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Video: Having a (Jellicle) Ball with Antwayn Hopper & Nora Schell
Aug 2, 2024
CATS: The Jellicle Ball is hitting the catwalk and welcoming audience members of all stripes to witness its radical reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber's iconic musical! BroadwayWorld correspondent Richard Ridge stopped in for a chat with two of the catwalk's brightest stars, Antwayn Hopper who plays Macavity and Nora Schell who plays Bustopher Jones. Watch the video!
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Live from the Haviside Land
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With Richard Ridge from Broadway World. Come down to pack to see Cats, the Jellicle Ball. Meow
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How excited are the two of you to be a part of the Jellicle Ball, Cats
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I am so excited. I feel incredibly blessed. This is my first time being in the show
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Anton's been with it for a couple iterations, so I feel pretty lucky to have been added to the Katz family
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I don't know. I didn't expect to be a part of this, and I did not expect the response
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response. It's been a huge, huge step for my career and my heart. I feel like the way Nora is
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in the video that's viral when they're opening the, and they look and they go, that's how I feel like
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yes, you don't know what you're in store for and you're in store for a lot of love. Because tell me
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what's made this so special. This is so unique. Fans are coming in all over the world to get a
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ticket to this show. What's made it so special for you? I think to be able to see a group of
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of majority black and brown queer people on a stage is something that is incredibly radical
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And on top of that, it's a story that is about joy. Seeing black and brown queer joy on stage
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is radical in itself. So often, we only see stories about trauma, about pain
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And for us to say, no, that's not what we're gonna focus on. We're going to focus on our lives in the sense
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that where there is, you know, there's more to us than our trauma than our pain
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So that's been a big part and also just the collaborative effort that we've made with the team
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But I'll let you touch more on that. Yeah, the collaborative effort, but piggybacking off of what they said originally are to be at the beginning, it's a political statement
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It's a beautiful time for our not only city of New York, not only the ballroom culture, not just the United States, but for literally, like you said, the world to tune into
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And that is love, acceptance, freedom. And at the end of the day, be who you want to be
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and do it the best you can. And that's why everyone's grabbing onto cats, I feel
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Well, let's talk about the fan base. I mean, you walk into this building. People have seen this show two and three times
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They're bringing people back to the show. What is it like meeting the fans of this show
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It's really exciting because I think every single fan that comes sees themselves in somebody on that stage
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And quite often, there are people who do not see. somebody who looks like me on stage doing what I do
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So as you know, a fat, black, non-binary person, I've had a lot of folks who are either plus size
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or non-binary come up to me and tell me how much it means to be able to see not just this body on stage
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but a celebration of this body, and for it to be like, it's not just about my size
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I happen to be a fat black individual, but who is on stage
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That doesn define me but it is celebrated and it is treated as if like yeah and I sexy and I hot and I valid It fun seeing people like they said be reaffirmed in front of your eyes
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You see this. I am who I am, and it's fabulous about people coming back and back and back
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That is, as we say, a gag, and it's a beautiful one
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It really is magical. It's what live theater is about. and being able to see that every night
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even when after our first number and the love that they give, it's magical
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It's why we study. It's why we love it. It's why it's us
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It's a blessing. Okay, Andrew Lloyd Weber, who created this, came to your show
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Did you all know he was going to be here? I'll let you answer first on this one. Yeah, okay
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Well, when I had asked. I had a. I said if he's coming, then I need to know
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Yes. But, you know, we kept it hush-hush, but he absolutely loved it
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He absolutely loved it. He said it was fantastic. So meeting him that night
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Did you notice him in the house when you were on stage? I did not notice him in the house, but I do have a pretty funny story
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So at the end of the show, I take the service elevator because I was dealing with a little knee issue
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And so at the end of the show, I'm in just a sparkly red bra
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So I'm in the elevator. And I hear somebody go, hold the elevator, please
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And I was like, okay. So I hold it. And then all of a sudden I see turn the corner, Andrew Lloyd Weber and his entire team
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And I go, oh, no. And our producer, Sophie, is with him
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And I was like, I'm not trying to, like, get in the elevator. It's like, I can leave. I can leave
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I'm like, no, it's fine. And so Andrew just walks in and it's just like, hello
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And trying to be respectful. And I'm like, I said, I said, I'm really sorry that
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I said, I'm really sorry, I'm in my bra. And everybody on the teeth, they're like, it was great
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We loved it. But I just, I was kicking myself because I said, of course, the first time that I meet him
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after this, I'm in a bra in this elevator in the corner trying to be
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DeMille. That is the best story. I mean, he's been around theater people his whole life
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I know. Wow. It was really funny. The look you all have
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Talk about. How many costumes are in this show about? Oh, God
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I couldn't even. tell you. A lot. Queen Jean put her foot in it. Oh, she's an incredible costume designer. And
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the thing about her work is that it's referential and dramaturgical. I mean, the ways in which
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she references, I would say, for like, Bustifer, when I have my spat suit, it's the traditional
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Bustifer but it tailored in a way to look like Gladys Bentley And like I think for McCavity I don know what what things she drawn from for McCavity but so much of her stuff is drawn from you know like haute couture or the underground scene
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or queer artists from the past who influenced our culture so much but might not be known
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So that's a lot of where the costumes are coming from. To touch on that real quick, dramatically, she approached McCavity
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We approached McCavity. That's why there's an orange fur. He's the ginger cat, ginger hair, which is in the..
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Kia Mathis. It really took a village and all hands were on deck and it was a collaborative
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experience to the fullest. It was a gag for me. The first time you saw yourselves in the mirror
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done up as your characters, what went through your mind? Well, I'm not going to curse
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but I felt like a bad bee because I get to have this really fun duality of androgyny
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So the hypermasculate and the hyperfeminine. So my first thing is I have a, I have a very fun duality of and
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this suit on, but it's a tearaway suit. And underneath it is this corset and garters. And it's
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really cool to get to be able to see those two sides of myself. So I felt really affirmed
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Mm-hmm. I felt like a Power Ranger of Ballroom, which is what I was low-key going for
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I wanted to be like a superhero with the shields on my forearms and the black and silver
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and then the owl, because, you know, I notice, you know, everything. It's very much, you know
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Superhero, yeah. Now, you have two choreographers and two directors. Talk about the creative process of being in the room
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with all four of them and making this all making magic. Well, I know personally, I got to give the kudos to
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aside from Jalen and Bill, which it was Bill's original vision, and he went after and got Omari
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And Omari, from my understanding, is the one who matched each character up with what they
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will walk. So from a cavity, labels, for Bustifer. Luscious body, period. And that is a gag. And then
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Arturo came on board as well as choreographer. But when I tell you, it really was everyone in that
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single room. I mean, from creatives to the actors, to be able to witness the actors have a say
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in what they're going to portray. And then creatives that give us that respect, it's the future I pray
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towards the right direction in theater. Yes, it was really great, and I think that, you know
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our choreographers and our directors, the boundaries would meld because our choreographers had a very directorial approach
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and then a lot of the things our directors did were also staging, was staging, that felt choreographic
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So there was a lot of overlap, and obviously, you know, having that many people in the room has its own challenges but I think we navigated it pretty well for me for doing this for the first time It also taught me how I have to sometimes adjust the way that I work to be
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able to be the best team player that I can be. So I'm very thankful to everybody in this process
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for giving me that opportunity and patience. Amen. What is one of the best parts of the show that
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you don't do? I know you can't step out of the show to watch it, but you're all up there doing
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your thing and like when you can sort of like step out for a second say I love that part of the show
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Well, let me say this one that I always tell Antoine that I really like that he does. There's this part in Rumtum Tugger during realness where Antoine comes out to walk thug realness
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and does this dance move where it is just, it hits so hard. It's one of these little parts
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but there's something about it that is just so funky. And every time I see it, I'm smiling
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And I'm like, I want to learn how to do that. That's hard. Thank you. I like the entrance
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of old Deuteronomy. It's very powerful to witness to witness that, to witness the love
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and the unity of the audience of everybody in that theater. It's really, it's love
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This is so immersive this show. I mean, you're right there with the audience, you walk through the audience, you play with the audience
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I mean, it's such a wonderful, what is that experience like for you just dealing with the audience
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the way you do this show? I mean, it's a different show every night in that case
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Obviously, we have our things that are set, you have different people with different reactions
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You have people that are sometimes reaching out to touch you. But it's really cool to get to have those interactions
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because you get to have these asides that your character would say
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and you'll get a different response each night. And so you have to be really present in your character
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and it just helps build and flesh out who we are even more. Yeah, in a way the audiences are, there are narrators
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Not that we play for them or to them, But in a way, even though we're leading, we follow them, which is a beautiful thing
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It's really, like you said, an immersive as well-interactive experience. Finally, if you could sum up the best part of the experience so far with being a part of the Jellicle Ball, Katz, what's it been for each of you
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I think I became myself again. Before I came to this process, I went through a really terrible breakup, and this helped me regain my confidence and feel like I'm new
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again and it's because of the community here. I echo a lot of that
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I went through a terrible breakup with my old self. It's a beautiful feeling
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And I had a milestone birthday the first week and I didn't want the cast to sing to me and
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they ended up singing to me twice. It broke me in the best of ways
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I found love again on stage and I'm thankful for what I do. Mm-hmm
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