The Cast Of Cats: The Jellicle Ball Reps The Beyhive On Broadway

There were few better ways to kick off Pride season than by watching Cats: The Jellicle Ball take the Tony Awards stage in early June. “The audience was amazing, the energy in the room was fantastic, and just the representation — for the whole world to see that performance — was very, very special,” says Jonathan Burke, who plays Mungojerrie in the updated Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, now reimagined through the predominantly Black and Latino LGBTQ+ subculture of ballroom. At the Tony after-parties, “So many people were coming up and saying, ‘We love the show. We love your work. This is a very important moment.’”

Bringing ballroom to Broadway has been “a gift beyond my wildest dreams” for Dudney Joseph Jr., who plays the emcee-like Munkustrap and has been involved with the show since an early workshop in 2022. Prior to its run at the Broadhurst Theater, The Jellicle Ball ran off-Broadway at PAC NYC. “A lot of us in the original group were all in the same ballroom house at one time, too,” he adds. By the time they got to Broadway, the production and choreography had only gotten more fabulous: “It’s been so cool to have people see it like, ‘Oh my gosh, what you were doing downtown and what you’re doing now are completely different.’”

And while acclaim and awards — including three Tonys — are meaningful enough, external validation in the form of Zendaya may have been the true cherry on top, according to Xavier Reyes, who plays Jennyanydots. “Oh my God, that was epic,” he recalls. “She was kiki-ing with us. When celebs come to the show, it’s usually very transactional: a compliment and a photo. But she was hanging out, like, ‘Let’s talk and be normal.’ She wanted to take selfies with everyone instead of a group picture.” Below, for Bustle’s Gay Guy Music Video Night, the actors (compiled from separate interviews) convene their own Mount Rushmore of divas.

On their go-to videos:

Xavier Reyes: In college, everyone knew that if you came to my house to pregame, Beyoncé’s Live at Roseland was going to be playing. That was the mood. The album she’s performing in it, 4, is so intimate. For gay men, it encapsulates feeling sexy, feeling good, singing about your man, knowing you’re everything and just embracing your desire. She emulates a fierce drag queen, honestly.

Jonathan Burke: I would probably go with “Blow” by Beyoncé. That was a game-changing moment in music history when she released that whole self-titled visual album unknown to anyone. We all gagged. If you are a millennial of a certain age, you remember exactly where you were when it dropped. I was at home in Harlem with my partner, and we stayed up and watched the entire thing as soon as we found out. “Blow” has a nostalgia to it, a throwback feel — she’s skating in a roller rink, which brings me back to my youth in Baltimore. I used to go skating every Friday with my friends.

Dudney Joseph Jr.: Beyoncé has reigned supreme for me, whether it’s with Destiny’s Child or just her alone. If “Grown Woman” is playing, I’ll sit down. I have to watch it from beginning to end. “Get Me Bodied” is still lit. And then anything from Beyoncé on The Lion King: The Gift — I once made a date watch the entirety of The Gift.

Reyes: I wasn’t out in Puerto Rico growing up, so I learned how to be queer here in the states. But I spent COVID back in Puerto Rico, and I found myself hosting video nights with my family, and that was new for them. I would play them Beyoncé’s The Lion King: The Gift. I always throw in Britney Spears. I was a Britney superfan. Every time her CD came out, I would lipsync to her. “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” was my anthem. I had her posters in my room. How can you be a Britney Spears super fan and not be out? [Laughs.] She’s the one who informs me. I really wanted to see the Onyx Hotel Tour. I was always so jealous because I couldn’t afford tickets to fly out and see her.

Burke: I also have to put on Beyoncé doing “Déjà Vu” at the BET Awards in 2006. She came out the gate ready to eat. That was when Beyoncé was hungry to show you all that she could be. Now she doesn’t have anything to prove, but at that time, it was her second album, and she was still coming into her solo career. So she had to let the people know: I am Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. I have watched that performance so many times. Nonstop live vocals, dancing, energy.

Joseph: I always do a double-feature of “Home” from The Wiz. Whitney Houston’s first televised appearance was her doing “Home” in that purple dress, and then there’s a video of Jazmine Sullivan doing “Home” when she was in elementary school. It’s incredible to see Jazmine’s talent at such a young age. And then to see the gift and lived experience that Whitney had when she was ready to take over is so cool. Lalah Hathaway, Donny Hathaway’s daughter, is another live performance I love. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the jazz band Snarky Puppy, but they have jam sessions, and there’s one where Lalah shows off that she’s able to split her voice — she can sing two notes at the same time and harmonize with herself, which is wild.

Burke: Sometimes you’re showing a video you think people maybe haven’t watched, but usually we just put on our favorites that we all know and love: Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Victoria Monét, Chloe x Halle, Rihanna. Or Ciara or Normani — these girls who can do the dancing, too, and take the music video to another level. We watched Normani’s “Motivation” video all the time during the pandemic. And sometimes we put on D’Angelo’s “Untitled (How Does It Feel),” just because we want to see a fine man on the screen. That was a sexual awakening for many of us at that age — like, Wait a minute! I’m feeling something I’ve never felt before for this gentleman!

Reyes: Madonna is a must. I can’t wait for her new album. I think my favorite Madonna era is Hard Candy. I had just turned 18 and was on a school trip to Disney World, and I requested permission to go to Downtown Disney to the Virgin Megastore because the CD was out that day. That album really marked me.

On the culture of Gay Guy Music Video Night:

Burke: Gay Guy Music Video Night often happens before we’re going out, to get hype. It’ll usually be somewhere between five and 10 people at somebody’s apartment, and it’ll be impromptu: We’ll just be playing music and go, “Put on Beyoncé’s ‘Déjà Vu.’” We get into a flow of, Who’s going to put on something next? Let me put this on! OK, wait, what about this? And then we all reminisce on the moment. Sometimes that’s literally the whole night, and we don’t end up going out.

Joseph: Jonathan ended up having Gay Guy Music Video Night on the rooftop of his apartment the other day. It wasn’t planned — we were there to watch a movie, but afterward we passed the remote and put on the greats: Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone, Sade, Mariah Carey, Whitney, Beyoncé. I was also surprised that some of my favorite riffs or runs in certain videos were someone else’s favorite, too. It was really cool to identify what we all had in common culturally. I remember leaving his place just feeling like part of a community.

Reyes: For me, Gay Guy Music Video Night is four to five people max, ideally three people, because it’s too hard to fight over videos and fight over vibes otherwise. It has to be the good Judys that can agree: “OK, we watched that video, now let’s do this one.” Or if you don’t happen to know a video, “OK, we’ll show it to you, and you’re going to be obsessed with it.” I’m also big on lighting — the lights have to be low so that we all look good!

Joseph: We usually start with a tribute to all the divas — we’ll find a song that maybe each diva has performed, and we all submit who we think did it the best. It’s the same thing in ballroom: When you’re watching a battle, at the end we all point to who we think won. The judges panel may go the opposite way, but the room, collectively, responds, too. It’s a cool moment of visibility: We see each other. A similar thing will happen now with Jonathan and Xavier in our dressing room. We’ll be like, “Oh, did you catch that moment?” Or someone will reference some viral video, and someone else will finish the catchphrase. We didn’t grow up together. We didn’t live in the same place. But that moment landed with us all the same way. It’s beautiful when it happens.

Reyes: Gay Guy Music Video Night is so ingrained in queer culture. We’ve been doing it unconsciously, not realizing that it’s a shared experience, a shared language among the queers. I grew up in Puerto Rico in the ‘90s. TRL was part of my life. I was the only one in my household immersed in North American pop culture. But there was also this thing in Puerto Rico called Channel 12, which would play Puerto Rican music videos, and what’s crazy is the channel was also a cruising spot for the gays — there was a ticker at the bottom of the screen where you could send text messages, so you could look for other guys in the area. It was like the Grindr of that time.

Burke: Queer people have such a special relationship with the divas because they are some of the few people who really celebrate us. They welcome us into their world, and their music is often full of life and verve, vigor and sensuality. When we hear these songs, we feel like we run the world. Janet is still the queen mother to me: I’ll put on “All For You” a lot because it’s so joyous. I was coming into my queerness at that time, and she was such a champion of the queer community.

Reyes: I recently had a date, and this guy decided to show me some music videos — and I wasn’t feeling it! I was like, “Why is he showing me music videos? I’d rather talk or flirt.” He was kind of shaming me every time he was like, “Oh, you don’t know this one?” I was getting pissy so I dismissed the date. [Laughs.] Which I regret because sharing videos is kind of an act of love. He was trying to talk to me about something he cared about, and I shut it down! Sharing videos is how you get to know someone. Bad Bunny is obviously very special to me, so if I show you a Bad Bunny video, that tells you a lot about who I am and what I care for. I’m an OG Bad Bunny fan. I remember he released a song after Hurricane Maria called “Estamos Bien,” which means “we’re good.” The chorus repeats that phrase, so when the whole island had that song on repeat, you felt like there was hope. That was the moment I was like, “This dude did something special.”

On finding community:

Joseph: I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. My ballroom affiliation in Buffalo wasn’t active here in the city, so I had to start from scratch when I moved here. It’s easier to break into ballroom now because you can go to a dance class, and nine times out of 10, a house leader is running it. If you want to be a Mugler, go to Arturo’s class, you know what I mean? If he sees you and thinks there’s talent or likes your energy, you’ll get an invite to the Mugler house practice. It wasn’t that way when I was in the ballroom scene. You would have to go to the club. If you saw people voguing in the club, you tried to introduce yourself or tried to vogue as well. I don’t vogue, I walk runway, so I would look for where the runway girls were posing in the corner, working on different moves or struts, and then I’d try to get closer and show them that I could do it, too. That’s what got me into ballroom back in Buffalo: Someone pulled me aside like, “Do you walk runway?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m trying to!” And they’re like, “OK, well there’s a ball next Sunday — be here at this time.”

Burke: I’m lucky in a way, because I found my queer community doing theater — there are just so many gay guys who do theater! It’s built in there. There’s always one or two people from each show you hold onto, who become part of your community. We also introduce each other, especially as Black artists. There’s a small number of us in the arts, so we often gravitate toward each other when we see each other. When we hear of a new person coming to New York or making their Broadway debut, we find a way to welcome them and include them and get to know them, and then they become part of the community as well. And then we have Gay Guy Music Video Nights together!

Joseph: Once I got here to the city, all of a sudden I ended up in a group of five. I only knew one of them at first, but they all threw me a “welcome to New York” birthday party, and then that was it — we were just, like, the group. When somebody booked a contract in Chicago, we all got on a flight and went to see the show. We all called each other Shug, like Shug Avery from The Color Purple, and I’ve heard other gay guys, Black gay guys especially, call each other Shug as a term of endearment.

Reyes: Finding my people is an ongoing search for me as I continue evolving in this career and shedding old skins. I need to find some more good Judys because here in New York, everything is so transient — people come and go, especially post-COVID. You have to find that organic attachment: “Let’s keep hanging out, even if a hangout means sitting down and looking at our phones and talking whenever we want to with a glass of wine.” I look for people I can just chill with, and when I find those people, it’s like a magnet.

Burke: I love connecting people. I like to introduce friends of mine to other friends who don’t know each other but I think would get along. Three of my dearest friends did not know each other prior to me introducing them, but now we all talk in a group chat every day. These are my people, and they didn’t even know each other! One of them is visiting from LA — I’m literally going to get lunch with them all right now. They even have their own time together without me, too, and that’s beautiful.

Keep the Pride party going with more of Bustle’s Gay Guy Music Video Night, featuring interviews with Bowen Yang & Matt Rogers, John Early, Tove Lo, Rebecca Black, Bosco, Eric Sedeño, Myki Meeks, and Rose Gray.