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Note: If you're a Jacob Brent ( Mistoffelees) fan you'll love this story,
we also mention other cast members, but this is the first
time we saw Jacob so that's why
this is mostly about him.
We arrived in NYC at 11:00 checked into our hotel, had
lunch and shopped till 4:00pm
than went to dinner at the Olive Garden. Our waiter was a
blast after ordering our food he
came back to our table. He asked us where we were from, we
told him and he said he had
been to our state about three years ago, done a musical theatre
there. Just than I looked
at his name tag and thought WOW!!! His name is Mike G. I
asked what the G stood for
and he said Gardener or something like that.
He said he's not doing Musical theatre
anymore cause he always get hired for his voice,
and he wasn't sure he wanted to do
Musical theatre anymore. So that's why he's a waiter, till
he makes up his mind what he
wantes to do.
We left and went back to our hotel and got ready for the show.
An hour before the 8:00pm
show we went to the WGT back stage door and Kyra dropped
off a note for Jacob (she's a
big Jacob Brent fan). We went back around to the front entrance
and waited to be seated.
At 7:30pm the doorman opened the door and said Good evening
ladies and gentleman and
welcome to CATS. We had seats in row AA numbers 1,3 &5.
Before the show started we
were told Michael Gruber's part was being played
by his stand in David Spangenthal.
We've never seen David perform but we have met him before.
We were so happy to finally
get the chance to see David perform Munkustrap. He was so
good and he has a beautiful
voice and great moves.
The show started and Jacob came down the isles next to us.
During the Naming of Cats
Jacob ( Mistoffelees) came and stood right in front
of us mostly through out the whole
song. He starred at Kyra. She got all shy and looked away
(awwww). Jacob has a deep but
very beautiful voice when he sings. Munkustrap ( David) came
and stood in front of us too
for a while. When Jacob sings Jellicle cats come out tonight
his voice was rather high, but strong, like in the video but
better. On the old gumbie Cat
song, Jacob does the cute little head scratching thing, like
in the movie, but when he turns
to face the cats in the back he does
the best facial expressions we've ever seen
(awwwww). In fact through out the entire show we noticed
his facial expressions and the
cute dances
and walks he does.
Jacob, every so offen gives his tail a kick and it flips up
and around, I think he did this in
the video once or twice during the Macavity scare.
When Jennyanydots and the cast is tap dancing in the old Gumbie
Cat song, Jacob does
this cute head shaking thing while dancing. He really puts
his whole self into the role and
you can tell he really enjoys doing the part of Mistofelees.
His dance moves are perfect, flowing and sharp and gracefull,
and he's much better live
than in the video. He's the kind of performer
you could watch all day and still not get
enough of. Jacob may not do a lot of tumbles
or back flips but boy can he dance.
Rum Tum Tugger (Stephen Bienskie) was again his great self.
If we haven't mentioned it
before Stephen is the best Tugger we've ever seen and that
includes the video. Grizabella
(Linda Balgord) has such a powerful voice, everytime
I hear her sing Memory I get all
teary eyed.
On the Pekes & Pollicles song, Munkustrap (David)
did a beautiful job here. I almost
forget that I wasn't watching Michael Gruber. In the song
right before Munkustrap starts
to sing in this song, Skimbleshanks and Mistoffelees grab
their props for this song, and
Mistoffelees and Tugger do this little playful
cat pawing, it's very funny to see. Than
Mistoffelees grabs his stuff and he and Skimbleshanks run
out into the audience to leave
their hats and shoes, than they go and lay on the nearest
ramp. We looked over to them
every once in awhile and saw Misto doing all these cute hand
movements and making cute
faces at the other cats.
During the part when their all lined up barking at each other
Jacob was so funny, he was
paired with Cassandra towards the back of the stage. we could
hear Jacob barking all the
way from where we were sitting. After the song we saw Jacob
hop into a big tube next to
the car trunk, and take off his hat and shoes. He than smoothed
down his hair and fixed his
ears, he came out with his head held hi and doing a funny
little walk. He's such a character
on stage.
Onto the Jellicle ball: Another example of how beautiful Jacob
dances. Especially in the
part where Misto does his dance and where Alonzo and Pouncival
join in (Such beautiful
and flowing moves here). We also noticed how well Misto
and Pouncival (Christopher
Gattelli) danced together. Misto is in almost all the dances
during the Jellicle Ball, more
than on the video. Especially in the part where Misto leaves
and than comes back for the
last part of the last dance in the ball in the video. Misto
doesn't leave he stays in through
out the whole dance.
During the ball we noticed all the sweat flying
off everybody, and it kind of made you
wonder if any of the cast ever slides
on any of the sweat flying around on stage.
The new Gus/Growltiger/Bustopher, was played by John Dewar,
he told us after the show
he started in CATS in our home state, Mmmmmm small world.
On this song most of the
cats leave the stage. Old Dueteronmy (Jimmy Lockett)
and 5 or 6 other cats hang out
around the tire. when Gus gets up and sings his
part two of the cats, Pouncival and
Tumblebrutus (Patrick Mullaney) were playing
around. Pouncival was pulling on
Tumblebrutus head with a jerking movement every once
in a while and Tumblebrutus
would swat at him to make him stop, when Tumblebrutus
settled down Pouncival would
start doing it all over again.
It was so funny, here poor Gus was singing about his life
and we were laughing at the two
naughty cats in the back. Than the lights went down and Gus
turns into Growltiger and a
ship comes drops down from the back of the stage wall and
the crew is already in place.
For this show the crew is Munkustrap (David),
Mistoffelees (Jacob), Skimbleshanks
(Roger Kachel standing in for Jon Paul Christensen),
Tugger (Stephen) and Alonzo
(John). As Growltiger sings the crew clowns around in back,
than they come forward and
Growltiger punches, kicks and knocks them down, It
was so funny. Than the beautiful
Griddlebone (Jean Aabeiter) comes on and sings and
the crew gets all starry eyed and
falling all over her, (very funny guys). The crew goes below
deck except Munkustrap he
lay's on the upper ship deck. Then the two lovebirds sing
this beautiful opera duet. The
Siamese climb on board take over the ship, fight with Growltiger
and than make him walk
the plank. In the mean time Griddlebone escapes and Munk is
locked below deck with the
crew. The Siamese rejoice in their victory and
the lights go down again and the ship
disappears back into the wall, Gus is back in front of the
stage finishing up his song and
than he's taken off stage.
Now it's on to Skimbleshankes. This song is very much like
the video except the train is
different and the part where the train falls
apart the music stops and the cast laughs.
Macavity song is also like the Video except Alonzo dances with
Demeter in the beginning
of the song, and since Broadway doesn't have as many cast
members as the video, two of
the male cats, Coricopat (Ramon Flowers)
and Pouncival dance with Demeter,
Bombalurina and the other female cats.
The Macavity fight is a little different too. It's almost
like Munkustrap and Alonzo's roles
are reversed here. Alonzo does most of the fighting
and Munk is either on the side
waiting to jump in or knocked out on the floor.
Now for Mr. Mistoffelees song. Tugger comes out and
sings Mr.Mistoffelees and than
Misto makes his entrance just like in the video. His
dance is much longer than in the
video. The part you don't see in
the video that is so amazing is the part where
Mistoffelees does these turns under these circular lights.
He goes into a spin and spins
and spins and spins ( makes me dizzy). One of our friends
told us how to count the spins so
we counted as Jacob spun and we counted something like
40 turns. WOW!!! Way to go
Jacob. Than he comes out of the turns, does the somersault
and does some other turns,
while the audience is going crazy cheering (It was magical).
Than he goes over to the tire
to pull out the red cloth, but Jacob doesn't just walk
over, no he does this funny little
dance over. He's so funny!!!!. Oh something else we noticed
when Jacob was doing the
turns, you know those crystal he wears, well when he does
the turns you can see some of
them flying off. I'd hate to be the person that has to go
find crystals after the show.LOL.
Anyway he brings Old Duet back and than Tugger sings again,
Misto jumps into Old Duet
arms or should I say almost on to his shoulder. Then he does
the part where he jumps up
and does the splits. Than runs up onto the tire and does
a split off the tire. He than goes
into another somersault and two of the other
male cats pick him up and the audience
cheers. They put him down and the lights go out except a
spotlight. than Misto shrinks it
with his hands and than there's just a tiny light left, and
he takes his hand to his lips and
throws it off with a kiss. It's really something to see.
The audience cheers again. Jacobs
dancing is perfect, like none we've ever seen, it's breathtaking,
every movement, every
step so perfect. It looks to us that
he puts everything he's got into this dance.
When the lights come back up Sillabub sings and Grizabella
comes out and she sings, and
makes me cry again. Man, Linda has got a powerful voice.
Something else we noticed in
this song, after Victoria touches Grizabella's hand and the
other cats come over to touch
her too. Misto goes and get Cassandra and takes her up to
Grizabella with him. I've seen
this show 5 times and this is this the first time I've ever
picked this up. Anyway Grizabella
goes to the heaveyside and the show ends.
After the Show we went to the stage door and waited for the
cast to come out. We got to
talk to David (Munkustrap) again, got a picture with him,
you should see those beautiful
blue eyes of his.
When Jacob came out he looked at Kyra, and said her
name and she was so surprised
cause no one ever pronounces her name right. Jacob was so
very nice. We talked a while,
told him how wonderful he was, got some pictures and than
the lights on the outside of the
theatre went out so we said goodnight to Jacob,
as he was leaving he said to Kyra "
behave yourself and don't stay out too late" awwww how sweet
of him to be so concerned
for her. As he left we watched him leave and we noticed he
was going the same way as our
hotel. We didn't want him to think we were following
him so we just hang back a good
distance and waited for him to get out
of our site than we went back to our hotel.
That night we found it very hard to sleep so we talked most
of the night and decided that
we would stay on another day and get tickets to see the matinee
show the next day. And
thats another story.
