What culture inspired the reimagining in Cats: The Jellicle Ball?

Cats: The Jellicle Ball was inspired by ballroom culture, particularly New York’s Black and Latino queer ballroom scene.

In this reimagining, the original musical’s Jellicle gathering becomes a ballroom competition. The production uses runway categories, vogue-inspired choreography, house identities and emceeing to recast the cats as members of a vibrant performance community rather than literal animals in a junkyard.

Ballroom culture developed as a space where largely Black and Latino LGBTQ+ participants could find recognition, community and creative freedom amid discrimination elsewhere. Its history reached wider audiences through the documentary Paris Is Burning and later through television series such as Pose.

The production still retains Webber’s songs and Eliot-derived characters, including Grizabella, Old Deuteronomy and Macavity. Carnival, vaudeville and cabaret may involve spectacle or performance, but they are not the cultural framework that defines The Jellicle Ball.