Why ‘CATS: The Jellicle Ball’ Is a Dream Confirmed for its Transfemme Stars

“Tempress” Chasity Moore, Garnet Williams and Teddy Wilson Jr. discuss their journeys to Broadway in this game-changing revival  

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Trans representation isn’t just a feature of the Harlem Ballroom reimagining of CATS: The Jellicle Ball, currently strutting the runway at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theatre; it’s the production’s mission. As the US government wages a massive campaign against the transgender community—last week’s Supreme Court ruling about trans athletes is just the latest in a series of troubling civil rights setbacks—the show actively challenges the harmful narratives being spread. Dehumanization relies on ignorance, and visibility shatters ignorance.

Directed by Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch and choreographed by Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons, who all won Tony Awards for their work, this radiant reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical replaces felines with an explosion of queer joy and artistic innovation. CATS: The Jellicle Ball isn’t a commercial coopting of an underground scene for profit. Instead, the production places transfemme folks in the spotlight, a welcome step forward for these talented performers who have long been disenfranchised or mischaracterized in mainstream entertainment.

While there had already been a handful of trans performers on Broadway, The Jellicle Ball is a landmark of expanded representation. For the first time, transfemme performers can see themselves command the theatre industry’s biggest stage in all their glory. That’s something many stars of The Jellicle Ball longed for when they were starting out.

“Tempress” Chasity Moore, who plays the “Memory”-belting Grizabella, is a veteran of the Ballroom scene who appeared on Pose and competed on Star Search. Recalling her early years as an aspiring performer pre-transition, she admits, “I didn’t have any role models back then. The girls who were out were stealth, so I didn’t know what ‘the other side’ would look like for me.”

Meanwhile Garnet Williams, who plays Bombalurina, says her professors at college encouraged her to emulate Billy Porter and Tituss Burgess rather than embrace her true self. Teddy Wilson Jr., who portrays Sillabub, also felt pushed into a “Black boy track.” As she explains: “I want to be seen across the board. Couldn’t the people running our program be a little bit more creative?”

Everything changed for Wilson when she defied her teacher’s wishes and sang “Mister Snow” from Carousel for her sophomore studio’s Golden Age Week—her transfemme identity could no longer be denied.

Williams was also committed to finding her niche in the industry. She became a voracious theatrical researcher and became particularly enamored with the work of Audra McDonald. “I said to my voice teacher: ‘I know [my professors] want me to sing Nicely-Nicely [in Guys and Dolls] a million times, but I’m actually a soprano,'” recalls Williams. Initially, her vocal coach was confused. Then Williams sang “Your Daddy’s Son,” one of McDonald’s big numbers from Ragtime. Suddenly, her teacher understood. “In so many ways, what I am and how I do things is inconceivable to people,” says Williams. “And that meant I had to first conceive it myself.”

Convincing their professors was only the first step. Once they began auditioning, these transfemme performers encountered a system rigid in its typecasting and brutal in its dismissal. “It was a mirror of life for me,” Moore says. “It was hard for me to be as male presenting as people wanted me to be.” She felt that she faced a terrible decision: transition or work. She was unable to envision a future where she could book performing gigs and be her authentic self.

Williams had similar experiences. “The roadblock is not just the system, but also the people in the system,” she says, recalling an audition early in her transition when she was sorted with the male dancers at a callback. Thankfully, Williams felt comfortable enough to ask to join the group that better aligned with her identity, and the director agreed. But when she stepped into the female dance call, she was met with the judgmental stares of her fellow auditioners. “Not only were there people behind the table looking at me like I’d grown three heads, but all of the other ladies, too,” she recalls. “It was quite a time.”

For both Williams and Moore, the closed-mindedness of the theatre industry forced them to pursue other opportunities. Moore hadn’t appeared onstage in more than two decades when she took her first bow as Grizabella, initially downtown at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in 2024 before the production transferred to Broadway. Williams says the popularity of the TV series Pose, which centered on the 1980s Ballroom scene and featured many trans performers, helped open doors, but only a sliver. “When it comes to women of trans experience, especially darker-skinned ones, they only want to see us in Ballroom or drag,” she says. 

While all three performers are thrilled to be modeling what’s possible for the next generation of transfemme performers, they see The Jellicle Ball as just the start of a movement. They know there’s a lot more work to be done, especially when it comes to casting and storytelling.

“I would definitely love my story to be told,” says Moore. “I would love for us to be able to tell more trans stories because they’re not out there. They stifle us in such a way because you only really see us playing certain kinds of parts. I would love to see us do different things.” 

Wilson agrees. “I want to be the Broadway darling: the ingenue!” she says, noting that Sillabub functions in that role in The Jellicle Ball. “I would love to do Ti Moune in Once on This Island and Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors. But I think my dream role is Cinderella in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical. I just think the story would be so beautiful and elevated in a different way.” 

Ever the Audra fan, Williams has her eye on a part the six-time Tony winner reinvented on Broadway: Lizzie in 110 in the Shade. “I just think the story of a woman who’s been tossed aside then discovers her beauty would be very powerful for me,” she says. “I would love to do Clara in The Light in the Piazza. It’s exactly how I sing—it’s in that perfect pocket in my range.” 

Ultimately, they all see CATS: The Jellicle Ball as more than just a show, it’s a perspective-shifting experience for the cast and the audience. And that’s how transformational change—in the theatre industry and society—starts. “Everybody keeps saying CATS is the revolution,” says Wilson. “Okay, so let’s start doing some revolution.”

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