Arts

In an exclusive interview, Buckley, who won a Tony Award for the role, meets Moore, who plays the character in a reimagining that just opened on Broadway.

She stands apart, mocked, despised, and rejected, as all the other feline showoffs in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s legendary musical CATS leap and lark merrily around to songs like “Mr Mistoffelees” and “Macavity: The Mystery Cat.” In her long, matted coat, with her face barely visible, Grizabella doesn’t know her place in this slinky band of brightly costumed renegades.

Near the end of act one, Grizabella tentatively strikes up her famous aria, “Memory”—one of the best-known songs in musical theater—but it is not until the end of act two when “The Glamour Cat” unleashes it and herself full-throttle.

In the raucous, moving reimagining CATS: The Jellicle Ball—which places CATS in the world of LGBTQ Black and Latino Ballroom culture—“Memory” acquires a sharpened power. First mounted to raves at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in 2024 (where the show won an Obie Award), Jellicle Ball opened Tuesday night on Broadway to a matching set of reviews. Lloyd Webber thanked the company for “daring to do such a fantastic version of CATS on Broadway,” declaring its “courageous” vision “like nothing I’ve ever seen,” particularly so because of how it positions the identity and story of Grizabella herself.

As performed by “Tempress” Chasity Moore, “Memory” becomes a stirring anthem to the marginalized—trans and queer elders specifically—here not forgotten or erased but celebrated center stage.

Today, in a candid conversation, two Grizabellas meet for the first time. Broadway legend Betty Buckley played her in the 1982 Broadway production of the musical for 18 months, winning the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. (Also known for film and TV roles, like the gym teacher in Carrie, Buckley returns for her annual six-show residency at the Public Theater’s Joe’s Pub April 24-26.) Moore, discovered by the director Tyler Perry, began singing in church at the age of five, and honed her own singing and performance within the world of Ballroom.

How is performing “Memory” every night?

“Tempress” Chasity Moore: It’s emotional. I used to be scared because it’s such a popular song. Everyone else in this show has such happy times, then when I come in it’s like doom. I have to bring those emotions every night, in “Memory” there’s a lot of pain and comfort. You’re remembering good and bad times, and you’re coming behind someone as popular as Betty, who has done such amazing things.

Betty Buckley: Thank you, you’re so kind. I saw you at your first preview at PAC. You were so great, I love this version of the show, it’s so fantastic and the audience is so excited. How are you feeling?

TCM: A lot of excitement, it’s very scary too. I try to live in the present. Betty, I read that you watched women on the streets to learn how to maneuver and move. I looked at some of the women from the Ballroom scene who had become unhoused and maybe fallen into drugs. I also had my own experiences, things I went through myself, to really lock into those things.

BB: When I first got it, I thought it was a large part. I had not seen the entire show before. You sing “Memory” in CATS, it has to be a big part, right? [Director] Trevor Nunn wanted me lurking in the wings when I wasn’t on stage, always present. I soon realized Grizabella was only on stage for 13 minutes—but then you have such an impact with this one song, and Grizabella’s story is the thread running through the show. I remember being terrified during previews and overwhelmed before opening. They didn’t tell me until the last minute that the critics were there. Then my microphone broke. Then the replacement mike broke. My dresser told me to go down to the front-of-stage microphones and “sing like you did when you were 12.”

TCM: One night, my make-up clogged my microphone. Things happen.

Everyone else is having such a good time, Grizabella seems isolated and alone. Does that echo in the experience of playing her?

TCM: It is kind of isolating, but I make sure I connect with the other cast members. The isolation does give you time to build the character and emotions.

BB: I agree. In our eight weeks before previews, Trevor set it up so that I was always alone in one rehearsal room working on “Memory.” He told me Grizabella was the pariah of the tribe. People forgot why I was there. Together as a group, when we would raise our hands to ask questions, he always ignored me. Everyone started ignoring me. It was part of the process of making Grizabella a pariah. I love them all so much, and was so proud of the work we did. I remember when we ran through “Memory” the first time, the cast was moved. Trevor said, “Remember how you feel right now. Recreate it in the performance.” The job assignment singing “Memory” in CATS is similar to being the placekicker in American football. You come out and score the final three points to help win the game.

TCM: Grizabella is the heart of the show.

What’s the key to singing “Memory”?

TCM: At the beginning, I wanted to make sure I was coming in on the right note. I don’t have a tremendous background in music, and I was doing this very popular song. You have to be focused and believe in yourself. The range of people who connect to it is amazing—I’ve spoken to 10-year-olds and 80-year-olds. One woman told me her husband had passed away. She was so angry she couldn’t let it go, but once she heard me sing “Memory” she was able to remember the good times.

When I sing “Memory,” I want to tell Grizabella’s story, and for people in the audience to remember the good times in their lives, and for anyone who has ever felt othered to feel me. There is so much going on with anti-trans legislation right now, with trans people like myself being vilified, in that moment I feel it is my job to humanize and show the nuances of our experiences. I’m overcoming a lot to be on Broadway. I am a 51-year-old Black trans woman who has been in the world and had to survive. A lot of that is going through my mind as I sing “Memory.”

BB: That’s so beautiful. I think of Grizabella as my soulmate and teacher. Before I played her, I had this dream of bringing some really authentic, psychologically truthful storytelling to Broadway musical theater. Some actresses had done it, but not to the degree I wanted to. I studied hard. When I was 13 I had this vision of how I would sing as a grown up and move people, and I was 35 when I played Grizabella. I can’t believe you’re doing it at 51, Tempress! I had to be so strong to do that song and to deliver that body of emotion eight times a week. You have to train like a world-class athlete to sing “Memory.”

I was a meditator, praying constantly, asking for guidance, which came in the most exquisite way with a homeless woman who crossed my path [and] who liked like Grizabella with wild makeup and hair. What I saw was tremendous grace and dignity. That’s what was missing from my performance, and I was so grateful to be the instrument of that message. Instead of asking for love from the audience as a pitiful appeal, I got rid of the self-pity altogether, and I hope instead affirmed the unity of our humanity. People went nuts and loved it.

One thing you both share is starting singing young at church.

TCM: I was very young when my grandmother took me to my first musical, Mama, I Want to Sing, Off-Broadway. I was like, “Oh, that’s what I’m going to be doing.” Prior to that I was in the church choir. I was loud and wrong. I had a voice, but I think I was tone-deaf, which was weird because my dad’s side of the family had perfect pitch—they could have been The Jackson 5. When I started singing solos, I was taught to sing on key.

BB: At 11, my mother took me to see my first piece of musical theater, The Pajama Game, at Casa Mañana in Fort Worth, Texas. The number “Steam Heat” was an epiphany: the energy it forced through the top of my head made me know this was what I was going to be doing for the rest of my life. I sang in church and junior choirs. I kept being put in the back row, with the teachers admonishing me, “Blend in, Betty Lynn.” But when I listened to musical theater cast albums I thought, There’s a purpose for girls with loud voices. I’m one of those girls.

This is the first time you have both met. What would you like to say to each other, Grizabella to Grizabella?

TCM: I want to say thank you, Betty. Thank you for all your hard work and talent, for providing the blueprint and paving the way. If there wasn’t you, there would be no me. I wouldn’t be able to do this reimagination. Thank you for being so graceful. This conversation has been a blessing.

BB: Tempress, your interpretation is so unique and so fresh. I really feel the power of your purpose in the show. I’m in awe of the spiritual timing of this interpretation coming to mainstream Broadway at a time when it’s so needed in the world—to remind us of the unity of our reality and truth of our existence, and that we are all one humanity. I’ll see you on opening night!