Guest Blog: Jellicle Fans Come Out At Midnight - The Rise of Rowdy Cats

As rowdy Cats screenings have proven in both Los Angeles and Brooklyn, Jellicle fans come out at midnight. And they keep coming back.

While it was initially considered a monumental financial flop, Cats is beginning to become the cult midnight showing similar to the likes of Rocky Horror, which has maintained popularity since it was first released in theaters. Twitter user @Fitzy205 said it well tweeting, "The best part of the @AlamoNYC Rowdy Cats screenings is you can feel a culture forming. It's what it must've been like to be at early Rocky Horror or THE ROOM screenings. Everyone is still figuring out what to chant and when to sing along." Maybe we will even be lucky enough to receive a sing-along burlesque version like this one in Canada.

The first time I remember being introduced to Cats, the hit Broadway musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on poems by T.S. Eliot, I was a young kid in the South with limited to no knowledge of musical theatre. My mother brought home a VHS of the filmed stage production from 1998 which was directed by David Mallet. You know the one. It wasn't until August 2016 after Cats was finally back on Broadway after previously closing its record-breaking run in 2000 that I finally got to experience it in its entirety for the first time, thanks to my friend McKenna, an avid fan of Cats who also had a friend in the production. From that moment of seeing it and getting to wander the stage briefly after the show had ended, I was hooked.

Nearly four years later, it was announced that Tom Hooper would be adapting and directing a new film version of the hit musical full of A-list talent like Taylor Swift, James Corden, Jason Derulo, Rebel Wilson, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, and more while also using stunning advancements of CGI "digital fur technology." I couldn't believe the roster of actors and performers and thought it would somehow be a hit. After all, I still lament the fact that we never got to see what Steven Spielberg's animated film adaptation could have been thirty years ago, so this was the ultimate chance for Cats to become the cinematic hit it could have been.

Then the first trailer released. And the internet was brutal.

By the time the film was getting ready to release mid-December 2019, I was nearly scared away from even seeing it due to the initial poor reactions from press and the fact that the film was being pulled from Tom Hooper's claws just to even be shown at the red carpet premiere. But my resolve could not be swayed. I had to see it. The first time, I was home for the holidays and heard that Universal Pictures was soon to be releasing a CGI patch to fix errors in the film only days after the film released in theaters. While I already had plans to see it when I was back in NYC, this expedited my need to see it right away and found myself along with my brother two of only six total viewers in the theaters just one day past opening weekend. This does not bode well, I thought.

As box office numbers rolled in, Cats was immediately labeled a flop losing over $70 million after an abysmal opening weekend making only $6.6 million domestically. If you thought Cats Twitter was rowdy before the films release, they capitalized on the failure of the film and turned it into a trending topic that lasted days, posting bogus quotes and even sneaky screenshots that had to be seen to be believed. As the weeks slowly rolled by, ticket sales continued to drop drastically until now, only five weeks after the film's release, it is only showing in under 150 theaters in the U.S. versus opening in nearly 3,400.

The second time I saw it was back in the city on New Year's Day. Yes, the first thing I did in 2020 was have brunch, get drunk, and go see Cats for the second time. This time, the theater was sold out and everyone was there to see if it was just as crazy of a film as Twitter made it seem. It was, and still is. As much as I enjoyed it the second time around, I assumed I wouldn't go back and just wait for the film to inevitably release on a streaming service a few months later, giving up on ever being a theatrical success.

Two weeks after New Years, word began to spread online about Alamo Drafthouse in Los Angeles hosting what they were calling Cats Rowdy screenings. "In these special screenings," the Alamo Drafthouse website said, "all you cool cats are encouraged to clap, purr, hiss, and hairball cough when the time feels right." Basically, come pay to see Cats but you're allowed to drink and sing along and dance in your seat and scream at the screen all you want. It was my dream come true. New Yorkers begged the local Alamo's Brooklyn location on Twitter to host screenings here, which gained enough traction and was quickly announced. After a bit of sleuthing on their website (and constantly refreshing the page), my coworkers and I found that the tickets had just gone on sale. Within minutes, both the Friday and Saturday evening showings were sold out before Alamo even had shared the link to the public on social media. I couldn't believe my luck. We were in.

The Night of the Alamo Jellicle Ball

When the evening finally rolled around, I dressed in my best Skimbleshanks closet cosplay and headed to the theater in my fuzzy red coat ready to drink and be rowdy, doing my best make my train and not be late like Skimbleshanks. The energy when you entered the theater was electric. Everyone had come for the Jellicle Ball and you could tell that the Jellicle Moon was shining brightly on us. I found a few friends seated closer to the front and admired their "Cats-bounding" for the evening, collectively dressed as versions of Gus the Theatre Cat, Rum Tum Tugger, Skimbleshanks, Old Deuteronomy, and Mr. Mistoffelees. Looking around, you could see other viewers in cat ears, leopard leotards, cat makeup, and even one attendee who showed up wearing a motion capture suit (my twin brother, Jeffrey).

After finding my seat, I started talking to two women seated beside me and, frankly, apologized in advance for how rowdy I was about to be. One of them was a big fan of the musical but hadn't yet seen this new version. The other was going in completely unaware of what they were about to experience. I quickly explained the plot using my completely inaccurate elevator pitch that I had recently tweeted saying, "Cats is similar to Britain's Got Talent as it's an hours long talent competition just to prove who is the best of the cats (obviously Mr. Mistoffelees the Magic Cat) and is judged by a much older cat named Old Deuteronomy (Louis Walsh) except the winner sacrifices themselves at the end of the competition." This didn't help with her confusion.

Just before the movie began, an employee from Alamo came out dressed as Catwoman (wrong brand but we accepted it) to welcome everyone to the sold out showing. As the lights went down, someone from the audience shouted, "Drink every time you see human hands." Everyone laughed and I knew at that moment I was exactly where I needed to be. Together, we sang the words to every song, screamed when Rebel Wilson ate the dancing cockroaches before unzipping her skin suit to reveal a pink sequined outfit and tap shoes hiding underneath the top layer or skin (no catnips to be found here), and laughed every time you saw Judi Dench's human hand and an audience member would shout "HAND!"

Adithya Pratama tweeted, "The best part of last night's Cats Rowdy Screening at @AlamoNYC was when Victoria decided to do a variation after 'Memory,' a woman shouted 'THIS ISN'T ABOUT YOU!'" before someone in the audience stood up and shouted "bathroom break!" as soon as "Beautiful Ghosts" began. When Macavity tricks Bustopher Jones into jumping into a magic teleportation trash can, an audience member shouted "IT WAS A RUSE, YOU IDIOT." We shouted every time the proportions changed from too big to too small. We wondered aloud what the dog in this human-face cat world would look like. We even hollered "INEFFABLE" and "MEOW" every time Macavity magicked one of the cats away to his oddly proportioned barge to keep them from attending the Jellicle Ball.

Over an hour into the film, we've finally arrived at the Jellicle Ball and the trance of the moon was upon us. The crowd whistled after Skimbleshanks the moment he began tapping along the railway lines, but only after shouting "Where is Skimble?" to everyone around them. Even Ian McKellen was dedicated to playing the role of Galdalf the Grey Tabby Cat while he meowed earnestly in an arpeggio and later lapped up milk from a bowl stored backstage at the theater. After Ian gave an incredible performance singing of the days of old when Victoria reigned, the audience broke into a rousing applause. If anyone deserved a new chance at life, it was Asparagus. Soon after, Macavity used his magic to whisk away Deut after she rejected him as the Jellicle Choice. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine everyone in the theater holding hands singing about the cleverest magical cat, Mr. Mistofelees, cheering him on as he tried so desperately to rescue Old Deut from the clutches of evil Macavity.

Towards the end of the Ball, Jennifer Hudson and her snotty nostrils belted out "Memory" proving to be THE ONE true Jellicle Choice, chosen by Dame Judi Dench. On Twitter, Lauren Jernigan wrote, "The sheer euphoria in the #CatsRowdy screening at @AlamoNYC by the time Grizabella scream-sang Memories is as close to reaching the top of Mt. Everest as I will ever come." The audience immediately started slow clapping and chanting "Kill her! Kill her!" knowing what was coming next. The ultimate sacrifice. "Justice for Skimble," shouted one audience member. As the chandelier hot air balloon slowly lifted into the sky (justice for the tire), the rowdiest of us in the crowd quieted down and listened as Old Deut deadpans to the camera and began addressing the cats, though really the audience, sing-talking about how cats are very much like you, they are not dogs, and how to treat a dear little cat.

While Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn has yet to add Cats-themed photo opportunities or Jellicle Ball Karaoke to their theater, they announced on Twitter that these rowdy screenings will continue to happen "as long as they keep selling out." If you were one of the lucky few to attend this past weekend in Brooklyn, Twitter comedian, Broadway sweetheart, and Cats (2019) super fan Natalie Walker hosted two "frisky screenings" (her words) on Friday night wearing her biggest of fur coats and exclaiming to the crowd, "Cats is me. Cats is you. Cats is all," quickly followed by "MISTOFFOLEES IS HOT."

After my third time seeing it, I've come to realize that rowdy Cats is the only way I want to see Cats ever again. I've never felt closer to an audience of strangers as I did that night and even connected with a few people seated around me on social media to further discuss our obsessed with the now cult-classic film Cats. No matter what, I plan to go back many times and I think you should too. Until then, I'll just go back to tweeting mediocre jokes about Cats like "'Dentist: 'What brings you in, little cat?' Cat: 'Macavity.'"

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Jeremy West is an avid theatre-goer who spends way too much time on Twitter. By day, he works in brand licensing at Marvel Entertainment, but at night he's either out seeing a new show on Broadway or yowling at the Jellicle Moon when it's shining brightly. He can be found online at @jeremywest.