Do you tap like a beetle when dancing on paws? Do you sing narrations and ballads and songs? Are you Jellicle now and Jellicle hence and Jellicle before and Jellicle after? Meow…?
Thank you for giving us some of your time! If you could tell us who you are and who you’re playing that would be great!
Rob Tucker: I’m Rob Tucker and I’m playing Quaxo. And also I’m the Rumpus Cat.
Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey? Could it be that the 1902 song standard provided the ‘every day’ inspiration for T.S. Eliot when it came to naming this Jellicle Cat? Perhaps. Sometimes called Tumblebrutus (okay, on Broadway called Tumblebrutus, and in other countries sometimes called Smokkate!), this feisty young kitten is our next featured feline!
Thank you so much for giving us some of your time! Tell us who you are and who you play and we’ll get things going right away!
Are you mean like a minx? Are you lean like a lynx? Are you keen to be seen when smelling a rat? Today’s feline is quite electric, no? Purr!
Thank you so much for giving us a moment of your time! If you could tell us who you are and who you play that would be a great start!
Bambi Alcalde: I’m Bambi Alcalde and I play Electra!
Tell me about Electra.
When you fall on your head do you land on your feet? Are you tense when you sense there’s a storm in the air? Which Jellicle Cat will you meet today— not Macavity— he’s not there. Swish.
Thank you so much for giving us a moment of your time! If you could tell us who you are and who you play, we’ll get things underway!
Sam Ranocchia: I’m Sam Ranocchia and for this show I’m playing Victor.
But when the day’s hustle and bustle is done…then the Gumbie Cat’s work is but hardly begun! Are you ready to meet our resident Gumbie Cat? Meeow!
Thank you for giving us a moment of your time! Could you tell us who you are and who you’re playing in this production?
Amy Tucker: I’m Amy Tucker and I play Jennyanydots.
Ooh. Do tell about Miss Jennyanydots!
Amy: So Jennyanydots is also known as the Gumbie Cat.
A sensible, everyday name for a cat…depending on where in the world you are at…could be perhaps… Jubalong… Cattivo… and Sambal… or perhaps something a little more adult, and a little more tomcat like. Something with bravado but not too certain…meow?
Thank you for giving us a moment of your time! Can you tell us who you are and which cat you play?
Stanton Zacker: I’m Stanton Zacker and I play Alonzo.
Fancier but still sensible…a cat who sings about other cats…a cat who dances with other cats…can you guess which feline is featured today. Hiss!
Thank you for a few moments of your time! If you could tell us who you are and who you are playing, that would be just fine!
Erin McArthur: I’m Erin— there’s two of us— so I’m Erin McArthur. I play Demeter.
Tell me a little bit about Demeter.
Are you blind when you’re born? Can you see in the dark? Dare you look at a king? Would you sit on his throne? Leader of the pack…perhaps even the son of Old Deuteronomy? In charge of all the Jellicles…because Jellicles can and Jellicles do…MROW.
Thank you so much for a few moments of your time! Can you tell us who you are and who you are playing here in Cats?
And when you hear a dining room smash or up from the pantry there comes a loud crash.
Or down from the library there comes a loud ping from a vase that was commonly said to be Ming.
Then family will say: “Now which was which cat?” It wasn’t Mungojerrie (we saw him yesterday!) but rather Rumpleteazer! Meow. CRASH.
Thank you for giving us a moment of your time!
If the drawers are pulled out from the bedroom chests and you can’t find one of your winter vests! If after supper, one of the girls, suddenly misses her Woolworth pearls…the family will say “it’s that horrible cat!” But was it…Mungojerrie? Or…Rumpleteazer? Hmm.
Thank you for giving us a moment of your time! Please tell us who you play and who you are!
Benjamin Marsh: My name is Benjamin Marsh and I play Mungojerrie,
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly! They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig! Can you guess which prima ballerina cat we’re about to speak with? Meow!
Thank you for giving us a moment of your time; tell us who you are and who you play!
Katelyn O’Connor: I’m Katelyn O’Connor and I play Victoria.
Tell me a little bit about Victoria.
Katelyn: She’s kind of one of the young cats who is just getting into the group.
Jellicle Cats meet once a year at the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice! A very special Jellicle Cat joins in the rank of these fantastically talented feline performers, giving us their take on being involved with Tidewater Players’ production of Cats. (For those of you frantically scanning your script trying to find Euterpeco… like Macavity, he’s not there. We’ve made this name up especially for the show’s Musical Director, as Euterpe is the Greek Muse of music.)
Thank you for giving us some of your time!
Jellicle Cats…they like to practice their air and graces! And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise! Be prepared to meet one of the dancer cats in this ‘Jellicles Can and Jellicles Do’ interview.
Thank you for giving us a few moments of your time— tell us who you are and who you’re playing in this production of Cats.
Samantha Jednorski: I’m Samantha Jednorski and I play Cassandra.
“Like the sunflower, I learn to turn my face to the dawn. I am waiting, for the day.” ~Sillabub.
“Growltiger had no eye or ear for aught but Griddlebone, and the Lady seemed enraptured by his manly baritone.” ~Growltiger’s Last Stand.
While the musical number may or may not be included in this current production of Cats (that’s all on ALW and the licensing folk) Griddlebone the Cat as well as Sillabub the cat are both cats who are still a part of Cats.
Post-Pandemic, there are all sorts of things happening as the world settles into ‘new normal’ and finds its footing once more. That of course is true in the world of theatre, with companies getting back on their feet, some companies— regrettably— closing their doors permanently, and other companies springing up and getting started. It’s always exciting when a new theatre company gets under way in the Baltimore area. TheatreBloom is excited to be supporting— to borrow a quote from La Cage Aux Folles— all the old friends,
We can balance on bars…we can walk on a wire…the other half of the ‘psychic twins’ cats, is our dear, delightful Tantomile!
Thank you so very much for giving us a moment or two (or nine?) of your time! Tell us who you are and who you are playing!
Erin Acerno: My name is Erin Acerno and I play Tantomile.
Ooh. Tell me about Tantomile.
Erin: Well she’s a very naïve kitten.
Oratorical cats, Delphicoracle cats… okay, that last one might be some made up nonsense by Andrew Lloyd Webber and T.S. Eliot, but nevertheless, it sounds like the oracles at Delphi, which is appropriate as we meet Coricopat— one half of the ‘psychic twin’ cats who are often doing lift and spin dance routines.
Thank you so much for giving us a few moments of your time! Tell us who you are and which cat you’re playing.
Can you sing at the same time in more than one key? Duets by Rossini and waltzes by Strauss?
And can you (as cats do) begin with a ‘c’? That always triumphantly brings down the house!
A principal-singing cat, we come at you next with Emily Garner in our full-cast series “Jellicles Can and Jellicles Do”, featuring the 27 performers in Tidewater Players’ production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.
Feline, fearless, faithful, and true. Jellicle cats can and Jellicle cats do. Preparing to meet our second cat in the Jellicle Cat Lineup, for the upcoming fall production of Tidewater Players’ Cats, we have Suzanne Zacker, recently returned to the Maryland area, and dipping her paws back into the theatrical pond, so to speak!
Thank you for giving us a few moments of your time! Tell us who you are and who you play in this production of Cats!
Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats…the hypnotic poem of T.S. Eliot blended with the mesmerizing music of Andrew Lloyd Webber…coming very, very soon to a stage near you! Tidewater Players is tackling the monumental challenge of staging the iconic, second-longest-running Broadway musical Cats this fall— featuring an all-star cast and renowned veteran director Bambi Johnson. In a TheatreBloom exclusive series you’ll get to meet all 27 cats— MEE-OOW! Instead of using traditional actor headshots to identify each performer,
You’re gonna need a bigger boat. No, it’s not Jaws: The Musical (but I’m sure that’s coming…just look at Back To The Future: The Musical headed to Broadway in spring of 2023)…but you are definitely going to need a bigger boat if sea levels rise and Baltimore City becomes flooded. Perhaps Papa Bezos will lend you his space-rocket or let you rent out his penthouse suite at the new Moon Hotel.
“It take a grain of love to make a mighty tree. Even the smallest voice can make a harmony.” ~ “The Color Purple” from the musical of the same title, soon to be opening the 2022-2023 season at Signature Theatre. A powerful show, with book by Marsha Norman, and music & lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, based on the 1982 novel by Alice Walker and its 1985 film adaptation, this striking musical has the potential to be a dynamite way to open Signature’s new season.
No, this isn’t the reprise of that one extremely weird number from The Addams Family musical when it first went up on Broadway. But it is, however, a really cool interview about a play that involves at least oen squid. Expect touching tentacles, diabolical spouses, ominous ticket takers, and more. If ever there was a grabbing tagline to get you excited about a world-premiere play, that would be it. And that’s exactly what you’ll get— especially the ‘and more’— with Truepenny Projects’ production of Chad Short’s Squidsbury.
“Get in, loser. We’re going— to Baltimore!” You guessed it— Mean Girls, the iconic high-school movie-turned-stage-musical is on the road and it’s stopping Charm City at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre this summer. TheatreBloom has had the exclusive privilege of sitting down and chatting with Nadina Hassan, playing the one, the only, the Queen of the Plastics— Regina George. She actually took a phone call with us— that’s so fetch!!!
Thank you so much for giving us some of your time today,
Baltimore’s where it’s at! Now run and tell that! Making its iconic return to its ‘home’ city, Hairspray on the national tour is playing Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theatre just in time for summer. In a TheatreBloom interview, we’ve taken a call with Jamonté D. Bruten, playing Seaweed J. Stubbs, and gotten to talk about this uplifting, joyous musical and what it’s been like to be back on tour after a long-standing ‘pandemic hibernation.’
Thank you so much for giving us some of your time,
Get ready! Cause he’s on his way! Get ready! Cause here he comes! And here he comes— Elijah Ahmad Lewis— in the role of David Ruffin currently on The National Tour of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we were given an opportunity to have a phone conversation with the multi-award-winning singer/songwriter and Broadway performer to discuss his experience with The Temptations musical.
Broadway is coming back to Baltimore! The France-Merrick Center for Performing Arts’ Hippodrome Theatre is once again alive with the sounds of music and laughter and live people! The 2022/2023 season is simply spectacular, to use the vernacular! In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we’ve had a phone conversation with President of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center Ron Legler all about the new season and what’s exciting him the most about the nine shows— five of which are currently still on Broadway— that will be passing through Charm City starting in November of 2022.
Everybody’s playing the game. But nobody’s rules are the same. Who’s side will you be on? The Soviet’s? The American’s? Third Wall Productions’? In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we sit down with three of the principals of Third Wall Productions’ upcoming production of Chess to get a feel for this first return-to-live performances for 2022.
Thank you all again for sitting down with me in person and giving me some of your time for this!
Everybody needs a dream! For a great many of us, it was waking up to find that live theatre had returned after nearly two years in darkness, waiting and hoping and dreaming that we’d all be able to return to the stage with all the joy and wonder and feeling that entails. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview, we’ve had a phone chat with Broadway veteran Kyle Taylor Parker about his current role in the National Touring production of Pretty Woman the musical.
The long-awaited production of Calendar Girls is finally making its way to the stage! Silhouette Stages production of the show, directed by Conni Ross, was originally slated for the Slayton House stage in March of 2020. The show was in its final phase of tech week when the pandemic shuttered the world, shutting down the state and all live-theatre with it. Two years later, with indefatigable hope and a feeling of triumph, director Conni Trump Ross has given us some time in a one-on-one,