The “Ole White Way” Is Ablaze With Love and Liberation 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball '

The “Ole White Way” Is Ablaze 

With Love and Liberation 

'Cats: The Jellicle Ball '

Broadway is blazing with diversity, inclusion, and pure love for the LGBTQ+ community — and Cats: The Jellicle Ball leads the charge, with special reverence for its transgender sisters, brothers, and siblings. Now this is what support looks like.

Adapted from the downtown 2024 hit, this thrilling reinvention of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic musical — based on T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats — relocates the feline fantasia to Harlem’s African American and Latino queer ballroom scene. Infused with the flavor and fierceness of Paris Is Burning and Pose, the show substitutes whiskers and tails with voguing, duckwalks, and shade. These are human cats stretching — quite literally — across the gender and cultural spectrum.

In 2026, a year defined by fear and political strain, The Jellicle Ball stands as a dazzling testament to transformation and grit. Set in 1982 amid a gritty Harlem street colony of homeless “kitties,” this world burns bright with rhythmic choreography, daring design, and deep soul. Beneath the spectacle lies subtext — a homage to the queer survivors and dreamers who built safe spaces out of danger, who fashioned beauty from pain, and who, in the face of a harsh world, made joy their rebellion.

The show opens with DJ Jen Ard flipping through a crate of vintage LPs — until she pulls out the original Cats cast album, the iconic cat eyes gleaming from its cover. The audience roars. The first few notes, now driven by live house beats, ignite the theater. Fans crack open in synchronized flair — a sound that’s so integral it’s even sold (and quickly sold out) at the merch stand.

This Cats is a more immersive celebration than a musical revival. Lloyd Webber, to his credit, embraces reinvention — working with David Wilson to reorchestrate the score into a thumping house symphony. While the show downplays its original book, Rachel Hauck’s industrial ballroom design fills the void — complete with a glowing runway that slices through the orchestra.

Co-directors Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch orchestrate everything with pulse-perfect precision. The choreography by Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles captures the spirit of the ballroom: dips, duckwalks, splits, and dramatic drops that keep the competition hot and full of joy.

Qween Jean’s costumes shimmer with purpose — glam-meets-function — and Nikiya Mathis’s hair and wig designs are near perfection. Performance standouts include Dudney Joseph Jr. (an irresistible Munkustrap-Emcee), Sydney James Harcourt (Rum Tum Tugger), Emma Sofia (Skimbleshanks), Robert Silk Mason (Mistoffelees), Baby Byrne (Victoria), and Teddy Wilson (Sillabub, Grizabella’s biggest fan).

The second act soars with a moving slideshow tribute to the ballroom founders, followed by an unforgettable appearance from Junior LaBeija as Gus the Theatre Cat — long nails glittering like claws. 

And when 80-year-old André De Shields arrives as Old Deuteronomy, regal and radiant, the house erupts. The master has arrived.

In the end, Cats: The Jellicle Ball is more than a show — it’s a reclamation and a revival. It’s a ball, a protest, a family gathering, and a love letter to the generations who made space to dance freely in a world that too often did not.

Ten out of ten. Pure opulence.