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[0:16] Mike Abrams: Welcome to The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast breakdown, the cat stash. I'm your host, Mike Abrams. And today is a special episode, a bonus episode, because I realized that this is almost exactly, to the day, six years of this podcast. So I thought it'd be fun to flip this around a little bit and have the person whose fault this is, Alan Seales, the host and producer of this podcast, the host of The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales, who also produces The Wrong Cat Died, is a co-founder of the Broadway Podcast Network, and is the one who replied to my meme on Facebook six years ago that led to this show. And so I thought it'd be fun to have him come on and chat through the six years of The Wrong Cat Died and however many more it continues to go. I am baffled. Welcome, Alan.

[1:08] Alan Seales: Thank you, Mike. I'm baffled. I'm baffled and excited and so unbelievably happy that we are now six years later. Six years. Because, like, you and I, we've been friends for longer than that, and we see each other all the time. And, like, I don't know, time just keeps getting faster as you get older. And the fact that we have put this together for six years just really baffles me. Because I remember the conversation when we started, you were like, ten episodes. I got like ten episodes in me. Ten episodes. That's it. I got ten episodes. Here's my outline. Let's go. This is it. I'm done. Ten episodes. I counted the cats based on the songs. And I was like, I think we can do ten. I can do ten episodes explaining that.

And then I was like, I don't want to do anymore. I don't want to talk about the show anymore. I want to do this. The movie's going to come out in 2019. I thought the movie was going to change the world. It did, just for the wrong reasons. And I was ready to be done. And then I started interviewing people. And it changed the trajectory of the show.

[2:09] Mike Abrams: Well, what is it that made you want to even pivot in the first place? Because, I mean, you were like, you got a day job. You work at a great place. And you don't need the podcasting world or the headache that the podcasting world brings. But, like, why? Why do you put up with this?

[2:24] Alan Seales: So, are you asking why I even started the ten episodes or why I pivoted to the interviews?

[2:30] Mike Abrams: Well, why you pivoted. But then, yeah, then we'll go back. But my original question was, why did you pivot?

[2:35] Alan Seales: The pivot was really easy. Because when I was writing the episodes, I was writing monologues. We were recording them in the studio. And if you remember, I was recording. And then real Broadway stars would be coming in for their interviews after. And I would be saying some of the most ridiculous lines. And they'd be walking in like, what is this guy talking about? So, I really had no feedback loop. And so, when I was doing it, I was interpreting the show myself from YouTube. Without really knowing if I was even close to correct. And so, all I had from feedback was what you told me that your friends in the Broadway space were saying about it. And the occasional messages I got on social media. But the social media was separate from the podcast.

So, it was like a little bit of a black box. So, when I finally had one or two people that had done the show say, I'm willing to come on and answer your questions. I was like, I was baffled. Because I'm like, yes, please. I'm so confused by so many of these things.

[3:40] Mike Abrams: You didn't think there would be this many people out there.

[3:42] Alan Seales: Yeah. Not at all. And I mean, I think logically I probably should have. Because it's over 40 years old. And it's been going on in I think like 40 plus countries. Like it's an endless amount of people that have done the show in what I used to call the official. It's unfair to call them official productions. But just productions that have been marked like tours or West End or Broadway. That doesn't include the 10 to 15 a year that are doing it regionally or community theater or kids productions that are constantly happening. And like right now there's a bunch of them. There's like a renaissance of them. I think there's been at least 10 plus this year that I've been informed of or seen. And so there's just an endless amount of people that have done Cats at some point in their life.

But I just didn't expect to have such different interpretations. To hear so many different questions answered. And to hear so much lore about the show. Or even know at the time when we started this that that lore even existed. I was going off of like three sources. And it was YouTube, the fan Wikipedia page, and a few stories I was reading online that got a little aggressive to begin with.

[4:48] Alan Seales: Aggressive.

[4:49] Mike Abrams: Aggressive in like fan fiction kind of way.

[4:51] Alan Seales: Fan fiction.

[4:52] Mike Abrams: Yeah. Hardcore.

[4:54] Alan Seales: Like novels.

[4:55] Mike Abrams: That's insane though. I mean I guess it's not insane. I talk about this a lot on my podcast too. When you don't really have a place to go in life, you can retreat into fantasy and into your mind and all that. And then I think maybe Cats probably appeals to so many people. We'll put aside the fact that it has no plot at all. But it probably appeals to so many people. Because it's this combination of musical theater, which everybody loves anyway. And of course singing and dancing. But then it's this complete fantasy world that is nothing like our own. Where you've got all this alternative reality. Where you can go and be something completely not yourself. And there's basically a character for every personality type.

[5:40] Alan Seales: Absolutely. So you probably see yourself in one of the Cats. And that's I think a cool part of the show. Is that you can find someone in your family that is kind of you. Or the one that you hate. Or someone that you love. There's somebody there for everybody.

[5:53] Mike Abrams: Right. Okay. So then back to the second question then. Why did you start this in the first place?

[5:56] Alan Seales: So you asked. Basically asked me. You had been asking me for months before this to do a podcast. And I kept saying, I don't know anything about theater. Like I don't know where to even start.

[6:11] Mike Abrams: Right.

[6:14] Alan Seales: I had just started BPN.

[6:15] Mike Abrams: Yeah.

[6:16] Alan Seales: Yeah. And so I kept being like, I don't know anything about theater. And then it was like, oh do a sports one. Which is what I'd watch. I spent all day today when we were recording this at the U.S. Open. Watching tennis. And I was like, but I'm not an authority on anything. So I was like, I just didn't see the point in starting one. And then I made that joke. And you replied. And I kind of chuckled at the response. And then you texted me. And you're like, this is it. And I kind of was like, you know, that's pretty funny. And then, so I told you, I was like, let me try to write one. So I did humor writing in college. And I loved, I always found an outlet for writing about kind of these obscure and ridiculous things.

And actually the first time I saw Cats in 2016, I wrote about it. Which was in a newsletter. That was in an email. That was sent to friends and family in Indiana. It was like not blasted. It was not easily, like, it was just an email. And I found such a vehicle of humor in Cats. And so when you kind of said that, I had that reminder of like, there's a lot here. Let me try to write one.

[7:20] Mike Abrams: So what you're talking about, though, for those who may only be listening to this or haven't heard the story before is, correct me if I'm wrong, right, you had a picture of you introducing a Google Talk, which is how we met originally. You were introducing Google Talk. It looked like, I mean, you literally were talking to a room full of people from this nice, professional-looking profile view. And then you had captioned it on Facebook, Grizabella is the wrong cat to die. Prove me wrong. Or, no, welcome to my TED Talk.

[7:46] Alan Seales: Yeah, it was. So we should link to that in the show notes.

[7:49] Mike Abrams: Oh, I'm going to post that on social media again, too. It's actually on my Instagram page. You can find it if you scroll back, because I've posted it almost every year as like a reminder, every annual reminder that this is what started it. But, yeah, the trailer for that movie dropped in 2016, sometime that summer. And I probably had 25 text messages from people at home who remembered me writing about Cats and were like, did you see this? And so I went and I wrote that Grizabella is the wrong Jellicle choice, the movie's going to set the record straight, welcome to my TED Talk. And I posted it, and then I went back to work. And I didn't think about it until I got your reply, and then your text, and then I kind of debated.

I was like, yeah, that's pretty funny, let me write one. And when I wrote one, I was like, I could easily write ten of these. Once I wrote the first one, I'm like, there's so much here. There's just so much content. And it was fun. And we were doing them, they weren't long, they were 15 minutes. It's the first 10 or 15 episodes.

[8:52] Alan Seales: Yeah, literally, just scroll back to the beginning of this feed, it's the first 12 episodes. And it's me monologuing. And you can see, I don't know anything about the show. I had seen the show once. I was watching the movie on YouTube. There are clips on YouTube, and then I finally found the copy of the 1998 movie. And I was watching it in order. And if you listen to the first couple, you could tell. I don't even know who the other characters are in Act 2. Like, I don't know their names. I know nothing about them. I'm learning it all as I go. Which is hilarious to think about now, with how much I know now. But I'm afraid to almost re-listen to those episodes. Because by the third one, I'm like, I couldn't tell you who Mastaflis is.

[9:28] Mike Abrams: I think by this point next year, you're going to be called into some sort of lawsuits as the expert witness in Cats the Musical or something. Like, they were fighting over the costume, and she claims it was Macavity. But it was really Scrambleshanks. Mike Abrams hosted The Wrong Cat Died. Authority. Authority expert.

[9:49] Alan Seales: There are people that know way more about this show than I do. But it's interesting because they know it from certain lenses. It's like they know this particular Dance Numbers version, or what they saw. And I'm like, yeah, that's great. I've heard from every possible angle of this show, though. I've heard from college productions. I've heard from junior productions. I've heard from high school. I've heard from West End Broadway tour. And everything in between. And it's kind of fascinating, because now I'm using AI to be able to source through what people have said and have all the different theories at my fingertips.

[10:24] Mike Abrams: You should post another summation of who the choices are.

[10:29] Alan Seales: Oh, I have it.

[10:30] Mike Abrams: Oh, yeah.

[10:31] Alan Seales: I post it every 25 or 50 episodes I've got.

[10:33] Mike Abrams: Oh, really?

[10:34] Alan Seales: I've got the ratings. I mean, it's still like Gus number one, Griz still number two, right?

[10:37] Mike Abrams: So it's Griz is one. I'll give you the, as of, I think it's probably a few more touted than have actually been posted. So I'll spoil a few others. But right now, the percentage is, Grizabella has 42% of the vote. Gus has 34% of the vote. And then the next highest is Old Deuteronomy with five. And then there's a handful after that.

[11:02] Alan Seales: The long tail's pretty long.

[11:03] Mike Abrams: Yeah, it goes pretty long. And it's like a lot of people voted for their own character.

[11:08] Alan Seales: After interviewing all of the Fulton Cats people, then.

[11:12] Mike Abrams: Yeah, I actually haven't put all of those. I haven't put the Fulton or the tour where we did kind of like the rapid fire. I haven't put those in there. This is just episodes, pure episodes.

[11:22] Alan Seales: Yeah, that's funny. Well, then looking back, does anything stand out as like one of the craziest things that you found out that was confirmed to be true?

[11:32] Mike Abrams: I think early on, one of the ones that kind of made me laugh was in the Wikipedia page, there's a whole headcanon page. And I don't know who updates it. I don't know if there's a couple people that are doing it. It's a Wikipedia style. So there's a lot in that fan wiki. And there was something about Skimbleshanks and Tugger from the 2016 revival. And it was, I don't remember exactly what it was, but basically it was this question about Jeremy Davis and Tyler Haynes. And it was like, there's a relationship that's not supposed to happen here that is happening here because of this one. And it was like in there talking about how because of 2016. So Tyler was one of the first people we had on. He was in the first probably five or six guests we had.

And then I had Jeremy on. And I finally was like, both of you are going to answer this question. And they confirmed how that story happened and like why there is headcanon based on that. And I just remember kind of this like, aha, like I'm actually answering these people's questions. Like people that saw the show were obsessed with this like weird quirk that's not supposed to happen in the revival. And I'm like, yeah, tell me what's going on. And I was able to answer that directly, which was super, super interesting to hear.

[12:59] Alan Seales: You're the investigative journalist we didn't know we need.

[13:00] Mike Abrams: Yeah. If you have a Cats question, you let me know and I will probably be able to find it or at least know who to ask to get a good answer. Well, then on the opposite end, what's one of the craziest things that you hope to be true?

[13:12] Mike Abrams: So, you've been in the business for a while now, and you've been doing a lot of work. And I'm curious, what is it that you found out was not? Not that I hope to be true, but I had a fascination with the street tugger for a long time. And then I had on Daniel Seda, who is in Angel, yeah, and a wonderful performer, and was an early street tugger in Australia. But hearing the thought behind it, and why the decision was made, and how he embraced and was able to do it, it made me even more fascinated with the decision. But also this really cool, like, alright, I would love to have seen it. So I've seen very, very bad bootleg clips. But I would have loved to have seen how they worked that character in throughout the whole show.

And I just can't find a version that gives me the entire two and a half hours. But that decision is still so interesting to me, is like, why they made it at that time, why that particular character. And I got a little bit of that backstory. Daniel's episode is amazing to hear how that, like, came to life. But I have so many other questions that, like, a performer is not going to be able to answer for me about that. And I still want to know more. Well, how close have you been to interviewing Weber himself?

[14:27] Alan Seales: So I've talked with his team, obviously. I was very in touch with his team when we did the Phantom of the Opera stuff at the end of the Broadway run. But I've always said, he's my last episode. Like, he will be the very last one I ever do. Because that's the person that can definitively shut down my argument. Or one of the person. But he's the one that can tell me the rationale why. And I can't really argue against him. And there's only really him and maybe Trevor Nunn and probably two or three other people that I could truly say that about. So, I have not tried to have him on. Because I want that to be the very last episode. I want it to be when I'm done. And I'm not done yet.

[15:09] Mike Abrams: How long do you see yourself going from this point on? Another six years?

[15:14] Alan Seales: I don't know. It's one of those things where, to me, it's when I have an interview lined up with somebody and I'm dreading it instead of excited to talk to them. And I'm not there yet. Because that to me is when it's not fun for me anymore. And we're nowhere close to that. There's so many that I've had on even recently. I'm trying to figure out where this is going to release. But I interviewed people from the most recent international tour. And I was talking to them an hour before they go on stage. And so that's just so unique and fun to hear them who are experiencing it every day and telling me that they just finished this, in a lot of cases, kind of life-changing different version. The show seems to really, as a performer, really leave a mark on them. And so to kind of hear them do that and then get to experience that, I still find a lot of joy in that. And so I'll continue.

[16:06] Mike Abrams: Weren't you told, too, by some of the Fulton cast or some others that your podcast is... They were instructed to listen to it, to get back story?

[16:18] Alan Seales: Yeah, that was a different regional production. And it was during the rehearsal process, early on, somebody who had been on the show and mentioned the show, they talked about it. And then it was a place for them. So they'd go back and listen to episodes of the people that did their character to hear different interpretations. I haven't figured out how to share my AI model with it. But I'm like, that's what the cool part is. I now can go back. It's a little hard, though, because when I asked, I'm like, what's all the theories you have for this character? And then I realized that half of them are things I made up. So I'm like, I got to sift through what's actual lore and what was me kind of being like, this is what I'm thinking. Is this true or not? But it is cool to see kind of all the different examples and different things. And it puts it right back to the episode.

[17:06] Mike Abrams: You're playing the long game. I get it. Like 10 years from now, when you're still going, someone's going to have in the back of their mind, it's power of suggestion. I'm like, I'm going to do a new production. And I think Gus is going to be the Jellicle choice this time. And then it's all going to have resulted from you starting this six years ago.

[17:25] Alan Seales: I have offered, and I've not been, I've been shot down. I think the LW Entertainment's more powerful than my recommendation. But I've offered to sponsor a night. I was like, I got to do the math real quick. But like, if I buy like half the tickets, will you do this one night? What is the tipping point to where it makes sense for someone to do it? I was like, as long as you let me capture it. My dream is still actually, which I think would be so fun on tour, is to do an Edwin Drew style audience vote. And this, I've like had this moment many times where I would interview somebody. I've interviewed people for, a lot of times I'll interview someone who's in a new show. And then they did Cats before that.

And I remember I went to one show where I was going to see the show before I talked to them. And I told them, I'm like, hey, I'm coming to see it. I'm excited to see you. And they were like, oh, you picked a good show. There's 300 people from my dance studio coming. And I remember they were in the ensemble. And the minute they ran out, it's not a character that like, usually draws a huge audience cheer. And the place went nuts. And I just kept going, imagine this cat that's not the one that you should expect. And he doesn't even have votes. But you're in their hometown on tour. Or the whole dance studio is there. And that random cat is going to be chosen tonight because they're going to go nuts in the crowd. How fun would that be?

[18:54] Alan Seales: I think that'd be so cool. Yeah, everybody's got their own version of the ending or something that you only get to see.

[19:00] Mike Abrams: Yeah, you've got a night. I'm down for that. I mean, so we have to figure out what the cost-benefit analysis of, you know, violating copyright violation on several different levels. I have a little hope that there's been all these new Andrew Lloyd Webber productions happening where there have been changes. So it's clear, like, Cats of Jalcobal is Cats, but in a totally different version. And, you know, you look at what they did with Sunset and Evita and all these other things that are happening. There's the new Masquerade. They're playing around with stuff of his right now that you're telling me I can't just tweak a little bit here? Like, it's clear he's open to it.

[19:40] Alan Seales: Yeah, for money. I'm wondering how it will work, how it could work. And this is somebody's very, very big right to produce. It's, I guess, just like Jalcobal did, didn't change a single note but still made it a completely different, I'll put it in air quotes, different story, right? It was a totally different theme. So maybe if there's some way so Gus could ride the tire up to the Heaviside lair while still singing the normal closing that they always sing, why not? I don't think you have to change much. I've thought about this way more than any human has ever thought about this particular question or a lot of things in general.

[20:22] Mike Abrams: But your cat thinks about it all the time.

[20:24] Alan Seales: If you, for sure, if you allow Grisabel to sing Memory and then when the moment you start to walk her down the processional you just stop and then you pick somebody and then all you have to do technically is make sure that somebody is ready to fly so there has to be either some type of rig or you have to have some way that a different person or a different height or weight or costume could do that and then when you get to the very last song you have to then slot in wherever that person went. And that's it. There's no other changes you have to make to the show. There's literally zero. The entire show goes the exact same way.

[21:03] Mike Abrams: Well, why hasn't this happened, listeners? Like, come on. Make Mike's lifelong dream come true.

[21:09] Alan Seales: I tried to get a civic theater to do it on their last night. I'm like, it's four shows. Just do it on one of them and see what happens. And they didn't do it. But I don't, you know, I understand the not wanting to anger the LW group, which is probably a little more powerful than I am.

[21:33] Mike Abrams: Well, let's workshop it. We know some people. Let's workshop some concepts. Put together a little pitch deck and then just, you know, wait until... We had to start workshopping it now. So in a couple years when it's ready, we got the new version. Right when Andrew Lloyd Webber comes into town to see opening night of your production, then he'll be your final guest on the podcast and life will just wrap up in his pretty little bow.

[21:57] Alan Seales: Yeah, I will have succeeded in changing the ending of the show so I can tell him the wrong cat died and now here's my version of it. Mr. Abrams, you've opened my eyes in a way I've never previously imagined. Thank you.

[22:11] Mike Abrams: Thank you. What's funny is that I don't think a single thought actually went into that question because I'm sure this was... I mean, if you look at the show, it had to have been a drug-induced, chaotic writing that they just were like, yeah, sure. If she sings the power ballad, let her go. It's got legs. Let a producer see it. Yeah. Let's do it. There's no way they thought, well, what about this character? There have been worse movies made on more terrible premise than that.

[22:43] Alan Seales: For sure. For sure. Anyway. Well, thanks for doing what you do because you're touching a lot of lives and it's been really interesting to see the journey of the fans and the podcast itself and just going to these different places and seeing the reactions it causes. It's really cool.

[23:03] Mike Abrams: We have another trip coming up probably soon if you're interested. There's so many more productions that I keep getting sent that's happening, which is really cool how many times Cats is being done. I think kudos to the LW group for allowing... I think they're still... Yeah, Real Useful just changed their name. Real Useful is now LW. It's cool to see how many different places are doing it. I know my hometown is doing it. It hit their season next year, so I'm excited for a dinner theater version. I already am like, alright, I gotta call them because I don't think they realize that I grew up five minutes from that theater.

[23:39] Alan Seales: They've gotta put you in one of their performances or something. You've gotta be in the old dude suit during intermission or something.

[23:47] Mike Abrams: Let me come on stage before and be like, after the show, if you have questions, come see me.

[23:53] Alan Seales: That's a great idea. Host a talkback or three. You could just moderate. Now, as you all know, I am the U.S. national leading expert on Cats the musical. I will tell you a funny parting story here before we wrap up. One of the most interesting things I go and now, I've been to enough. When I was at the Joe Cabal the second time, I was sitting there and my friends were in different seats. I got my ticket the very last second, so I was by myself. I was just like, these two ladies started asking questions like, oh, what's this about? I was like, how deep do you want to go? I love just being in there being like, I can answer at intermission all of your questions. I had to bite my tongue with you at Fulton being like, there's people behind me asking all these questions.

I'm like, do you want to know the answer? But I'm so used to doing it. I was sitting when I went to the international tour and I had this family behind me and I was ready because I was by myself and I was waiting. The director sat with me later. I was waiting and just sitting there mesmerized at the junkyard. Then they started talking and I realized that they're talking in German because I'm in Frankfurt and I can't help them at all. I was so ready to have this engaging conversation with like, tell me about why you chose to see this in Frankfurt, Germany. Then I was like, I don't speak German, so I can't help you at all.

[25:07] Alan Seales: You could have asked if they spoke English, maybe. But for all I know, they could have been talking about where they were going to dinner.

[25:15] Mike Abrams: Oh, that's fair. Not anything about cats. I don't have the slightest thing. I know zero German. I was just enjoying the show instead.

[25:27] Alan Seales: It's funny that you've got to see it all over the world like that. That's really cool. Now I've seen it in more places. I've still shockingly not seen it as many times as people would think given the amount of episodes that this podcast has.

[25:39] Mike Abrams: It's a huge cast. One production produces a lot of people to talk to.

[25:43] Alan Seales: That's true. More to come. There's more lined up already, more people coming on, more regional productions I'm going to hopefully go see. We'll see how long this keeps going. Maybe we'll talk again in a year.

[25:59] Mike Abrams: Let's keep it going, man. Keep producing. Keep producing for me.

[26:03] Alan Seales: Awesome. Well, this has been so fun. Thank you for listening to six years of shows. Thanks, everyone, for listening to this episode of The Wrong Cat Died, the podcast for regular cats. Actually, to follow along, you can subscribe over to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else podcasts. Follow us on social media at TheWrongCatDied or check out our website, TheWrongCatDied.com.