#CATS US Tour 5

[mysticalcats]

May I request Tour 5 Pouncival?

what a funky design! he was fun to draw (i hope i drew the right design for you. fandom wiki is hell)

[hysterical-cats]

Lisa Karlin as Demeter, 2006

[real-reulbbr-band]

BTS photo of Melinda Hall because she doesn't have any on the wiki

[statisticalcats2]

US Tour 5 (2010)

Skimbleshanks, Bombalurina, Munkustrap, Victoria, Tumblebrutus, Cassandra

[jennanydots]

US Tour 5, 2006.

for @hysterical-cats

[jelliclekay]

Bombalurina performer of the day: Cara Cooley

US Tour 5 - 2008-2009

[gotham-native]

the things i would do for a CATS US Tour 5 program

[white-cat-of-doom]

A Playbill facsimile from the Toronto stop of the first year of US Tour 5 between 19 February 2002 and 03 March 2002 at the Canon Theatre (now Ed Mirvish Theatre) on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto.

The cover features the same actors from the London production that were used for promotion of the 1998 film, and more than a bit strangely used for early US Tour 5 as well, considering that the character designs are different and the central Cat, Electra, is missing from the company!

The programme itself has no images of the production (as like most US productions post-Broadway), and is strictly cast and crew information.

It is a small piece of local CATS history.

[baitutu]

Could you do Tour 5 Pouncival?

Age: kitten

Loved drawing this, I had to stop myself from adding too much

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

This post has gotten a bit more attention lately, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update, having seen a few more versions of the number.

We're lucky when it comes to Vienna footage. I found multiple recordings of Gumbie Cat from that production. One of them is from around 1984, fairly early on, and it doesn't include the gag. Misto looks bored, like he's waiting for the bit where he can show off his magic opening the car, but he doesn't really draw attention to himself. By around 1988, in a later recording, the gag is there. I can't find any live Broadway recordings of Gumbie cat from specifically between 1984 and 1988, so I can't say whether the gag was there or not, but we do have a Broadway recording of the very beginning of Gumbie Cat in 1994, with Lindsay Chambers as Misto, and the gag is there.

Looking at the sort of family tree of productions, in 1981, you get London, where Misto sings Gumbie Cat. In 1982, you get Broadway, which gives Misto's Gumbie Cat lines to Munkustrap. In 1983, you get Vienna, the first replica production outside of the Big Two of London and Broadway. It mostly follows the Broadway version with a few innovations of its own. Vienna was the inspiration for Amsterdam, Paris, and Zurich. I've seen a 1987 Amsterdam recording of Gumbie Cat and the gag is there. That's the earliest recording of the gag I've found. Meanwhile, Broadway also inspirited the Sydney production in 1985, with inspired the Hamburg production in 1986, which was another major production that ran for a long time. This means we've got multiple Hamburg bootlegs. Neither one include this gag. This implies to me that by 1985, the Broadway production wasn't using the gag.

My current guess is that some time between 1984 and 1987, the Vienna production added the gag. They started out without it, but as the show ran for years, with the same actor playing Mistoffelees the whole way through, I'm guessing people started having new ideas to freshen things up. By 1987, the gag started appearing in the Vienna production, inspiring Amsterdam to include it. It spread to every production inspired by Vienna in the late 80s and early 90s, while London, Broadway, and Hamburg were just doing their own thing. A lot of international shows, those in Asia and South Africa, took after Sydney. So the Sydney/Hamburg version could be considered the International Version. US Tours and productions in the Americas, such as in Canada and Mexico, followed Broadway. Similarities between Mexico 1991, Buenos Aires 1993, and the US tour from after the Broadway production closed, make me think that US Tours made a fear changes from Broadway and that was the version, the one that traveled around, getting closer to Mexico than New York is, was the one Mexico took inspiration from.

Then, in 1993, the Zurich production evolved into a European tour, but Lindsay Chambers, who'd started playing Misto in Zurich in 1992, went over to Broadway. His previous experiences with the character were sort of brought over and combined with what Broadway was doing. In the original Broadway production, Misto sang a verse of his own number, but I think this stopped happening before Chambers showed up there. There's a sort of charity thing from 1991, I think, where the Broadway cast of Cats performed some popular numbers, Mistoffelees included, with Tugger singing the whole number. Misto's singing role was most likely trimmed down because it made casting the role easier. By this point, some of the Broadway Mistos were being played by actors from other countries. This happened with several characters. The reason with have our 1994 Broadway footage is because of a Japanese actress playing Victoria. I believe 1991 Misto was was also Japanese. People might've been worried about how different accents could affect the singing, so they cut some of it.

Though Zurich Misto was completely mute, 1994 Broadway Misto does sing. We don't have his number, so I don't know if he sings it, but we have The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball, and he sings that. So Chambers didn't alter the role to resemble Zurich enough for singing to be removed, but I'm guessing there was some influence. This one gag from Gumbie Cat was funny and Broadway decided they liked it. So it was added to Broadway in 1993. It was definitely there by 1994, but I believe it started in 1993, because it's also in the Buenos Aires production.

US Tours copied Broadway and they might've updated over time to match it, so when the gag was added to Broadway, the US Tours going at the time might've picked it up. If Mexico was based on US Tours, Buenos Aires might've been as well. So the gag ended up there too.

In the mid-90s Jacob Brent became Broadway Misto, learning the role from Chambers. So, the gag continued. It was now a Thing with Broadway. The Vienna-based productions had all ended by this point, so it was American productions keeping it alive now.

Then, in 1997, Cats broke a record for the longest running show on Broadway (Phantom of the Opera later broke its record, but that's not important now). This made for a big damn thing, causing a lot of the people who worked on Cats originally to go and see what Broadway was doing. At the same time, an animated adaptation of Cats wasn't happening and it was decided to record a version of it instead. The original team including Andrew Lloyd Webber and GIllian Lynne were working on it and they were based in London. So, most of the cast for the VHS came from London, past or present, and UK Tours. There were a handful of exceptions. There had been a Dutch language production in Antwerp, Belgium in 1996 and they liked the face of their Jemima, so she ended up in the VHS. Having at least one actor from the original Broadway cast was cool, so they got Ken Page as Old Deuteronomy. And they brought in two actors who were on Broadway at the time, members of the Record Breaking Cast. On of these two was Jacob Brent.

So, you have a mostly London-based cast, which meant a mostly London-based show. But, it was only mostly London-based. Old Deuteronomy and Munkustrap are characterized pretty much the same in London and Broadway, so you mostly get London choreography and staging there. But, Misto had evolved in wildly different directions in different parts of the world. They decided they wanted the 90s Broadway version of Misto in a mostly 90s London-based show. The led to changes in the choreography. This led to a different pacing of Misto's number. And, it led to the inclusion of several gags and character bits, one of them being that one bit at the beginning of Gumbie Cat.

The 1998 VHS version is the easiest to access by design, so the most well-known version of the show includes this gag. This means that more people are going to see it and more productions are going to include it. The US Tour kept doing it after Broadway closed. The Brazilian production in 2010 was a sort of London/Broadway mix and they included it. But, outside of that, it didn't really catch on in stage productions. As far as I can tell, the gag was never used in London, and after London closed, international shows became gradually more and more London-based, so they didn't use it either. The Post-Broadway US Tour ended before the revival and the Broadway Revival and its following tour didn't use the gag, so it's now functionally gone extinct.

So there's the history of around five seconds in one musical number of Cats.

Cats Historical Hypothesis

So, who wants to hear about the potential history of a few seconds of the 1998 version?

Too bad. This is my channel and I can do what I want.

So, I’m gonna talk about a brief moment that occurs in the 1998 version, as well as a few others and guess about its origins. Why do some productions have it and some don’t? Where did it come from? This is speculation based on comparing 14 different versions (Broadway Revival, Buenos Aires, 1998, German Tent Tour, Hamburg, London circa 2002, Madrid, Mexico 1991, Moscow, Paris, UK Tour 2013, US Tour V, Vienna, and Zurich), and whatever historical trivia I can find on the wiki. This is called a hypothesis for a reason. It’s not proven fact. It’s an educated guess.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot of the thing this essay/tangent will be about:

I’m too lazy to get a version I didn’t type on.

I’m adding a cut for people who don’t care to more easily scroll by this thing.

Keep reading

[mysticalcats]

hello!! I just wanted to say I love love love your cats art!!! It’s definitely influenced how I draw them lololol ^_^ if it’s alright, could I request a drawing of jennyanydots? shes one of my favorites <3

thank you so much! i'm so happy that my art influenced you in that way! here's a us tour 5 jenny :-)

[hysterical-cats]

hey guys i found some pictures from us tour 5 that ive never seen before and it made me so excited i wanted to scream and cry and blow up so im sharing with the class

Hillary Porter as Rumpleteazer and Madison Mitchell as Demeter (assuming this is first cast)

[real-reulbbr-band]

Wendi Bergamini shares some tour memories in anticipation of recording her wrong cat died episode.

Wendi Bergamini as Jellylorum, Bill Hartery as Gus, and Colin Cunliffe covering Munkustrap (I think). CATS, US Tour 5; 2001.

[statisticalcats2]

US Tour 5 (2003-2004)

Mistoffelees

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Jean Michelle Sayeg as Victoria (US Tour 5)