Photographs by Billie Winter
At the back of the Crown Hill group heart, previous the sneaker squeaks from the basketball courtroom and down the corridor from the row of plieing ballerinas, a bunch of software program engineers, nurses, academics, carpenters, and different professionals crawled on the ground, nuzzling one another and meowing.
Some wore arm heaters to simulate fur. The fuzzy piece of cloth tucked into the leggings of the lady in a “Hamilton” shirt swished as she moved.
“Simply to substantiate—the physique roll is one very lengthy rotation?” a middle-aged man requested.
The choreographer confirmed after which demonstrated for him. Stiffly, he carried out a physique roll. Ok!
Somebody pulled me onto the ground. Quickly, I used to be crawling alongside them.
For my newest exploration into Seattle subcultures, I joined the Woodland Park Gamers, a group theater group made up largely of residents from Phinney Ridge, Ballard, Inexperienced Lake, and Greenwood, for certainly one of their final rehearsals forward of opening evening of their eighth present: Cats.
The WPP is a labor of affection. All of their units are handmade by neighbors (the present set director is an area architect who makes his cash redesigning kitchens however will get his creativity out designing Dr. Suess-y junkyards for Cats). A volunteer orchestra accompanies the efficiency. Most of the all-volunteer performers haven’t any stage expertise, and people who do haven’t been on stage in many years. It creates a not-totally polished and uniquely charming expertise. One which even I, a tone deaf double-left footed fool, may take part in and be ok with.
After nuzzling a software program engineer or two myself, and spending three hours getting ready for the Jellicle Ball, I left rehearsal with tears in my eyes. And I don’t even like Cats that a lot.
The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball
Linda Joss, the producer and founding father of WPP, met me exterior the group heart with sparkly pink cat ears on her head, apologizing for being 5 minutes late and promising me unnecessarily to purchase me a drink on the post-rehearsal watering gap: The Thirsty Fish. She walked quick and talked quicker, main me into the rehearsal house. An unfinished cat puzzle lay on the desk. Cat stuffed animals sat on a piano.
Joss is the power behind WPP.
She based the theater again in 2016 with mother and father she befriended from West Woodland Elementary College the place her kids attended and the place Joss organized the expertise present for a few years. The WPP’s first present was Oklahoma. Since then, they’ve placed on Guys and Dolls, Something Goes, Curtains, Good Work If You Can Get It, Spamalot, and Disenchanted!
Joss obtained the thought from her transient time dwelling in Michigan, the place she participated in an Ann Arbor group known as the Burns Park Gamers, a group theater made by and for individuals within the neighborhood. They’d a no minimize coverage and funneled any income they made again into youth arts organizations. That grew to become the mannequin for WPP.
Throughout these first few years, the WPP additionally operated on a “no minimize” foundation.
“For those who’re within the neighborhood, you’re invited and also you’re welcome no matter your expertise,” Joss stated.
Now, they’ve develop into fashionable sufficient—and widened their boundaries to permit for extra range—so that they should do some chopping. Nonetheless, you don’t should be an excellent singer or an excellent dancer to make it right into a WPP manufacturing.
“We’ve obtained individuals who had an curiosity in theater, however they weren’t going to take an opportunity at one other theater as a result of it felt too huge,” Joss stated. “However as a result of their neighborhood theater was doing it, and it feels extra like a household, they took an opportunity.”
Whereas WPP does give again to the youngsters (the theater has donated $57,000 to 247 completely different scholar arts teams in Seattle in its nine-year existence), the one ironclad rule for who can carry out is that WPP is for adults. To affix, you need to be no less than 18 years previous and out of highschool.
“Adults do not get these alternatives fairly often,” Joss stated.
The Naming of Cats
On the day I attended rehearsal, the performers had been doing their first full run by of the present. The group heart room crammed with our bodies radiating nervous power.
Earlier than the run-through, the forged practiced dance transitions. Then, they rehearsed the battle scene with Macavity, the villain cat. Mike Boyle, 56, is the “software program geek” who performs Macavity. He sprinted and spun throughout the room whereas the remainder of the ensemble chased him. He first obtained his begin in theater in Microsoft’s theater troupe. Their first present was Little Store of Horrors. That is Boyle’s sixth present with WPP.
Nonetheless, many individuals within the theater had even much less expertise than Boyle after they joined up.
Amongst them is Perry Greely, 30, an artist and a nanny who is without doubt one of the dancers within the present. She’d all the time wished to do musical theater, however by no means had. When she noticed the decision for auditions on a WPP poster round her north Seattle neighborhood, Perry, who’s liked Cats since she watched it on her grandma’s VHS as a child, determined to throw warning to the wind and check out.
“It feels type of like connecting with part of me that I used to be too scared to earlier than,” Greely stated.
For Ruben Van Kempen, directing WPP’s Cats is rather a lot like educating, which is his bread and butter. He’s labored as a director for 40 years, and spent the vast majority of his profession educating and directing at Roosevelt Excessive College. He even placed on Cats with the excessive schoolers. Most of the costumes and the plethora of pussy cat wigs for the WPP efficiency are recycled from that RHS efficiency.
“Some individuals within the present hadn’t ever performed theater till their early 40s, their mid 30s, they usually’re making an attempt for the primary time to determine the right way to dance, or the right way to even sing effectively,” Van Kempen stated. “It is giving them private satisfaction and development.”
Brad Serbus is the 58-year-old carpenter who performs Munkustrap, the narrator character within the present. He’s been taking part in WPP for 9 years. Earlier than that, he’d by no means had any musical theater expertise.
“I all the time wished to carry out,” Serbus stated.
Serbus additionally performs bass in a band. That’s the place he often leans into his love for the stage. However the WPP is an entirely completely different expertise.
“Apart from the performances, it’s the rehearsals which might be actually enjoyable,” Serbus stated. “There’s a way of honesty between individuals and you need to put your self on the market and that’s actually liberating.”
When some WPP members heard they had been doing Cats, a musical with fairly much more crawling than is typical, they thought they couldn’t do it, in response to Van Kempen.
“They stated, ‘We cannot dance. I’ve hip points. I’ve elbow points, I’ve knee issues and I stated, ‘So what about your cat? If the cat has hip points, they’d nonetheless do what they should do. So use that ache or use the energy that you’ve,’” Van Kempen stated. “If you cannot kick excessive, effectively, your cat simply cannot try this. So it isn’t a judgmental type of efficiency.”
This non-judgmental feeling is completely different, particularly for the individuals who used to carry out in highschool or faculty when issues had been cutthroat and aggressive.
Being collectively and doing one thing as a collective is what this theater is all about.
The Moments of Happiness
Grizabella the Glamour Cat is the principle character of Cats. She’s an outcast. Nobody needs to speak to her or contact her.
“However she explores this concern of becoming in, being part of a bunch, having group,” says Tatiania Summers, the 25-year-old non-profit supervisor who performs Grizabella. “And we are able to all relate to that.”
Summers spent her youth singing. When her friends talked about being in membership soccer video games, Summers joked that she was in “membership choir.” With WPP, she’s discovered singing and theater once more. And group.
Because the majority of the WPP lives in the identical basic space of Seattle, it provides one other layer to group theater. That is how persons are attending to know their neighbors—and also you get to know your neighbors very well after they’re hoisting you up within the air otherwise you’re pretending to groom them along with your tongue.
Gabbie Benitez, 32, joined the theater when she noticed a poster on Phinney Ridge for WPP’s Disenchanted present in 2023. The decision for auditions learn “Princesses Wished.” Benitez was comparatively new to Seattle on the time. She labored from dwelling for her new job at Shopify. And, it had been almost a decade since she’d carried out, one thing Benitez had spent a lot of her childhood doing.
Doing musical theater once more made Benitez “just about the happiest I’ve ever been,” she stated.
Turning into a part of the forged meant changing into a part of the neighborhood.
“These individuals have develop into my household,” Benitez stated. “I am having dinner with them. We’re doing karaoke nights.”
She performs Rumpleteazer in Cats, one of many twin cats. Her reverse, Mungojerrie, is performed by a 24-year-old. The remainder of the forged’s ages skew older. Dee, who, once I requested her age, stated, “Simply say previous,” is dancing in Cats with WPP for her first manufacturing. WPP has had individuals as previous as 65 years previous carry out with them.
“I’ll dinner with these girls who’ve had full lives and are additionally moms and dealing and doing [WPP] and it type of provides me a little bit glimpse into my future,” Benitez stated. “If I wished to be a mom at some point I can nonetheless have this actually enjoyable life exterior of those different issues.”
Cameron Keyes, 58, works for Seattle Metropolis Mild and has been with WPP from the start. He carried out a little bit in faculty and he performs music, however he solely discovered the stage once more many years later when WPP began in his neighborhood. In Cats, he performs Outdated Deuteronomy, the smart and beloved patriarch of the cats.
Not too long ago, performing with this group has taken on a brand new resonance for Keyes.
“I am conscious of getting older,” Keyes stated, “and my dad simply handed away, in order that’s making me much more conscious of getting older and extra conscious of the ability of group and kind of togetherness.”
Reminiscence
The complete run by, as with every Cats manufacturing, begins with the bouncy “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats.”
The forged stalked their approach into the middle of the room. Some voices cracked whereas soloing. Nobody cared. Quickly, all their voices joined in unison and sounded good. The forged tossed their heads backwards and forwards in time with the pleasant frenzy of the track. Many grinned—I’m undecided if that was a directorial be aware, or in the event that they couldn’t battle towards the serotonin rush.
I discovered myself beaming, too. This isn’t shocking as a result of I’m a sucker for musicals. I typically assume that if I’d been born with utterly completely different talents, I’d have no less than tried out for a college musical or two.
From an early age, I realized that I’m woefully tone deaf. As my step-dad, Ben, instructed me, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. That data is without doubt one of the causes I detest karaoke. It’s simply not for me. I assumed musical theater was the identical—one thing I may eat, not take part in.
Then, in the course of the “Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer” track, somebody led me into the combination. Joss gave me her sparkly cat ears to put on. Alongside the ensemble, I pawed on the different background dancers. My pores and skin prickled, my cheeks flushed. I felt uncovered, and likewise alive.
When it was over, I wanted I may do it once more. The WPP made it so.
In act two, throughout “Mr. Mistoffelees,” one other dancer coaxed me on stage. Behind the motion and the heart-swelling melody, I donned my catsona once more, curling my fingers into paws and swaying in tune. The refrain introduced me again to my childhood kitchen and my step-dad, Ben, singing the chorus “Oh! Effectively I by no means was there ever a cat so intelligent as magical Mister Mistoffelees” time and again. It was the one lyric he remembered. He couldn’t sing effectively, however he did anyway.
Whereas on all fours on that group heart ground, I noticed that my love of musicals comes from Ben. He took my brother and I to our first musical, The Lion King, whereas he was wooing our mother. He would watch the film model of Chicago on repeat and would croon Mister Cellophane for days afterwards. He took us to Depraved. Twice. It’s due to him that I selected to see a touring manufacturing of Cats for my twelfth birthday. I hated it again then.
As I sang the lyrics of “Mr. Mistoffelees,” I didn’t care about being pitchy. I matched my voice to these round me and it melted into the combination, a part of one thing greater.
I sat again down. Summers, as Grizzabella, inched on stage. She poured her soul and each a part of her former life as a choir child into “Reminiscence.” My coronary heart clenched with every excessive be aware she hit. Tears pricked my eyes as she belted. I turned to take a look at the Stranger photographer I’d introduced with me. Tears streamed down her face.
When Summers sat again down subsequent to me after her present stopping solo, she pulled out her music guide and requested me to sing alongside her for the ultimate track.
“I’m so dangerous,” I stated.
“You’ll be nice,” she stated.
Her finger traced the lyrics, “A cat’s entitled to count on/ these evidences of respect/ So that is this, and that’s that: And there is the way you deal with a cat.” Collectively, we sang. My voice quivered at instances, however it didn’t totally fail me the best way I used to be used to.
She smiled at me after, “That was so nice.”
I knew it wasn’t, however on this theater, I knew they didn’t care. This was the most effective manufacturing of Cats I’d ever witnessed.
Cats confirmed at Shoreline Group School Theater in March. Catch the subsequent WPP manufacturing subsequent spring. Or, even higher, audition for the subsequent present this October.
