Review by by Louis Lipps • Halifax • 2025-04-25
I attended the first presentation of Cat McCluskey’s work-in-progress, Cat: A Musical, billed as “one of five new and exciting pieces” at OUTFest’s Emerging Stage. In the program, the festival notes they are “particularly interested in supporting emerging artists and new work”.
A seasoned performer and no stranger to Halifax stages, McCluskey is a multi-disciplinary artist who has been active on stages around the city for the past decade. Performing their own worksrds, however, is new for them.
The synopsis for the piece reads:
“From the safety of their solitary tower of coziness cat watches in envy as their cat kin revel and frolic without them... but how much are they truly missing?”
McCluskey’s vocal talent is transporting; their skill as a performer demands my full attention, and the story, as she reminds us, is a working-progress: “This presentation is really my first time presenting something I've written myself for an audience” notes McCluskey from a music stand (the only set-dressing) at the top of the show.
Seeing works-in-development is a great opportunity to be part of the artist’s process and support their work in the early stages when it’s most helpful, and with an invitation to share feedback, as McCluskey does. After the first 10 minutes or, the I Want song territory, I felt like I was missing something - conceivably, it may be that I’ve not seen Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, The Musical that the show is, in McCluskey’s words, “loosely based on”.
McCluskey’s vocal talent is transporting; their skill as a performer demands my full attention
In advance of her presentation, I asked McCluskey about the genesis of her piece:
“CAT: A Musical was once going to be a one-person presentation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats where I recorded all my own backups and then performed the entire show by myself, but the amazing GaRRy Williams once asked me, ‘But what if it was a different story about one particular cat?’ From there, I developed a show that fed on my own love of Cats and how I felt during the second summer of COVID.”
Speaking to the underlying message of the show, Cat furthers,“I saw so many people in my own community - the Queer community - out at Pride and at events without masks, not seeming to care about the fact that this illness is so debilitating and not seeing the parallels between COVID and AIDS in the ways that they both directly attack our immune systems. I was at home with my first bout of COVID that Pride, wishing my community and people in general were more concerned about how to care for each other and to make sure that as a community, we could be healthy.”
As I low-key panic over what outfit I’m going to wear (who has nice clothes anymore) on Friday to the opening of Casey and Diana, a theatre piece by Nick Green which takes place at the height of the AIDS crisis, and in the midst of a binge of AIDS-themed film-watching in my leisure-time, COVID’s parallels with AIDS and the Queer community piques my interest. These themes (containing the dramatic elements of love and death) would make the story more compelling, but were missing in McCluskey’s presentation.
When asked about what’s next for Cat: A Musical, McCluskey says “it’s in its 'kitten' stage. This [is] really my first time presenting something I've written myself for an audience, so it's feeling a little wobbly still, but it feels like this is a chance for this kitten to start opening its eyes and exploring what the show truly can be.”
If McCluskey’s intentions for Cat: A Musical find a home in the script, it has the makings of a strong story. With teamwork and resources, I am confident that this “kitten” may grow to showcase the musical force that is Cat McCluskey.
Written and Performed by: Cat McCluskey
You have two more opportunities to catch this Cat, OUT in action: Saturday, April 26 at 3:15pm and Sunday, April 27 at 11am at The Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen St, Halifax, NS) Get tickets here.
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