“Choreography is the Jellicle Choice,” declares Omari Wiles, co-choreographer of Broadway’s CATS: The Jellicle Ball, a reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic CATS. He alludes to the show’s pivotal (and ineffable) moment with a laugh, but it’s undeniable that the choreography—by Wiles and Arturo Lyons—is a key component of the production’s magic.
The Jellicle Ball’s premise is audacious, but also genius: What if Lloyd Webber’s hit musical about cats vying to ascend to the Heaviside Layer was instead set in the world of vogue dance and ballroom culture, with each song representing a different competitive category at a ball? The production premiered off-Broadway at Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) in 2024, picking up “Bessie” Awards for Best Choreography and Outstanding Performance (awarded to the ensemble) as well as a special Chita Rivera Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Choreography.
In addition to being a, well, ball of a show, The Jellicle Ball wears its humanity proudly, translating the camp of the original through a language that was created by a Black and Latina queer and trans community and that continues to have an outsized impact on pop culture. The actors—a combination of Broadway folks, including the legendary André De Shields as Old Deuteronomy, and dancers active in New York City’s vibrant ballroom scene—play gritty, glittering, complicated people onstage. “This Rumpleteazer is not a cat,” cast member and assistant dance captain Dava Huesca says of her character. “She’s a Black girl from Jersey.”
If that sounds different from the familiar ’80s musical, that’s because it is. As indelible as the imagery of the original production remains, the Broadway cast of The Jellicle Ball has crafted versions of the characters that are iconic in a whole new way.
Dava Huesca
Rumpleteazer
After training at LaGuardia High School and Purchase College and performing with contemporary troupe VIM VIGOR, Dava Huesca checked out a voguing class taught by Lyons on the recommendation of a friend. “And then I went every Wednesday for three years,” she recalls. She soon after became a founding member of the Haus of Telfar.
Rumpleteazer performs every style of dance that appears in the show, from ballet to African dance to the various permutations of voguing, a reflection of Huesca’s versatility. “I feel like it really shows how ambitious Rumpleteazer is, because she’s everywhere at all times and doesn’t ever sit down,” she says. Huesca was front and center in a rehearsal video that went viral before the PAC NYC performance run started, and she landed on Dance Magazine’s 2025 “25 to Watch” list the following January.
Rumpleteazer is… “Ambitious. Banjee. Slick. Angsty. Inspired.”
Double duty: Huesca became an assistant dance captain for the show before the end of the PAC NYC run and is in that role again on Broadway. “I have classical dance training and I have a good ear: My brain stores choreography with rhythm,” she says. “I feel like that’s the bridge between the street dancers and the musical theater people in the room. I can speak both of the languages.”
Favorite moment in the show: “There’s a trio in ‘The Jellicle Ball’ that I do with Etcetera and Macavity—I love that trio. It’s so fun. And there’s a huge group section called ‘the fugue,’ where everyone in the cast is being hypnotized by Old Deuteronomy and we become this massive Hands Performance machine; it’s tricky, but it’s really fun to perform.”
Vocabulary note: “It’s a dip, not a death drop. Death drop is not a thing in voguing.”
Primo Thee Ballerino
Tumblebrutus
Primo moved to New York City in 2021 specifically to pursue ballroom after a mentor in Cincinnati told him he thought he’d be cut out for it. “I watched [the ballroom TV series] ‘Legendary’ and was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I could totally do that,’ ” he says. “And once I actually got involved, it turned out to be completely different from what I thought it was going to be, which I loved.” Today, he belongs to the House of Donyale Luna.
The only similarity Primo sees between his Tumblebrutus and the version from the original CATS is athletic ability, particularly (as the name implies) the tumbling. Primo, who is nicknamed “Thee Human Tornado,” thinks his bag of gymnastic tricks, “and also my upbeat personality,” he adds with a grin, made him a natural fit for the role. “Because Tumblebrutus is such a multifaceted human being, he also possesses a vast repertoire of movements,” from voguing to street jazz.
Tumblebrutus is… “Real. Funny. Flexible. High-energy. Aware.”
From the top: Primo is the very first dancer seen in the musical—a shadow who initially performs something closer to Gillian Lynne’s choreography for the original CATS before, “as the music changes, you start to see it break down into this other world of gay movement and voguing,” Primo explains. “Tumblebrutus gives everyone a little kitty cat taste of what’s about to transpire.”
Favorite moment in the show: “My favorite to watch is the top of the second act, when Old Deuteronomy is having a moment with Sillabub. It’s a moment of teaching: childlike innocence getting wisdom from an elder. And someone as iconic as André De Shields? It feels so real.”
Baby Byrne
Victoria
While the white cat is often referred to as “the ballet cat,” in The Jellicle Ball she is entirely a voguer. Baby Byrne’s artistic background was primarily in singing and acting before she started her dance training at age 19, after taking a vogue seminar while at Purchase College. She started riding the train to New York City on the weekends to take Cesar Valentino’s voguing classes, and eventually met Wiles as he was founding the House of NiNa Oricci, which became her first ballroom house. “Before I started voguing, I never considered myself a dancer for real,” she says. “It helped unlock a whole range of movement in me.”
Looking at the traditional production, “Obviously the movement and the language are so different,” she says. “But I felt connected to the curiosity and exploration that her character goes through.” This Victoria also performs with Tumblebrutus during “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer,” which layers in physical comedy as the two duos go head to head. “That’s where you see her more playful side,” Byrne says, “but also her competitive side.”
Victoria is… “Soft. Strong. Curious. Limber.”
The naming of cats: Victoria first appears during “The Naming of Cats,” which then leads into her solo. “In ballroom, you choose your name, but also, being in the queer community, naming yourself is really important,” Byrne says. “You might not always align with the name you were given at birth.” When she crawls onto the stage and starts her solo, Victoria is “claiming her name.”
Favorite moment in the show: “Right now, it’s ‘Gus: The Theatre Cat,’ which is when all the little kittens crowd around Junior LaBeija and he talks to us about all the parts he’s played in his life. I think it’s really beautiful, the way that these words Andrew Lloyd Webber chose so long ago can really connect to what it means to be a queer person, or an elder in the ballroom community. This production is saying, ‘We see you, we want to keep hearing from you.’ ”
Nora Schell
Bustopher Jones
Nora Schell was recovering from a fracture in their left foot when callbacks for the PAC NYC production rolled around, counting them out of the dance portion. “I was like, ‘If I can’t do the dance, I’m not going to get this role,’ ” they recall. Luckily, the casting director had also worked on Jagged Little Pill, Schell’s Broadway debut, and knew they could pick up choreography. Schell’s background is in musical theater (they earned their BFA from University of Michigan), and while they had admired voguers in the ballroom community on social media, they’d never approached the style prior to being cast.
While traditionally Bustopher Jones makes fatness the butt of the joke while satirizing posh English gentlemen’s clubs, in The Jellicle Ball there are layers that turn the number on its head. “It’s a two-part meta thing,” Schell says, “because in the beginning it’s poking fun at fat white men. Playing it in this fat, Black, queer body—I’m making fun of these aristocratic fat cats who represent greed and overconsumption and colonialism.” The choreography begins very upright and rigid, but once Schell tears away their posh suit to reveal a corset beneath, “it’s now a celebration where fatness isn’t ugly. Fatness doesn’t have to mean overconsumption—it can also be luscious.”
Bustopher Jones is… “Bold. Biting. Unapologetic. Hilarious. Sexy.”
Favorite moment in the show: Sillabub chasing after Grizabella during “Memory.” “Grizabella stays because this person who is like an echo of herself when she was younger comes back to save her,” Schell says. “The way Teddy Wilson, Jr. and ‘Tempress’ Chasity Moore play it, and the underlying meaning when you have it set on two Black trans bodies, it’s really powerful.”
Dancing as a plus-sized actor: “I’ve appreciated being in shows with choreographers who don’t view being plus-sized or fat as something that keeps people from being able to dance. Young dancers who are not skinny: Do not feel that you have to limit yourself. Challenge environments or choreographers that make you feel like you don’t belong.”
Robert “Silk” Mason
Magical Mister Mistoffelees
While in their first semester at The Juilliard School, Robert “Silk” Mason was invited to what they thought was a Halloween party but turned out to be a Halloween ball. “I was watching like, ‘Shoot, I could do that!’ ” they recall, laughing. “I went out there and started doing hitch kicks into a dip.” That experience led them to joining Haus of Marciano. Today they are the mother of the Royal Haus of Silk, which they founded in 2024.
Mason started as a voguer before branching out into Runway, the category they walk as the Magical Mister Mistoffelees. At 6′ 3″, they found the same challenge in Runway as they did in ballet and modern during their training: “It took time and patience for me to get these long legs and arms in accord with each other!” they say. Mistoffelees’ choreography draws on ballet, contemporary, and majorette dance, in addition to the heels work typical of Runway.
Mistoffelees is… “Queen. Ethereal. Magical. Diva. Waymaker.”
Representing: Mason identifies as gender nonconforming, and has been the production’s Mistoffelees since the first developmental workshop. “The pronoun changes with Mistoffelees in the production are so beautiful to see,” they say, adding that while they want their version of the character to be one that anyone can do, it’s particularly important to them that it remains open to gender-nonconforming performers like them.
Favorite moment in the show: “ ‘The Ad-dressing of Cats’ ” at the end. I feel like, within this administration, the government, the world in general, we have not been receiving respect. Singing this onstage, we’re addressing ourselves to everyone and letting them know that this is a place that we have created ourselves, collectively, all together. But this space is for you as well.”
Building the Ball
During the 2024 Perelman Performing Arts Center production, the audience sat around a seemingly endless runway that faced a judges’ table, and performers would sometimes lounge next to viewers at stageside tables. At Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre, “We knew we weren’t going to get a runway as long as we had downtown,” co-choreographer Omari Wiles says. Scenic designer Rachel Hauck’s updated layout removed some orchestra seats to allow the runway to extend past the proscenium. It’s now in a Y shape, splitting to either side of the judges’ table, which moved to upstage center. Limited onstage seating allows for some audience interactivity, which is “super-important to not only the storytelling but the energy that the show needs,” Wiles says.
The new scenic design has meant updating the choreography “for every part of the show,” co-choreographer Arturo Lyons says. “Because the stage is reversed, the choreo has to be facing backwards and forward at certain times.” Reshaping the solos to ensure that they not only play out to the house but also to the audience and cast members onstage posed a particular challenge. “At a real ball, you’re not going to see everything,” Wiles notes, “but it’s a performance, so we want to make sure that every seat is able to see what they need to see.”
Respecting Ballroom’s Roots
Ball culture started as a protest. In the mid-20th century, Black and Latina participants in drag pageants were not given wins against their white counterparts, leading them to start their own contests. Over the ensuing years, the dance form they created has evolved through three distinct styles: Old Way, New Way, and Vogue Femme, all of which are represented in CATS: The Jellicle Ball.
“Ballroom is trans women loving themselves and showing you why they love to be women,” says Jellicle Ball cast member Dava Huesca. “It changed my own perception of myself, being a Black woman coming from ballet and modern. I did not have any confidence until I started voguing.”
While ball culture has historic roots, it’s not just history. “Ballroom is a breathing, thriving culture,” Primo Thee Ballerino, who plays Tumblebrutus, says. “CATS: The Jellicle Ball is the experience of a ball. It’s not ballroom. Come in, have a party, bring the energy, the fun, the fire. But there’s so much to know that you would never know unless you’re a part of it.”