awesome, of course. A few different people, so I shall mention them, and stage-dooring was dif, of course...

Stan Stanley was our Tugger this evening (meaning that Ronnie wasn't in it, but I got his autograph anyhow, along with Jess Patty's). Notes on him can be found on the Escondido and San Bernardino reports... Very nice man. ^_^

Karl Warden has been mentioned before, but I shall do so again. We watched Plato pretty much the entire show - now that we recognized him - and found that he was also the easiest to hear. Loud voice, anyone? Nice voice, though. After, at the stage door, Threnody (kwa) asked him for a hug, and got one. Wasn't that nice of him? Even if she DID steal my pen in the process.

Oh, gosh, screw format. We got autographs also from nearly everyone in the cast, actually... I recognized EVERY SINGLE ONE of them except Kevin Wanzor (not -again-... sigh), who I have reason to believe shaved his head between the two performances. Hm.

Oh, yes, Tucker Ty was Misto this night instead of Ryan Jackson. He said some rather cryptic remark about his last night as a swing - does this mean he's getting a permanent role, or is he leaving the show? I hope the former. He's good. REALLY REALLY good. *g*

Eric Shorey was again u/sing Pouncival... and again I got his autograph. On the way home, we decided that he is an adorable Hobbit and we should take him home and keep him in Thren's rabbit pen. Since then, we've changed our minds, and will now be taking the ENTIRE cast and keeping them in the apartment building next door to my house, along with the cast of the current tour of Rent (after all, the sign DOES say - Apartment For Rent!).

Seeing the show again in Costa Mesa in just a few weeks, and then San Diego this June. If any readers happen to be at the latter performance, look for a Plato and a Grizabella... that'll be us, this time armed with CAMERAS. ;)