I think about how we can’t always live in the moment because moments pass, and when we’re lucky, we have the kind of moments that we can’t help wanting to go back to. We think about them, remember how they felt, and when more time passes we tell stories of these moments that are worth reliving.
— Dana Reinhardt, How to Build a House
When I was six my parents surprised me one half term with a trip to see Cats the musical in the West End. I fell in love - though according to my parents they didn't realise it had made much of an impression at the time. My awed silence meant that, not long after, when I saw an advert for the video production, I had to beg my mum to buy me a copy. She was unconvinced I would watch it, but I proceeded to prove her wrong every weekend for a good few years afterwards - and I longed to be able to see it live again. I was lucky enough to return to the West End once more the year before it closed there, and saw a few shows of UK Tours in the years following, but it wasn't until the tour of 2006 that I discovered a whole new dimension to going to see the show I loved after my dad's casual suggestion that I might like to go to the stage door one night when it was in my hometown. The possibility seemed wild and improbable to me; could these amazing, talented humans really just...leave the theatre every night? Could they really ever speak to mere mortals like me?! As it turned out, they did and they could, and once I had met them and been able to share my love of the show with them I simply longed to be able to see them again and again, to watch the tour change and grow and get to see every aspect of my favourite show again and again, and also follow those wonderful people who had been a part of it once they left the tribe for new shows, all the while finding new stories everywhere, adventuring up and down the country to make new memories and have more fantastical nights in beautiful theatres before tumbling out into the coolness of the night outside to have wonderful conversations with lovely and luminous people. The theatre is about the things I love most: stories, magic and wonder, and it is as close as most people ever come to impossible, incredible things. In the dark of an auditorium, it always seems as if truly anything can happen, and everything is so heightened and beautiful - there is simply never the same night twice. To me, spending time in a theatre is an event in itself, and I don't think there are many experiences which quite compare to a live show, and there is something hazy and delightful about that feeling when the final notes of the orchestra disappate, yet you know your night is far from over as you excitedly make your way around to see what more magic you can find at the stage door.

The Stage Doors of Cats the Musical

From 2006 when my stage door adventure begin after a performance of Cats to all the casts I have been lucky enough to see since in the many iterations of the Jellicle Tribe who have come and gone since my stage door journey first began; Cats is the show which first made me fall in love with the theatre and to make me fall in love with stage door; see me surprise Carbuckettys, be won over by understudies and always find room in my heart for more Jellicles even as Cats goes through its many iterations from tours to revivals.

The Stage Doors of Other Shows

I don't always like to simply say goodbye just because a Jellicle leaves the Junkyard; after meeting so many wonderful and talented people at the stage door of Cats I wanted to keep supporting them once they left the show, and as a result I have since found myself at the stage doors of many other wild and wonderful shows from West End productions to UK tours, to tiny off-West End venues and even a pantomime.
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