Interview: Director Zhailon Levingston on Redefining the Bounds of Theater in Cats: The Jellicle Ball and More

In the world of theater, Zhailon Levingston stands out as an innovative new director whose work challenges and expands the boundaries of performance. With a keen ability to blend storytelling and audience engagement, Levingston has captivated us with his recent hit productions Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Table 17 by Douglas Lyons. Here, Levingston reflects on the creative journey behind these shows, offering insights into the unexpected moments that shaped their success, as well as the importance of the communal experience within the auditorium.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I’m sure you’ve gotten this a lot lately, but Cats: The Jellicle Ball was one of the most joyous nights I have had in a theater in a long time.
People were always like, “How’d y’all come up with it? What was the moment?” And it’s like, there wasn’t a moment. It was just constant talking and working for years around the idea. There were things that feel central to moments in the show that weren’t discovered until day three of tech. So, we were just as surprised by how much impact the show was able to have, I think, as the audiences.

We definitely did not go into previews being like “Look at what we did.” It was, “What is going to happen?” and “Did we get away with it?” For so long, it felt like something we got away with. These things take a very long time, and you can be well into working on it without knowing if the plug will be pulled. There were workshops and readings where we were still like “Are they going to really let us do it?” By the end of the run, it kind of seemed like this inevitable thing that worked.

Where did the seed of the idea start?
The seed of the idea started with [codirector] Bill Rauch in his artistic director capacity at PAC-NYC. He tells this story of having the image of an older gay man in a gay bar singing “Memory.” He brought the idea to Josie Kearns, who is a gender consultant, and very quickly they realized that, just based on the text, it’s not a gay bar, we are in a Ball. From there, everyone else got called in. Omari Wiles brought in Arturo Lyons to be his co-choreographer. Me and Bill got linked up very early in the workshopping process. The family kept expanding and we kept learning how massive a project this thing actually was.

What were the parameters that Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Really Useful Group gave you?
It was a bit longer and messier of a process in realizing that the parameter was the score needs to stay virtually intact. We started working on the show assuming we would reimagine all the music. And then we learned that reimagining all the music isn’t actually adapting the script, because for Cats, the script is the score. If you completely change the score, you’re doing another show. The existential question became “Can you do Vogue and ballroom moves to the score?” Could this work without it seeming out of place? I remember the moment of looking at Arturo and Omari and realizing that something new and emergent was happening with the ballroom choreography and the score coming together. That was the beginning of making the show work.

What was the point in the process where you all realized it was becoming bigger than everyone?
I can’t overstate how much we had no clue. I remember the first audience going crazy for it and being like “That’s because it’s friends and family. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.” Tomorrow, everyone freaked out. And then I was like “Yeah, but let’s see what happens when it’s a matinee crowd.” And it was the loudest matinee I’d ever been a part of. “We’ll see what happens when it’s all white audiences. How ’bout that?” They lost their minds.

Speaking personally for me, it took a while. There were people who I think sniffed out its impact early on. Our props designer was like “Y’all, we are doing a thing.” It was well into previews before I could accept that the show worked, and a little longer to accept that there were ripples happening outside of the theater. That’s ultimately my biggest marker of success: Can something we do here resonate out in the world?

I loved how communal Cats and your next show, Table 17 at MCC, felt.
With Table 17, the main character ended up being the audience. That’s what’s so sneaky about it as an event. It’s a show that really needs you there. MCC has a very long preview process. The audiences were engaged, but they were also so different. We had to figure out how to calibrate it where we could control whose side people were on. Sometimes they were team Dallas [played by Biko Eisen-Martin] and sometimes they were team Jada [played by Kara Young], and that became one of the fun games for me and Douglas to play.

Throughout the run, there’d be moments where the audience would be quick to judge, and the show allows you to have mob mentality about it. It knows you’re going to, and so in the next moment, it complicates it and changes it. It’s actually working on a really deep socio-political level.

There were so many people who saw the show who were like “I don’t know why I booed in that moment, but I did.” If more theater allowed space for audiences and voices to be in the room like that, we’d have a greater barometer for where we are as a society in any one moment.

How does Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside), which you’re codirecting this week at BAM with Rachel Chavkin, fit into all of that?
It’s a great question, and it’s something I’ve been asking myself in the room. Reconstructing is a piece that exists on multiple levels of meta-ness. There’s fiction in the piece, but also real history, and it’s also about what it means to make the piece itself. The vulnerability and delicateness of the material, and the courage of the performers, will create this malleable fourth wall in the room where people are hearing a story, but never forgetting that they’re watching something happen.

That’s the kind of thing I’m always trying to be part of. Not just immersive, let me make you think you’re on Mars, but, can I give you a theater that gives you choices in the room? Can you lean in and experience the piece deeper and deeper, or make the choice to lean out? Can the piece be strong enough not to need you?

And if we can be in a room together where people are leaning in and leaning out together with the piece, then it’s jazz.