The Jellicle Ball rescues Cats

The new Broadway revival rehabilitates the image of a musical that's long been a pop culture punchline.

By Drew Gillis  |  May 16, 2026 | 9:00am
Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade
Aux Features Cats The Jellicle Ball
The Jellicle Ball rescues Cats

Even before the 2019 film, the musical Cats was already a pop culture punchline. Whether people considered it a good show or not, it was inarguably kind of silly, a huge commercial hit that few would call the pinnacle of theater as art. In a clip from a 2004 PBS documentary that goes somewhat viral every so often, Broadway director Hal Prince recalled hearing about the show for the first time and searching for some subtext. “Is this about Queen Victoria? She’s the main cat? And then Disraeli and Gladstone are other cats? And then there are poor cats? Am I missing this?” Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber paused and said: “Hal, it’s about cats.” 

Cats, at least originally, was literally just about cats. The plot of Cats is so scant that it’s almost irrelevant. We meet a number of cats, they tell us their deals, and one of them will be selected to ascend to the Heaviside Layer to be reincarnated. For nearly a decade, it was the longest-running musical in Broadway history. Part of the reason for its success was how simple and literal it was; a tourist visiting New York could come from anywhere in the world, have any level of knowledge of the English language, and probably have a decent enough time. But the lack of depth also made it easy to mock, whether lovingly or otherwise. Tom Hooper’s equally literal, very serious film adaptation didn’t do the material any favors, either. Asking the audience to suspend disbelief in a Broadway theater is reasonable; in the uncanny valley, less so. That adaptation sucked any fun out of the show, making singing and dancing felines boring as soon as the initial shock to the senses wears off. 

If this show was going to have a life in the 2020s, it was going to need a reset. Fortunately, it has found one in the new revival, subtitled The Jellicle Ball. After premiering downtown in 2024, the show made the transfer to Broadway this spring. The Jellicle Ball goes in a less literal direction; here, Cats is a celebration of ballroom culture. The actors swap lycra catsuits for Juicy Couture-style sweatsuits, mesh tanktops, fur coats, and Telfar bags. It trades the junkyard setting for a runway with a judges’ table. It images some new, often vogue-inspired choreography. But, other than a new introduction from Junior LaBeija (who plays Gus The Theater Cat) at the beginning of the show, the alterations to the text and arrangements are relatively minimal. 

The Jellicle Ball doesn’t just reimagine Cats; it explicitly presents it as a cultural artifact worthy of performance and interpretation. Before the ball starts, a cast member playing the DJ takes the stage with a crate full of records, pulling out two (when I saw it, they were Diana by Diana Ross and Renaissance by Beyoncé, though they may vary night to night) before settling on the original cast recording of Cats. It calls to mind the film version of Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, which opens with a theater troupe donning modern costumes and makeup to tell a biblical story. From the beginning, we understand that this is not going to be a literal (or at least as literal) interpretation of Cats, but it will still be a performance of the Cats that we know. 

This production doesn’t really worry itself with telling the audience whether we’re supposed to view the performers as literal cats or not. In The Jellicle Ball, the performers are still referred to by their Cats character names, but we’re also meant to understand that this is a part of something happening outside of the theater. Act two opens with “The Moments Of Happiness,” sung by Old Deuteronomy (André De Shields) and is staged with a slideshow of the forebears of ballroom, another explicit reference to real-world history that wouldn’t have happened in the original production. During a blackout in one scene, one character quips about the Shuberts forgetting to pay the ConEd bill. The audience is encouraged to call out if they feel compelled, and people clap fans through the show as one might do at a ballroom competition. The show doesn’t try to fully transport its audience to the realm of fantasy—we’re supposed to remember exactly where we are. 

And we come to Cats to have fun. The Jellicle Ball succeeds because, although it has a clear appreciation and high opinion of the source material, it’s not precious with it. You’re watching people share something they enjoy with you while putting their own spin on it, and they’re inviting you along. It feels like a minor miracle how completely The Jellicle Ball acquits a show that just a couple of years ago seemed destined to be remembered as, at best, some 1980s kitsch or, at worst, one of the worst movies of all time. The Jellicle Ball leans into and celebrates the camp factor of the original, and it’s a blast. Whether or not The Jellicle Ball is about cats, it’s definitely about Cats. 

 
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