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Is there a way of thwarting this? But like, sadly and with a palpable sense of disappointment, oh my God, how here's the thing. Post Tony Awards Broadway Closing announcements are an inevitability, but in no universe should Cat the Jellicle Ball have been the first one. This brilliant, vibrant, unique, creative production has announced that it's closing within the next month and not to be dramatic about it, but we're about to have dozens of dead cats at the Broadhurst Theatre and a show which, in spite of the best attempts of those of us who loved it, has been failed by Broadway. Today, in response to the sad breaking news that Cats the Jellicle Ball is ending its run on Broadway, I am going to try to explain why that is happening, after which I will go and drink vodka from a saucer using only my tongue while listening to the Moments of Happiness. Clearly, I'm taking this news very well. Don't worry, I'm fine. Anyway, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this Broadway news update on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre and since an early age I have been a cat's apologist. But like many people, I also fell utterly in love with Cats the Jellicle Ball, this queer revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, this recontextualization of it, which saw its traditional junkyard setting transposed to the queer new ballroom scene. The production, which originally opened a couple of summers ago at the Perelman Performing Arts center downtown in New York, has subsequently transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway, where it has been announced that it will play its final performance in August, notably after it did not win the Tony Award for Best revival of a musical, which instead went to Ragtime at Lincoln Center. More on that whole conversation later on. In the meantime, I'm going to be sharing with you my wider thoughts about Cats the Jellicle Ball closing on Broadway, what that means for the current Broadway landscape financially, but also artistically, and what it means for us to lose a production like this that never really had the chance to find all four of its feet. And while I'm letting you know all of my thoughts, as always, I would love to hear yours. If you have a joyous memory of Cat's the Jellicle Ball that you would like to share, please do so. If you have any insights or opinions as to why this show is closing so soon, feel free to share those as well. In the meantime, if you enjoy listening to my thoughts and want to hear more of them about all things Broadway and theater around the world, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. For now, though, while the memory may be fading, it is not all the way gone. Let's talk about Cats the Jellicle Ball, why it was so brilliant, and why it is sadly closing on Broadway. Okay, so at the time of me sitting down to tell you this, the press release has recently been distributed Cat's the Jellicle Ball To End Celebrated Broadway run Saturday evening August 8th. It is currently Tuesday 14th July, which gives this production sadly, just a few more weeks on Broadway. Certainly not the run that it deserves. The Tony Award winning Cat's the Jellicle Ball though it did not win Best revival of a musical, make no mistake, it did win Tony's To End Celebrated Broadway run Saturday evening August 8th as production to be preserved for Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Don't get excited about the possibility of a widely available pro shot. This is an archival recording the likes of which are done for most Broadway productions, if not all of them. And the reason why they are telling us that in this context is because in most closing announcement press releases these days, they like to try and cushion the blow with at least a little bit of good news. And this is basically saying the production may be closing on Broadway but in more than one way it is going to be remembered. There will be memories. Wink Wink. Of Cats the Jellicle Ball the production began preview performances at the Broadhurst Theatre on March 18, 2026 and opened Tuesday, April 7 as the best reviewed musical of the Broadway. Remember that? It went on to receive nine Tony Award nominations and it won three of them. Best direction of a musical for Jailon Livingston and Bill Rauch, Best choreography for Amari Wiles and Arturo Lyons and best costume design of a musical for the brilliant pioneering Queen Jean, which also marks, it's noted here, the first time in history an openly trans woman won Broadway's highest honor, the production being a very celebratory, trans inclusive one throughout its company as well. The production was also honoured to tell them about it with three Drama Desk Awards to Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Outstanding Revival, three Obie Awards, two New York Drama Critics Circle Special Citations. That's a mouthful. Two Chita Rivera Awards, which is for dance, two Aldelko Awards, which I have no idea what that is. Three Dorian Theatre Awards and three Hughes Awards. There you go. So many accolades I haven't even heard of all of them. Here's what they have to say about the show. Andrew Lloyd Weber's worldwide phenomenon Cats is reimagined in a production that has smashed records, won awards and left New York City. Purring Cats, the Jellicle Ball is a kaleidoscope of glittering spectacle, iconic music and electrifying ballroom choreography that the New York Times calls a lightning strike that sets joy free Broadway meets Runway in the fiercest event of the season, and yet, sadly, one that isn't even going to see the fall. We do have a statement here from producers Michael Harrison and Mike Bosner, who said three years ago, Xylon Levingston and Bill Rauch began the remarkable process of reimagining Cats for a new generation. They assembled a visionary creative team that fused their passions for ballroom and theater to create something thrillingly new with a truly superhuman cast. Bringing this vision to life, New York has once again discovered the phenomenon that has become Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cat's the Jellicle Ball. The joy that radiates from the stage each night is unlike anything we've experienced in our careers. It has been a true honor to help bring ballroom to Broadway, and yet it is already ending with a run which by the time it ends will have only amounted to four months of performances on Broadway, with the best part of a month in preview performances prior to that. In addition, this in contrast to the original run of Cat's the Musical on Broadway, which still ranks as one of the longest running productions of all time, having run from the early 1980s to the year 2000. Now, to get this speculation out of the way, the production did cancel its performance this evening, citing company illness, and I have no reason to believe that that isn't actually the truth. Ellen, I Some people are speculating that it may have been an emotional day for the company and they may have felt unable to perform for the most part, usually, and this feels like a real family of a cast. What happens in these situations is a group of actors will come together and cherish the few remaining opportunities that they have to perform the show and tell their stories. And for a show as joyous as this one, it would have taken some considerable doing to get back up on that stage and deliver that with unabashed euphoria, but I dare say if the option had been available, they would have. Now, before we talk about the wider factors that led to the closure of Cats the Jellicle Ball on Broadway, let's talk about the immediate reasoning behind closing at this time. And that is, as always, the Broadway grosses and the situation at the box office. And if we take a look at their grosses throughout the history of their Broadway run, it began somewhere between 800,000 and a million dollars a week, with that number steadily climbing above a million and then kind of dipping below and rising up above again. There seems to have been a lack of a boost after the Tony Awards. If anything, what we're Noticing is the grosses kind of stagnating around the $900,000 a week mark and then dropping down to their second lowest grosses since their very first week of performances on Broadway with less than $700,000 after a week of performance was admittedly a pretty bad week for Broadway across the board. It was in the same week, I believe, that Wicked documented their lowest GROSSES in over 20 years, and there were a bunch of other seasonal and entertainment factors playing into this. This decline for Broadway was anticipated, but in any case, post Tony Awards, a pretty clear picture was being painted at the box office for Cats the Jellicle Ball about the audience enthusiasm just beginning to dip. And I don't mean the way they dip in the show. And yet, like I said, Cats is not the only show in this position that had a particularly bad week very recently. And so unless we are anticipating seeing a slew of other closing announcements, and I dare say we may get a couple more before the end of the summer, brace yourselves for a lot of change on Broadway. It is surprising in some ways that this is the only one we've thus far heard about and that this is the first one that we're hearing about. Its weekly running costs aren't necessarily transparent, but it has a fairly straightforward set. Admittedly, it is a large company, but not comprised of performers who would necessarily be invoking massive star salaries. All of which leads me to believe at this time that another factor in the closing of Cats, the Jellicle Ball, and we have seen previous examples of this on Broadway, is the enacting of a stop clause by the venue owners at the Broadhurst Theatre. What this means is if the production dips below a certain financial threshold, the venue owners can, with notice, force a closure require, requiring that show to close, vacate the theater and make way for something new to open, which they are hoping will be more profitable in their space. And there are many new productions of plays and musicals which are getting ready to head to Broadway in this coming season. It seems highly likely that we will see more new productions in the 202627 Broadway season than we did in the 2025-26. And if this is an accurate observation, then we may find out in the coming weeks which production is lined up for the Broadhurst. In terms of speculating exactly what that might be, it's almost impossible to say because there are so many shows on their way to Broadway. It's not going to be anything that was getting ready for a spring opening because they wouldn't have to Shut down Cats this early? No, this feels more like a production that might be beginning preview performances as early as September. But for all of this to even be a part of the conversation, it means that Cats has failed to really ignite the enthusiasm of Broadway and its wider audience. And that's the question I really want to address today. Is it that this revival didn't work commercially? So to figure out what happened with Cat's the Jellicle Ball on Broadway, I would like to take you back in history. Not to the original production, don't worry. Not even to the more recent Broadway revival, which, it's worth pointing out, also didn't run for all that long. We'll come back to that notion. No, I would like to take you back to the origins of this production before it was on Broadway, when it was Cat's the Jellicle Ball, Off Broadway, downtown, a summer sensation. And here are the events as I recall them. This production was announced. People were curious, not necessarily optimistic. It began performances, and people were pretty quickly won over by its sheer creativity, but also the joy that it evoked, the extraordinary audience atmosphere that everyone was talking about afterwards. And very quickly throughout that summer, when there aren't many new Broadway openings to compete with, because everything opens in in the spring and then hopes to last until the fall, if not longer. Cats the Jellicle Ball was the defining production in New York, and everyone was saying, have you seen Cats yet? You need to go downtown and see Cats. Have you seen Cats? Off Broadway, have you seen Jellicle Ball? You have to go see Jellicle Ball. Even Michael Harrison and Sir Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber made the trip to New York to go and see Cats, the Jellicle Ball, whereupon it was presumably decided, it having been very sold out and successful and really speaking for itself in terms of its own artistic merits, that the production would be able to, at some point, move to Broadway. What I can only assume ensued was a conversation about the logistics of that and how they could retain the sensibility of the production in a traditional Broadway proscenium theatre. Given that the Off Broadway production had this long Runway with audiences seated around three sides of it. But that may not have been the only conversation that was taking place. Because the thing about Cat's the Jellicle Ball is, despite this early Off Broadway enthusiasm and despite the fans that it won and the critical acclaim that it received, it remains amongst a niche. Venn diagram. Let me explain, because for any production to succeed on Broadway, you usually want to cultivate some combination in whatever ratio. This may be of theater fans in New York and tourists traveling from elsewhere. These can be tourists who are also dedicated theater fans. These can be LGBTQ tourists. Those also exist. They're not all, you know, straight families from the Midwest. But we also have to acknowledge that the more that we narrow down each of those groups, each of those demographics, you are reducing the number of people who you can market your show towards. And the thing with Cats as a musical prior to this is that it is not particularly well liked by theatre fans, especially after the release of the film adaptation. Many people do enjoy the musical Cats. I evidently am a prolific theatre fan and theatre goer and critic, and I am a Cats apologist. I grew up with Cats on vhs and I choose to allow my love for the show and my nostalgia for it to endure beyond the horrible piece of filmmaking that was Cats, the movie, the sins of which may or may not have caused a global pandemic on some sort of cosmic karmic level. But not everyone feels the same way. And I've said it more than enough times that the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen did a lot to tarnish the brand of that show. I think the Cats movie may have done the same thing for the stage musical. In any case, not everyone from this side of the Venn diagram actually likes the musical Cats. Cats. So you're already diminishing your audience of theatre fans. It's good news, though, because the people who historically have enjoyed the musical Cats have been the tourists. The people over here on this side of the conversation, however, they feel, broadly speaking, a little less likely to be on board with the Jellicle Ball concept and this reworking of it and the idea of it being new queer ballroom cats. And so if these people want a traditional version of Cats, what I've come to call Tradwife Cats, amongst the many productions that are setting the show in different places, if that's what they want, and these people over here are open to the idea of bolder theatrical productions. I'm generalizing a little bit, but hear me out. But they don't necessarily want to see Cats in any form, and they need to be won over, then you are going to have a challenge marketing the show to people from not just the intersection of that Venn diagram, but the union of the entire thing. And queer and trans people of color absolutely exist within this Venn diagram on either side of it. But this show feels like one which was never going to be able to survive long term on Broadway without meaningful audience allyship. And though it was a legitimate Off Broadway hit. There has always been the question, who is a Broadway production of Cat's the Jellicle Ball for? And does the show still work on Broadway? You know, from an audience perspective, artistically, it absolutely did. But does it work commercially? And does it retain the same sensibility? Is it still saying the same thing? When you go from being this sort of somewhat countercultural, downtown underground thing, when you move up to the lofty legitimacy of Broadway, one of musical theatre's biggest stages, are you still all that subversive and countercultural as you're vying to be a Tony Award winning revival of a musical? The answer is not so much. And Cats hasn't necessarily opened in the most ideal season for them in terms of the competition that they faced. I'm not talking actually about Ragtime, the show which would go on to win the Tony Award. I'm talking about those that impact its marketing. Because if you're trying to sell audiences on Cats back on Broadway and classic 1980s mega musical nostalgia, then one street up chess was playing at the Imperial Theatre a few streets down. Schmigadoon was invoking all of the golden age musical theater nostalgia and in jokes and really beckoning in all of the die hard musical theatre fans to go and see that show. Hell, the Lost Boys over at the palace were playing on that same 1980s nostalgia to find an audience for themselves. Meanwhile, the other huge selling point of Cat's the Jellicle Ball, its joyous queer vibrancy, had to compete with another production that was doing the same thing, and almost in the same shade of neon yellow, no less. And that was the Rocky Horror show, directed by Sam Pinkleton at Studio 54. And that, from a marketing and storytelling perspective, had a slightly clearer thing to sell to audiences. Because Cats is not associated with queer joy and euphoria, they had to walk people up that garden path somewhat. Whereas the Rocky Horror show absolutely is, and it is a huge title within that category. And it kind of sucks, to be honest, for Cats, the Jellicle Ball in terms of its timing here, because there are very few musicals which could have come to Broadway and offered audiences a comparable experience. They happened to find themselves alongside one which from its early preview performances, has been selling very well. Meanwhile, do we have to consider whether there is some Andrew Lloyd Webber scored musical fatigue after last season's Sunset Boulevard and with next season's upcoming production on Of Evita, those both having been directed by Jamie Lloyd, that may not necessarily have impacted audiences all that much? You know, they're very different shows. Did it have some impact on the Tony voters this season? It is finally time for us to talk about the consequences of not winning the Tony Award.

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So by now we all know Cats did not win the 2026 Tony Award for best revival of a musical, in spite of all of my campaigning on behalf. That went to Ragtime at Lincoln Center. And this ignited a whole series of interesting conversations, one of which questioned whether best revival of a musical ought to be rewarding the material because inarguably, I think Ragtime as a book musical has stronger material than Cats does. Or is it about the reworking of the Thing? Is the most creatively updated and sort of newly envisioned production, the more appropriate winner of which Cats would be the undeniable choice. If we're talking about truly, really reviving something, then, you know, look at your two candidates. Cats has taken a considerably larger step away from its initial production. Meanwhile, there has been this other conversation happening about the context in which each of these productions is being produced and met by audiences and what they have to say, say about the country and the national consciousness at this very troubling time. And a lot of people were saying, well, Ragtime's gonna win the Tony for best revival of a musical because of how much it has to say about America right now. And a lot of other people responded that cat's the Jellicle Ball if You're paying attention is also, you know, having its own thing to say about America right now. And a Tony win. Four Cats the Jellicle Ball would be its own bold statement, One of empowerment and solidarity and championing of a marginalized and politicized community. A slightly reductive overview of this conversation, which has been had on various social media platforms, is the notion that Ragtime won the Tony because audience members, including Tony voters, are more comfortable with black suffering than black joy. And I think there is more to it than that. I think the immediacy of Ragtime's conversation with the promise of the American Dream and how neatly it lays the whole thing out and how inevitably it's going to make you think about the state of the nation was probably a little bit more affecting. There's also the history of Ragtime not having won the Tony Award the first time around and losing, ironically, to some bigger cats. I'm talking about the Lion King. Interesting revisionist history has been happening here and frustrating me just a little bit bit, because everyone seems to have been forgetting that this isn't the first revival of Ragtime on Broadway. There was an entire revival of the show around 2009, 2010, which also did not win Best Revival of a Musical. But the timing was really right for this production, which originally began its life at New York City center as their annual gala presentation during the week of the election, from what I recall, to arrive on Broadway and offer audience members a moment for reflection and catharsis. And the question then becomes, is that direct response to the promise of America more potent, more important, more powerful than a musical which simply celebrates joy and authentic queer identities? And, like I said, marginalized, politicized individuals? In other words, yes, Ragtime was political, but Cat's the Jellicle Ball is also political. However, audience members had to think about it. And my only conclusion from the results of this year's Tony Awards is that they didn't necessarily take all that much time to think about it. And they went with the more obvious option in this current political chapter. However, I would be very curious to see what that final ballot was given. That Cats was successful in multiple other creative categories, including Best Director of a Musical. The Sinican Maze also feels, and some people may disagree with this, some people may entirely agree with this, that Broadway right now is not necessarily as welcoming of a story about marginalized individuals. And there are a whole bunch of audience members who would like to see exactly that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been perceiving socially a lot of right wing and conservative pushback against values of liberation and empowerment for queer individuals, for communities of color, for the trans community especially. And I think much as Broadway was really ready to have a conversation about inclusivity in the emergence from the theatrical shutdown and you know, that was a great time for a strange loop to be arriving on Broadway, I don't know whether that is the conversation the that the commercial powers that be necessarily want to have right now. And that prompts me to ask another question, which is this. What does that say about Broadway?

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So the comment has been made, made more than enough times that the most recent Broadway season was sort of both commercially in terms of the number of shows, in terms of the quality of certain shows, and the competitiveness of the tony races, a comparatively lackluster one. I think it's pretty clear that the coming Broadway season, in fact the one that we're already in, is shaping up to be a little bit more exciting on almost all of those fronts. Exit Cats, enter Paddington Bear and the warriors, which sounds like like the weirdest street Fighter game you've ever played. But it's true. I think we're about to see an awful lot of change on Broadway. Already we have fairly long running musical Moulin Rouge closing at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. I think there are going to be more closing announcements. We are in the time when we would usually encounter them the weeks after the Tony Awards. I dare say there will be announcements about other shows closing towards the end of the year, the first week of January. Also, when we tend to see a lot of change on Broadway, we have to remember as well the many financial conversations that we've been having about everything becoming more expensive on Broadway. Is there a decline in Broadway attendance even though there are, you know, record high grosses being reported? A lot of these statistics accompany a slight decline in audience attendance, which of course also means that tickets broadly are getting more expensive on average. And so, you know, that is not really anything to celebrate, even though on the face of it it seems like an exciting statistic. Yay. The numbers are up, but not the right ones. And so I am anticipating a lot of change in the Broadway landscape. I also reserve the right to be wildly disappointed by the early closure of this particular production because I think, you know, amongst so much criticism of generic shows or lazy adaptations of things on screen, I'm not talking about about anything particular or necessarily anything from this season, really. I think you would be hard pressed to find elsewhere the kind of creativity and innovation with which this production has been masterfully brought to the stage. I think theater like this is so exciting and in its own way bold and provocative and revolutionary. How brilliant for a show to be able to engage with a specific community, to be able to reinterpret a broad, previously very commercial classic through this very specific lens, resulting in something which simultaneously conducts itself with gleeful abandon, but also has a clear perspective and really has something to say. Against all odds. And though I'm a champion of the show, they managed to find a way to get Cats to really mean something to audience members and can connects to a lot of people who will tell you they had no love for it beforehand. At the same time, I have to acknowledge the subjectivity of theater. And you know, not everybody likes their eggs scrambled. Not everyone necessarily who likes the musical Cats wants to see it done in this particular way. A lot of people are traditionalists. A lot of people are simply stubborn and they're never going to go see Cats, even if their friends keep telling them that. This time it's really different. So you begin to understand the uphill battle that they had in marketing this show and winning people over, people who may have been justifiably skeptical. And though these are doubts which existed in my mind from the beginning of Cat's Broadway run, from the time that it was announced, it's really disheartening to see it affirmed that a production that is unashamedly queer, that is so trans inclusive that, you know, does everything that Cats, the Jellicle Ball has done unapologetically is going to be rendered a commercial struggle, that that is going to have the impact that it's had at the box office. Even when there is this huge title to accompany it, even when you are trading somewhat on the recognition of Cats, God forbid they try and do it with this company telling a completely different story, telling a new original story that doesn't have, have that existing marketability. That is what I fear about what this is telling other Broadway producers, other Broadway investors, the people who hold the purse strings. And as a result the real power here about the viability of queer stories and trans stories. And I think that sucks. And so while I'm sure I'm among the people who said, you know, a Tony Award win isn't the most important thing in the world world, you start to understand the significance of it. And I don't know how much more time it would have given this production. I certainly think that they would have made it through the summer had they been the Tony Award winning best revival of a musical. We can talk about the Tony's broadcast and whether the production sold itself in the best way. I think they did a pretty great job. I think they did all they could. I think in terms of trying to get the show out there and market it, they've made some of great choices. They've really pushed on that front. I genuinely don't know what else Cats, the Jellicle Ball could have done to endear itself to a wider Broadway audience. Is it simply that it isn't star led? Is it that we are reluctant to go and see stories that don't reflect our own life experience back to us? Is it the we just don't like Cats all that much? Like what is going on here? What has been keeping people from the broadcast? Hurst Theatre. Given that this was a multi award winning production, given that this had such great word of mouth coming from its recent run downtown, given that this was the best reviewed musical of the season, do none of those things matter anymore? And can they do nothing to save a production which feels doomed from the beginning simply because of its identity being deemed niche. You start to understand why I feel frustrated about news like this and what it seems to indicate about the Broadway landscape. But I'm also not saying anything new. And by virtue of the fact that you've clicked on this, I dare say I'm talking to the very people who did care about Cats the Jellicle Ball on Broadway and may have even gone to see it. And if you would like to continue to see it, you have until the 8th of August to buy yourself a ticket to see a production, which I hope is remembered for some time. In response to the question that I'm already anticipating about whether this production is going to be seen elsewhere there Often when a show does close on Broadway, we get to talk about a national tour. And you know, because of its identity and because of this clash between its queer cultural sensibility and the version of Cats that the broader regional audience is expecting, I never assumed that this production was going to tour. I said as much. Around the time of the Tonys, a lot of people were asking me why I was assuming Cats the Jellicle Ball wouldn't go on tour. You know, it wouldn't be the first musical of its kind to do so. Nothing has been announced so far which seems to indicate it's not going to happen. Likewise with a cast recording. Meanwhile, people here in the UK have been asking me, are we going to get Cats the Jellicle Ball in London? And Sir Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, as he tends to do, threw the idea out there in one newspaper interview a little while ago. It wouldn't currently even be possible because there is another major production of Cats, which is opening very soon at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre and is already planned to subsequently tour around the uk. It wouldn't surprise me if there is a West End destination planned at the end of that tour. In any case, no room for Cats the Jellicle Ball. And if it couldn't find an audience in New York, I'm hesitant to assume that it would be able to in London, where we have less of a cultural connection to the ballroom scene. The upshot of all of which is if you want to see Cat's the Jellicle Ball, you better do it quickly. Those then have been my thoughts about Cats the Jellicle Ball. Sad thwarp closing on Broadway Let me know what you think about all of this. If there is an angle on this that you think I have missed, please feel free to share it in the comments section down below. If you would like to share A lovely memory from from seeing this production either on or off Broadway. Feel free to share that as well. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to this. If you would like to hear more of my analysis about Broadway and the theatre industry worldwide, there will be plenty more videos. Make sure to subscribe. You can check out some of my previous ones or you can go follow me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo the My God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.

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payer submits the transaction.

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Member FDIC yeah, Maxing is so maxing right now bro. Get ready for Spicy Chicken maxing because Carl's Jr. Is saving you big with a 5.99 maxed out double stack Double Stack Double Stack Spicy chicken sandwich. Seriously, just 5.99 double stack spicy Chicken. This is unreal value in the Bromosphere Bromosphere the new Spicy Chicken Max Wallet Friendly Max Tasty only at Carl's Jr available for a limited time at participating restaurants. Tax unincluded, not valid for use within a combo or a combination with any other offered discount.

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