Like a sneaky feline, the musical Cats crawled into Vulture Festival’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch event. The Hed-heads, as Darren Criss calls them, gathered for a 24th anniversary concert featuring composer Stephen Trask, Broadway music director Justin Craig, Tony–winning former Yitzhak (and Hedwig) Lena Hall, and former Hedwig Criss (who, ever committed, sipped a vermouth on the rocks). And Hall revealed that the first time she experienced the magic of Hedwig, at the Jane Street Theatre, she was performing in Cats. “I didn’t know musical theater could be that,” she said of Hedwig. But as for Cats? “I loved being in it, but I wouldn’t go and see it.” Hall played Demeter — “not that anyone would know,” she joked of the part, which took a backseat to Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina in the 2019 film. “Very unfortunate,” she continued. “Not Taylor Swift, just the movie.” (Criss, for his part, “had one of the greatest cinematic experiences of my life seeing that movie,” thanks to being “kind of enhanced” during a late-night screening.)
And while we’re spilling showbiz secrets: Yitzhak’s big number, “The Long Grift,” was assigned to the character on Broadway in hopes of enticing a big star like Hall for the role. “John [Cameron Mitchell] was like, ‘You know, if we give Yitzhak this song, then it can attract a more talented actor who might know that they can get a Tony nomination doing this song,” Trask revealed, after rocking the song with Hall. “And it worked, and she got a fuckin’ Tony. For hitting that note.”
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