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[0:01] John Schwab: Hi, John Schwab here and welcome to Episode 177 of the Curtain Call Podcast. Curtain Call is the podcast that takes you deep behind the scenes of the theater world, bringing you in-depth conversations with the story makers that are shaping the future of theater today. We pull back the curtain to reveal the stories behind the stories and give you a glimpse into the backstage world like no other podcast does. And now for this week, something completely different. Mike Abrams is the creator and host of the theater podcast, The Wrong Cat Died. If you haven't heard of it, you have now—go and check it out. Now originally conceived as a 10-part miniseries podcast, he's now over 150 episodes in and going strong.

And we've decided to have each other on, well, each other's podcasts. It's something neither of us have done, but we thought it would be a great idea to share audiences as we know our listeners, if not already listening to the other's podcasts, will totally get them and love them. So let's do it. The Wrong Cat Died is one of the OG podcasts on the Broadway Podcast Network, and where Mike and I met in 2020 during lockdown. The podcast posits that in the musical Cats, Grizabella is the cat chosen to go to the Heaviside Lair, which he believes is actually the wrong choice. Only one cat gets chosen, the cat that is deemed the most worthy by Old Deuteronomy. Now if this sounds like a fever dream, it's because the music pretty much is.

Mike's theory is that Griz wasn't the worthiest cat, and 150 episodes and thousands of stories told by original cast members from dozens and dozens of productions from around the globe, it's clear that the answer to the question, was Grizabella the correct choice, is still very much undecided. But there are a couple of cats that do lead that poll and you'll have to go over and listen to The Wrong Cat Died to get those numbers. As I said, this is part one of the doubleheader. So after listening to this, go listen to the companion episode of The Wrong Cat Died that is out today to hear my take on the cat's conundrum. Have a listen.

[2:26] John Schwab: The person I'm talking to today has one of my favorite podcasts going and I'm just gonna bring them on straight away. Mike Abrams from The Wrong Cat Died podcast. How you doing, man?

[2:36] Mike Abrams: I'm doing great. I'm excited to be here and share a little bit of the chaos of my podcast.

[2:44] John Schwab: So I'm like, I just a bit of my journey with your podcast. You've been going quite a bit. You're like one of the original Broadway Podcast Network. We're both in the same family, but I was brought in 2019, right?

[2:59] Mike Abrams: Yeah, that's right.

[3:02] John Schwab: So I was slightly after you. I came in early 2020, just before lockdown. So, but I remember the first kind of—I’ve been listening to this podcast. I was always searching out theater podcasts like the, you know, things like Musical Theater Hour, there was the Honest Actors Podcast over here, that kind of stuff. And I don't know how I found The Wrong Cat Died. I was like, huh, this is interesting. And then your first, like your pilot and your why you were doing it and then listen to the first one about Grizabella and how it was wrong. I was like, oh my god, this is genius. And it was right up my street. So I'd like to take you back to your origins. What is your origin superhero story, Mike?

[4:44] Mike Abrams: So related to this podcast, it's kind of bizarre because I'm now 150 episodes in. I agreed to 10 when I started. So I said I would do 10 as a miniseries, and I'm now at 150. But what makes it crazy is I didn't grow up—I mean, I grew up in Indiana in the United States in the Midwest theater place, right? Yeah, I mean, we've got a nice arts community. But I grew up, we were just talking, I grew up playing hockey. My dad's a huge sports fan. We grew up going to every Pacers and Colts game. Like my family's a sports family. You can see behind me on podcast format, but behind me is pretty much all sports. I now got a little Broadway over here. But my mom's a music teacher, so she kind of instilled some of that, like the music side of it.

And I always enjoyed theater, but I didn't know anything about it. I hadn't seen most stuff—about five to six shows come through Indiana a year with Broadway on tour. We went to probably—my mom went to all of them, I would go to one or two. I can't—the Lion King's coming, I'm in, you know, stuff like that. And so I got to New York, I got recruited for work. I was living in Indiana, I got recruited for work in 2016. And I moved and I ended up in temporary housing from work in the theater district. And I was kind of always that experiential person of, if I can see something different, new, like I always love sporting, like live sporting events because I'm watching the peak craft of these athletes.

Yeah. And I kind of was like, I'm living right next to Broadway. And so I was like, why can I not go to more of these? Like this is the pinnacle of this craft. And musicals are fun because I knew a lot of it from my mom. But I was just a fan. I didn't know anything about it. You could name me Tony winners, I'd be like, yeah, cool, I have no idea. And so I for years had kind of just like attended. And that was how—like that was kind of my background. And so the story of the podcast actually goes a little bit crazier because I've known Alan, Alan Seales of The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales, co-founder of the Broadway Podcast Network. He and I work together. I help out a program he was working on at work as a volunteer. I've done it for years. So we've known each other since probably I think 2016 or 2017.

[6:00] John Schwab: Pretty much when you moved to New York.

[6:02] Mike Abrams: Yeah, right when I moved. And our relationship was related to stuff that was not theater-related. It was all just stuff for work. And he was telling me about creating this network and all this stuff. And I'm like, I don't know anything about theater. I know nothing about theater. Like I can't create a podcast for you. I was like, I could barely create one about sports. Like, enjoy your thing. Like, this is—I’ll listen to your podcast. Like, this is great. And we've been friends for a while now. And yeah, I still vividly remember the day was when the 2019 movie trailer for the Cats movie came out. And that day was the day that it was the same day the Top Gun trailer came out because I saw the Top Gun trailer that morning.

And then I got texts from a lot of people about the Cats trailer. The reason I did is because when I moved here in 2016, I was—I knew very few people in New York, I was starting to kind of attend stuff. And I was writing home a newsletter for my friends and family in Indiana. I would say about four or 500 people asked to be signed up. And I did. Oh, my writing is—I did humor writing in college. And I love parody writing. Like I've always done it. I've started to write for the Broadway Beat. Love absolutely love humor writing. And so I was humor writing my experiences in New York, my experiences at work, and then just some of the crazy stuff you see in the city, like the subway rides and some like these very comical experiences, naked cowboy in Times Square, all kinds of stuff.

So I had this newsletter. And I had a friend who worked in college who worked in Broadway. And I had never seen Les Mis, Phantom, Cats. I never seen like any what I would say classic shows. Yeah. And they were all running at the time. So I said, hey, what should I go see first? And this is when the 2016 revival was just starting, right? And so she pointed me there, she got us tickets, she ended up not being able to go. And I went by myself on a Saturday matinee in 2016 to the second to last preview before opening and just was mesmerized. And I remember having two very distinct memories from seeing that show. I had two thoughts when I walked out. The first thought was, what did I just watch? Yeah, like, what happened?

I was so like, as someone who likes to write, I was like, there's no story. I was trying to figure it out, who came up with these names? Like, what kind of drugs took to create this? So that was like my first thought. My second thought was, holy cow, this is the most talented set of people I've ever seen. Yeah, because they are all on stage all the time. They're dancing incredible numbers. And I just was mesmerized by how talented the cast was, yeah, of just being able to do that for two and a half hours straight. And so I went home and I always wrote my newsletter on Sunday nights. I went home Saturday, I slept on it. And Sunday, I essentially started my newsletter saying, works good, New York's good.

I'll fill you all in later. I got to talk about seeing the longest running musical in history. And then I just wrote about Cats. I wrote probably five or 600 words about Cats, right. And it was about how I saw Leona Lewis, it was like I saw the weirdest X Factor Cats like fever dream I've ever seen. Here's how I assume it came to life. Like I just kind of made like poked fun at it, but in a very weird way. And then I never thought about it again. Never like did not see it again. Didn't think about it again. I think I saw it maybe one more time in the run. But that's three full years. Yeah. And then that trailer comes. And I guess half of Indiana associates me with Cats even before this because I got texted 30 or 40 times. What did you see the trailer? And I'm like, a Top Gun trailer? And like, no, the Cats trailer because it broke the internet for like a full load.

[10:00] Mike Abrams: The internet sure did. And so I was full on working day. I was like mid-day and I'm like, alright, let's capitalize on this for social media just for my own personal one. And I had just taken a photo—I’d given a speech, I do some public speaking for work for totally different reasons, nothing related to musical theater. Okay. And I had this really cool picture of me on stage doing like at the beginning of a speech that looks like I'm giving a TED talk. And so I had been like waiting for the moment to do the welcome to my TED talk, like joke. Yeah, I was like, this is it. I got to think of something for the Cats movie. I couldn't remember anything about the plot. So I went to the Wikipedia page mid-workday, skimmed the synopsis.

I was like, oh, the cat dies. Wrong one dies. That's my joke. And so I wrote Grizabella was the wrong choice. Yeah, the movie's gonna set the record straight. Welcome to my TED talk. And if you look at it now, I mean, it's so bad because I spelled Andrew Lloyd Webber's name wrong. I like—I clearly did this between meetings. Yeah, just like, you know, run in the urgency of the time. And Alan right below it, right, right back. That's your podcast around your podcast. And that was the origin of how it started. And I kind of leaned into, I don't know anything. Let me analyze this as someone who knows nothing. But I know that she's the wrong choice. You know, it's unbelievable. It's so gloriously simple, like that it was destined to succeed.

The best ideas are also always the most simple. And I had never questioned—like, okay, first of all, I can't say I never questioned the plot of Cats. Because when I first I was like, what is going on? But when I listened to your first few episodes, because they were really short, your first one, I believe, you know, there were 15 minutes in and out. And you kind of compared—you compared Cats with their modern-day counterparts in pop culture, which I thought was genius. And I just thought, I've never questioned. I've never questioned the musical. I had a thousand questions about the musical, but never was it did they kill the right cat? And I was like, that's what I absolutely love about it. And I mean, how did it blow up?

Because you did—you know, you do have 150 plus, and you keep getting more and more guests. And, and I had no idea that the cast family, the Cats family, is that far. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of people who've appeared in Cats. But there's also a lot of people who reappear in Cats. They do multiple tours and multiple shows. So but that's a big family.

[12:45] Mike Abrams: It's humongous. So those first 10 are what I agreed to because I kind of was joking with Alan, like, I don't even know the character names. Like, I'm gonna have to do a lot of research to...

[13:05] Mike Abrams: All kinds of stuff that it was pretty easy to kind of like, ooh, if I take this theory and this theory and this theory and tie them together, it could mean this. But if you listen to those again, from one to ten, you can tell I am learning it as I go. Because I was doing them weekly. And like by episode eight or nine, I'm like, ooh, that ties back to this. I wish I would have known that in that episode. And it's kind of crazy because now it's like I know too much. But I did not know that much in the beginning. And I was watching the YouTube clips of the 1998 movie, essentially, to do all this and reading stuff online. And then I would go and sit with Alan and record it and record 10 minutes of my notes that I had written.

And we just banged them out. And I was doing them basically every week. And so what happened to where it blew up a little bit was I started about halfway through. It's kind of when we got to Gus, where I was like, I wonder if anybody could answer these questions for me. There has to be something. And so, the Broadway Podcast Network has a lot of very, very connected Broadway people there. And so I was like, who do we know? Who could we ask? And so I remember I did somebody who was a Booth singer first. His name was Maria. Okay, Booth singers. You've had a few of those on. I didn't know they did that until I listened to your podcast. And that poor Maria, my very first interview, I knew so little.

I wasn't even asking her the right questions. And we were doing it over Zoom. And I kind of felt bad. I would love to actually have her back because I'm like, now I know a lot. I got some follow-up questions. But then it was Christopher Gurr. So Maria was the first one. And then a week later, for my Gus episode, Christopher Gurr, who was Gus in the 2016 revival, somebody knew him. We got him in touch. He offered to come in and sit down in the studio, the old BPN studio, and meet with me. And I just remember texting Alan the whole time being like, is he going to get the joke? Is he going to be funny? Are we inviting this guy in? Is he going to hate me? Because I didn't have a lot of feedback at that time.

I knew people were listening to it, but I had no idea if I was angering people. I had no social media presence. I was just posting them and seeing the download numbers and nothing else. It was very kind of quiet in the beginning. And I kind of had a goal of angering somebody who missed the joke. So I was like, I didn't want to anger Broadway people. I want Broadway people to get that it's parody and it's actually hopefully honoring the musical in a sense. But I wanted some fan to miss it. And I've had that happen a couple of times, and I love it every single time. But Christopher Gurr came in. He was the funniest guy. He was so good humor and about it all. And he was Gus, which is the number one non-Grizabella answer.

And so he defended Grizabella, but I got to kind of start asking questions. And I realized that this is way more fun for me because I have theories. They can tell me that is wrong, or we were never even told about that, or we never had a conversation about this. And that's kind of what snowballed into the 150 episodes is I will record with somebody. And I always finish saying, if you enjoyed this, which I hope most guests do, then who should I talk to next? And I've talked to now 25 different, what I would call official productions. So I'm going off the Cats Wikipedia fan musical site has been published.

[16:33] Alan Schwab: That's crazy. But you've also had high school, or a regional.

[16:39] Mike Abrams: I've had regional. I've had high school.

[16:42] Alan Schwab: Yeah, you have had high school.

[16:43] Mike Abrams: I've had high schools. I've had regionals. I've had all kinds, because usually I find somebody or they tell me. It's so hard to research it. So if there's somebody that's in, I love talking to somebody who's in a new musical here, because it's really fun to compare the characters and tie the two shows together. When I look at Cast List, if they didn't do an official tour, Broadway, something that's very, very published, if they did a regional production in Texas for two weeks or even two months, it's not on the internet very often. So a lot of those are someone tells me, they're like, hey, talk to this person. And I'm always looking, I tell everyone, I'm always looking for my next guest. If anybody wants to come on, I'm open to it.

[17:28] Alan Schwab: Yeah, you get the person that goes, yeah, I was literally in a 10-member cast. You know, we did it.

[17:34] Mike Abrams: Those to me are great. Because there's such a deep plot and also no plot. And I'm always fascinated by what a producer or director tells the cast. So if you're doing it for eight days, which they do, there's a junior program that goes around, they do three shows. I'm like, they're not going to tell them anything about their character. Just don't kick your person next to you when you're dancing is probably all they're getting into. But I love hearing a, you're given these three words or you're giving this information to go off of to actually make the show work.

[18:11] Alan Schwab: And it's something called, is it called Felinity School or something like that?

[18:15] Mike Abrams: Yeah, where they teach them to do cats. Felinity School.

[18:18] Alan Schwab: Felinity School. What a strange thing.

[18:22] Mike Abrams: Now we're going to take a short break for a little word from our sponsors.

[18:26] Alan Schwab: Welcome back to the Curtain Call podcast and this week's guest, Mike Abrams from the Wrong Cat Died podcast. What really fascinates me, we're going to get into all of this when we do the Wrong Cat Died podcast. Because this is, you know, and you'll hear it in the intro, you're gonna hear it in the outro that this is, we're going to A and B this podcast episode is the how performers come into it. And there are people who can dance, people who can sing, the people who do ballet, the people who do jazz, people who don't dance at all. The, as you call them, OD because you couldn't stand calling them old Deuteronomy forever. You call them OD, you still call them OD. But it's for me as a performer, it is an amazing resource of how people put something out in the universe.

Like a lot of these people have said, a lot of these performers have said, cats was my, it was the one thing that I wanted to do. I knew I was going to go for, I was going to do this. And I find it just, it's such a fun thing to listen to as a performer, to hear people's processes. And I think that you bring that, you really do bring that out in your podcast. And I think, you know, definitely all the performers who listen to this podcast and even fans of musicals and people who have children who were in performing arts, go listen to Wrong Cat Died because you're getting, seriously getting phenomenal tips about the acting process and about this industry. It goes far deeper than just, should it have been Grizabella? Should it have been Gus? Should it have been, you know, Bustopher Jones? Who was it that should have gone, you know?

[20:05] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's kind of an accident. I have my theory, but we'll talk about that.

[20:09] Alan Schwab: Oh, we're gonna get to that for sure. It was kind of an accident because I started with really deep questions about the characters. Like, here's my interpretation of the story. Am I right? And you've got all the fan theories. And I always go back to Bombaylerina and Demeter.

[20:26] Mike Abrams: Right.

[20:27] Alan Schwab: I made a meme and kind of made a joke about them being lovers.

[20:32] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[20:33] Alan Schwab: And somebody, I got a lot of responses being like, they're sisters.

[20:37] Mike Abrams: Right.

[20:48] Alan Schwab: So I threw it out as a poll being like, are they sisters or are they friends or are they more? And I got an exact 50-50 split. Hundreds of people voted 50-50 split. And so when you've got that type of show where even the performers weren't 100% aligned on it, means that there is a lot of variability because that particular part isn't really a necessary thing in the show. So I started getting those answers. And now I'm asking more about their rehearsal process, how they came up with their character, what they're told, what they're not told, what they create. And then we have some fun with the debate at the end.

[21:15] Alan Schwab: I love that. I love that. For me, this will just be, we'll talk about for five seconds. For me, I had no idea about all the cats, how many characters there were in the cats. Demeter for me is like, where do I meet Demeter? When did they? Because you hear the cast members talk about that. And it makes you go, when I watched it. You don't get that. It's such a mind fuck. It's just like, what is happening? Why is there a cat sitting on the person's lap next to me? And in the aisle of the theater, it's mad. And then you get to know, I've learned about the characters. Now, I haven't seen cats since listening to your podcast. So I can't wait.

[22:02] Mike Abrams: Well, other than the 2019 film, I had to watch it.

[22:05] Alan Schwab: Yeah. It's on Netflix now in the US.

[22:09] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it's only because it was mad.

[22:14] Alan Schwab: There's two things, though, I want to make sure we get. Because there's two things that kind of blew my mind here. I know we're getting to the end of our time here. One is that I've had regional theaters and shows have people tell me that they listen to how other people have come on my show and explain the character. So they're using it in their own process to go in and listen, which is really cool to hear. Go listen to the four or five Bombay Arenas I've had before you go create your own and figure out how different people interpret it. But I do have one goal, and I'm putting this out there in case any producers or directors. Here we go. What I really want now is a regional production to do a different Jellicle choice every night, which I know is possible.

And so that's my goal. I've got a couple people that I've at least teased it with. It's definitely doable. So if anybody's listening and you are going to put on a production of Cats, I want to have the audience vote or some different vote with a different person going up every night. And let's reward the best performance or whoever's got all their family in the crowd or some version like that. That's what I want. I'm here to help share anything to make it happen.

[23:25] Alan Schwab: Let's make it happen. My good friend, Peter Yu, he's a techie, works out in San Francisco, just in that area.

[23:32] Mike Abrams: I'll fly out. I'll be there.

[23:36] Alan Schwab: He kind of does things. People come in, he does things like that. He helps come up with solutions and 3D prints all the things and does all the tech for it to help. He helps Disney do how to make your past go quicker. Anyway, Peter, I know you listen. So sort this out.

[23:54] Mike Abrams: We're ready.

[23:55] Alan Schwab: That'd be amazing.

[23:56] Mike Abrams: Just a different harness every night.

[24:00] Alan Schwab: I think that's a genius idea. In today's pop culture, kind of voting quagmire, where we're always voting with our phones on, over here, London, I'm a celebrity, love all these things that people are voting over here. Why not live theater voting? That's great.

[24:21] Alan Schwab: Listen, Mike Abrams, people can find you on BPN. Let me know where people can find you. And I'll let you kind of lead us out. It's been brilliant talking to you.

[24:32] Mike Abrams: So fun. Everything is as the Roncat died. I'm on X, Twitter, whatever you want to call it. Instagram, TikTok and threads all the Roncat died. The website is the Roncat died.com. Yeah, everything's there. We're all on the Broadway podcast network. You can find all of it and anywhere you get podcasts. It's on all platforms.

[24:54] Alan Schwab: It's amazing. Thank you so much for making us guys do yourself a favor. And if you're new, go back and listen from the start and make it your commute. Listen, because it's a phenomenal. It's a phenomenal ride. I love it.

[25:09] Mike Abrams: Mike Abrams, their founder and host of the Roncat died podcast. And I will put all links to all things Roncat in the show notes.

[25:19] Alan Schwab: But just before we go, if you want to reach out, you can find me on all the socials at John Schwab. It's J-O-H-N-S-C-H-W-A-B. And it gives me a great pleasure to thank Mike Abrams for being an incredible guest. And also a big shout out to all those at the Broadway podcast network for kind of making it all happen as well. You can listen to Mike and the Roncat died podcast by going to broadwaypodcastnetwork.fm or by streaming from all the usual places and you know where they are. And once again, a big old thank you to Shure microphones for continuing to be our equipment sponsors. I'm recording on a Shure mic right now. And lastly, thank you to all of you listening. Speak soon and stay safe and get over the Roncat died. Bye.