CATS

THURSDAY JULY 10 / WEEK #5

Once the hard work of defining a character and finding their particular walk is accomplished it is amazing how fast you can progress through the different scenes of a play. These young performers have really worked hard to create believable cats, and now we can put them in Thai Cat Opera, Skimbleshanks Railway Station and even near the Heavy-Side Layer. You just have to see this show to believe it. Now all we need is make-up and tails.

KEITH ERIC DAVIS (Staging Supervisor) has been seen in theatres around Chicago including Drury Lane OakBrook/Water Tower, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, Stage Left and Lifeline. Favorites: Earth and Sky at Circle Theatre, for which he received an After Dark Award for Outstanding Performance, Ecstasy of Dragonflies, Never the Sinner and The Shadowbox, Raised in Captivity, Alice and CAST’s Inspector Hound. Other Chicago credits inlcude: Reckless, Balm in Gilead and Three Way Split, MacBett at 13th Tribe/greasy joan and co., Inspecting Carol, As You Like It and Grand Hotel. A proud member of Actor’s Equity and the Screen Actor’s Guild, Keith has appeared on Early Edition and in several commercials.

TY PERRY (Choreographer) is a graduate of OPRFHS and a professional actor/director/choreographer in the Chicago area. A former company member of Circle Theatre, Ty has also worked with The Goodman, The Illinois Theatre Center, Royal George, Bailiwick, and Pegasus Players and educational theatre companies Child’s Play, Healthworks and Imagination Theatre. Recent directing projects include musicals at Steel Beam Theatre of St. Charles and the North Shore Theatre of Wilmette. On stage, Ty was recently seen as Senetor Roland Burris in Second City’s Rod Blagojevich Superstar at Navy Pier.

FRIDAY JUNE 27 / WEEK #3

It is fun to look at the original poems which inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber to write the musical of CATS because you can almost hear the music in the verse as you read it off the page. We continue to work this week on making the words spoken or sung from the stage sound the way they do the first time you read and really understand them. We also spent a lot of time perfecting our Parent's Day presentation. And somehow in the midst of all that work, we got most of ACT ONE done at the same time. The pieces are coming together...

FRIDAY JUNE 20 / WEEK #2

The opening number consumed our whole week, but as you can see from the video above - it is one of the most important sections of the show. What fun to roll around on the actual platforms of our very own junkyard!