Laura Cable

Cats Credits
US Tour 5 - 03/2010 - Swing (cover Jellylorum, Jennyanydots)

US Tour 5 - November 5, 2010 - June 19, 2011 - Jellylorum / Griddlebone

US Tour 6 - TBD

2010
LAURA CABLE (Jellylorum) is thrilled to spend a second year with Cats! National Tours: Flat Stanley and Disney's Cinderella. BFA: NYU. Love to the Cables and endless thanks to God for the opportunity to tell this story.

Credits

 * My Fair Lady - Eliza Doolittle
 * The Little Mermaid - Ursula
 * The Sound of Music - Elsa Schraeder
 * Damn Yankees (National Tour) - Meg Boyd
 * August: Osage County - Karen Weston
 * CATS (White Plains PAC) - Jellylorum
 * Guys and Dolls - General Matilda B. Cartwright
 * Mary Poppins - Ensemble
 * Victor/Victoria - Performer

Interview
Fur ball at the Frauenthal: 'Cats' coming to Muskegon - mlive.com, Nov 11, 2010.

MUSKEGON — Some local Catholics might spot a new face at Mass this Sunday.

Laura Cable won't be sporting whiskers and a tail. The native of the Detroit suburb of Troy reserves that costume and makeup for playing the operatic Jellylorum in "Cats," a touring production playing the Frauenthal on Saturday.

But "when I'm on the road, I go to mass every Sunday," Cable, a devout Catholic, said earlier this month by phone from St. Charles, Mo.

"I just find a different church and I find a way to worship every week, (usually) before our matinees. It has completely kept me grounded all these years that I've been on the road."

Cable's road trip is at four years and counting. After the 2002 graduate of Troy Athens High School finished New York University in 2006, she embarked on a career that has taken her not only throughout the U.S., but also to China, Poland and Great Britain.

Now she's on her second annual tour with "Cats," the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that broke Broadway performance records after debuting in 1982. Adapted from T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats," and best known for spawning the hit song "Memory," "Cats" played 7,485 performances at the Winter Garden theater in New York City.

The show's story leads up to one of the feline characters being rewarded with a second chance at life. The cat, named Grizabella, rises from the setting that one critic described as "a nocturnal junkyard ... collage of outsized rubbish .. as seen from a cat's-eye perspective, upward to whatever comes next."

"There's definitely a transcendent quality to the show," Cable said. "I don't think that someone would watch the show and say this is a Christian show or this is a Buddhist show. I don't think anyone would put a label on it."

"But the entire premise of the 2 1/2 hours that you're at the theater is about one cat being chosen to start life again. ... You can't help but look to what happens after you leave this world, because it's sort of what the entire story is about."

"Cats" crawls with, well, cats. Each performer is costumed as a singular feline character. Each has his or her personality revealed through appearance, movement and song.

In 1997, "Cats" usurped "A Chorus Line" as the longest-running show in Broadway history. Its influence on the Broadway landscape was significant. "Cats" set the proverbial stage for an onslaught of spectacular musical theater overwhelming shows of content. Blockbusters that followed included "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Lion King."

Lloyd Webber reportedly conceived and wrote "Cats" after reading and digesting Eliot's thin volume of poems. Originally choreographed by Gillian Lynne and having lyrics from Eliot's book and the original director, Trevor Nunn, "Cats" went on to win seven Tony Awards on Broadway, including Best Musical.

Cable's main moment in the spotlight comes in Act II, when her Jellylorum, a grown cat who mothers kittens, duets back in time with the aged Old Gus, the theater cat. The two are transported into the past, aboard a pirate ship where Gus relives his glory days on the stage.

Cable is no stranger to West Michigan. Also a violinist, she attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp as a middle schooler.

Her plans in Muskegon call for some sightseeing.

"That part of the state is so beautiful," she said. "I'm looking forward to showing everybody (in the cast) around."

"Cats" is a demanding show, sometimes requiring five performances over a three-day weekend. Performers must sing, dance and act.

Given that and the indigenous rigors of the road, Cable said, just how much longer she stays with "Cats" remains uncertain.

"After this year, I have no idea if there'll be another year of 'Cats' in me," she said.

"I'm just keeping my mind open and seeing how the body feels after this season. I love this show. It's an absolute dream to play this role. I've wanted to play this show since I was a little girl, so I'm not ready to jump ship anytime soon. It's been a dream."

Cable said her parents will travel from Troy to see her perform in Muskegon. They'll be part of an audience in which, Cable said, people will witness a performance that means something beyond itself, especially after the ascension of Grizabella.

What anyone takes from "Cats," Cable said, depends on their beliefs.

"Every night, when we’re watching her ascend, I'm definitely watching the cat go to Heaven, in my mind, in my world, in my experiences in life," Cable said.

"I know that people in the audience that have had different experiences will watch that and will gather different things from it, which is also really cool because some people watch that and go, oh, reincarnation ..."

" ... So that's just a really neat thing about theater. You can go and you sit in this dark room for two hours and you’re transported somewhere."

"And sometimes you don't even know where it is. But you know that you’re going on a journey somewhere."