WORST Performance Ever... (Cats tour)

I just got back from the performace at The Grove of Anaheim's Cats 25th Anniversary Tour. The show was supposed to start at 8, however we were told to stay in the lobby. At 8:10, they finally gave the announcement:

"We regret to say, but due to the technical difficulties and to ensure the safety of our dancers, tonight's performance of Cats will be shown in a concert style."

Gosh.. way to go... A boring show without dancing? That was just stupid. Anyway, we watched the show with some 100 other ppl (while auditorium can hold about 1200... others just left)with sad and lonely clappings after the tunes, just QUITE DEAD moments where audience didn't know whether to clap or not, and bunch of stuff. The cats who weren't singing just SAT around the theatre, doing some random hand motions... It wasn't the performers' fault, but still, how can a show get sadder than that?

It was sad... At least we got another tickets for Saturday for free...

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That sucks. I'm going Tuesday night. I hope this doesn't happen to me. Where did you sit? Do you know what the tier 4 and 5 seats are like?

explain "concert style"

did they play the full score? like w/ all the dance breaks? also, what was the reason for it? was it ever explained? "technical difficulties"?

things that could prevent dancing:

A giant hole in the stage.

The Stage was burnt in a horrible stage fire.

Someone under the stage hammered nails from the bottom up and were sticking out of the top.

All the dancers broke their legs all at once

A man in a wheel chair choregraphed that evenings production

The stage was flooded


PS- maybe the tragedy was buying tickets to CATS to begin with.

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maybe their feet went on strike.

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A dance show done concert style? Did they at least dress up? Hmmm trying to picture FOSSE without dancing, done concert style... ahh , yes...the CD!

When the tour of 42nd Street Revival came to Baltimore there was a box office workers strike, which the stage hands and costumers honored, so imagine that show with no costumes or scenery... actually,it was pretty good...

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That sounds like a nightmare to sit through. Dancing is really the only reason to actually sit through Cats in the first place. 42nd street without the sets? Strange.....I can't even imagine.

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I feel so bad for the performers! I just can't imagine seeing a concert-style performance of Cats. They couldn't even do a little dancing? Like fewer flips but some twirling or something? Seems so strange!

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"All the cats were either sitting on the rocks or standing"

Sitting on rocks?

I'm sorry I don't see what the big deal is. It's live theatre and things techniacally happen. You have no clue what goes on backstage and all the trap doors, wires, lights and ropes that are keeping things in place. Things happen all the time. It's not cool that it happened but it did. It sucks, but you got free tickets right? I'm sure if people walked out and didn't want to sit through it they would have been refunded. I think the theatre faced with a huge problem put forth a good effort and said "let's give these people SOMETHING." So they gave what they could, the score. It would have been even more dangerous to try to do parts of the dance in a different place than choreographed, ESP in a tour where you don't know the stage. I know of dancers falling into the pit anf getting concussions because of a stage being 6 inches shorter than normal. You generally don't wanna play around with that.

Yeah it sucked hardcore, but there's nothing to be done. I'd rather see that than have an dancer put their careers and possibly their lives in danger for a 2 hour show that's not that great anyway.

Erm, that's sad. Just....SAD.

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Im sorry...lol that's all I have to say. I would have left and definitely asked for a refund, but on the other hand Im sure it was quite the..experience lol! :)