On April 14th, 1936 a production of Macbeth opened in Harlem’s American Negro Theater.  The 20 year-old Orson Welles, hired by the Federal Theater Project to direct the production, shifted the setting from turn of the millennium Scotland to 19th century Haiti thus earning the production the nickname Voodoo Macbeth.  Voodoo Macbeth opened to immediate acclaim later touring the nation and earning it landmark status in the history of African-American theater.  This event, or maybe it was his radio play War of the Worlds, confirmed Welles’s status as an artistic prodigy.

On March 19th, 1935 a riot broke out in Harlem when rumors began circulating that a black youth had been beaten and killed by police after stealing a knife from a store on 125th Street.  Three people died, 60 were injured, 75 were arrested, and there was $2,000,000 worth of property damage.  This event, or maybe it was the Great Depression, confirmed the end of the Harlem Renaissance.

Bed-Stuy, BKLYN;  The Bruce High Quality Foundation, the official arbiter of the estate of the late social sculptor, Bruce High Quality, is pleased to present Cats on Broadway, the first off-Broadway/ on Broadway (Brooklyn) pseudo-revival of the acclaimed Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Cats.

Set on the border between Bed-Stuy and Bushwick (Broadway, Brooklyn) and performed in the newly renovated Bruce High Quality Foundation Theater (1100 Broadway, Brooklyn), Cats on Broadway brings together an all-volunteer cast of performers, musicians, stagehands, and designers to reflect the emotional conflicts of the gentrification of Brooklyn while satirizing both the utopian reform schemes and self-pitying nihilism often associated with the artists responsible for gentrification’s “first wave.”

Cats on Broadway consists of a series of vignettes progressing from late at night to early morning.  Each vignette uses an original arrangement of a popular song performed by the Bruce High Quality Orchestra to situate a different character in the neighborhood (shopkeeper, minister, hoodlum, college student, prostitute, etc.) contextualizing their individual circumstances within themes of nostalgia, rage, sex, family, labor, redemption, etc. 

And everyone is dressed like a cat.

CATS ON BROADWAY

Broadway ticket promotion during stagehand strike

Ads illustrated by Jeanne Detallante

Billboard at Broadway & Dekalb, Brooklyn

BHQF mascot, “Broadway”

Starring (in order of appearance)

Patrick Cleandenim

David Karlin

Sophia Knapp

Dennis Jizzibell Palazzolo

Kathryn Kerr

Etta Beignet

Richard Saudek

Loren Kramar

Natalia Boere

Karim El-Tanamli

Matthew Robert Scratches Lutz-Kinoy

Hannah Way Rawe

Vivid Glow

Adrea Teasdale

Daisy Hoyt

Daisy Lumley

Margarett Head

Polina Belomlinskaya

The Bruce High Quality Sayonara Cat Scratch Orchestra

Crystal Pascucci, Cello

Batman Duerksen, Trumpet

Daniele Lisa Simpson Frazier, Alto Sax

Will Cotton, Tenor Sax

Eugene Paws Wasserman, Guitar

Pete Boo Berry Vale, Guitar, Piano, Triangle

Matthew 263 Sanders, Bass Guitar

Stewart Roberts, Congas

Oto Gillen, Drums

Costumes

Alli Miller

Hope Gangloff

Nellie Fleischner

Anastasia Kinigopoulo

Sam Linder

Leila Seraphin

Props

Jonah Emerson-Bell

Nick Holmes

Alan Kusov

Rainger Pinney

Christin Ripley

Make-up

Lisa Ramsey

Sound

Andrew Thomas

Coordinator

Kate Alberswerth

Silkscreen

Kyle Mosholder

Brian Von Bargen

Special Thanks to:

Lindsay Bloom

Jessie Cohen

Matt Dimon

Alana Fitzgerald

Nikolas Gelormino

Oto Gillen

Emerson Greenesmith

Beatrice Gross

William Harris

Lena Imamura

Luke Janson

Keegan Monaghan

Michael Q Shae

Courtney Smith

Revel Woodard

Julia Weist

Executive Producers

Laci Blackford

Valerie Cueto