Feline groovy: The Amazing Acro-Cats play The AllWays Lounge
The Amazing Acro-Cats
The AllWays Lounge
Paul Oswell
(This feature first appeared in the The Guardian US)
Backstage at the Marigny Theatre in New Orleans, cat herding is taking place – literally. The show at hand is the Amazing Acro-Cats, America’s premier touring cat circus.
We’re between matinee and evening performances, and for the human crew, turnaround is frantic. Feeding trays and water bowls need to be replenished, and treats and cuddles dispensed amid a flurry of other tasks. Polly Smith, the Acro-Cats tour booker, sound engineer and all-round cheerleader, seizes me. “OK. You’re helping,” she explains.
I’m dispatched to the tour bus, aka the Catmobile, on a hygienic mission. I’m not sure my professional life will ever again approach the heady glamour of those 45 minutes spent wiping out a dozen litter trays complete with collateral kitty mess. I imagined my work akin to housekeepers negotiating a recently vacated Led Zeppelin hotel suite.
My duties complete, I join Polly in the sound booth and meet the astonishingly esoteric Acro-Cat team. Polly is a former music booker from Austin. Seunga Park is a stage assistant and an MBA-qualified former financial news journalist. Matthew Tilley is also an assistant and the warm-up comedian. They all say things like “I need this right meow” and “Are you kitten me?”, so I quickly learn that to work in this team, you have to love cat puns.
Samantha Martin, the founder and ringleader, has been touring the show since 2005. She’s an animal trainer who upgraded from a rat circus, and created the show to keep her stable of animals sharp between TV and commercial work. Her cats are trained via a clicker and reward system, and as the show begins amid climbing frames and rope walkways, the felines turn all manner of cute gymnastic and athletic tricks. Everywhere you look, there’s a cat doing something adorable. It’s essentially the internet, but live.
The family-heavy audience are transfixed. Martin mixes showbiz razzle-dazzle with information on cat training and animal welfare, even including a trained chicken called Cluck Norris and an anonymous groundhog. The crowd cheer every appearance by talismanic star Tuna, and gasp as agile Ally recreates her Guinness World Record longest cat jump.
The show climaxes with the Rock Cats, a six piece caterwaul of sound, with strummed toy guitars and pounded miniature keyboards and drum kits, all backed by Cluck Norris pecking a tambourine (Vice magazine, with only a hint of irony, dubbed them the most punk rock band of the last 20 years).
In the sound booth, Polly tells me that she met Samantha through mutual friends on MySpace, and booked the first Acro-Cats shows in Austin, leading to bookings in Portland and Seattle. “I told Sam that she had to take me with her. I just never got off the bus.” Polly tells me that back in Austin she used to book avant-garde “noise” music bands. “I do sometimes think to myself: ‘What am I doing with my life?’ Though I guess in some strange way, I'm still booking a noise music band.”
After the show, Polly talks me through the cats’ personality quirks. Nola is a kitten, and is the newest arrival. “Nola has this weird accent,” says Polly. “She thinks she’s British but she’s from East LA.” I nod. The cast and crew will sleep on the bus before heading to Florida the next day. They clock up to around 200 shows a year across North America. “Our tours follow the good weather,” Polly says. “We get small breaks of two weeks at a time, but we’re on the road a lot.”
Samantha, who is based in Chicago, fosters and adopts numerous cats. I ask her if this cat-focused life leaves time for a social life. “Well, you can only hide the fact that you own that many cats for so long from someone you are dating,” she says with a smile. “Three months at most, in my experience.”
During the show, the cats – being cats – sometimes do whatever they want, including wandering out into the audience. For the most part, though, they display uncharacteristic levels of discipline. Samantha says her techniques can be used at home, and she sells the clicker training system at their shows. “All cats can be trained,” she says. “Some cats are more motivated than others to learn, though. They have different skill sets.”
As we load the bus, Samantha talks about expanding the band to an orchestra, perhaps even with a cat singer. “And I’d like to find a steady theatre for when I’m tired of travelling,” she says. I ask her if she thinks the internet has reached peak cat. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Never!”
I text Polly the next day, the Catmobile trundling its way to Florida. “Thanks for showing me around,” I type. A couple minutes later, I get a message back. It simply says: “Meow.” I guess that means everything is fine.
The Amazing Acro-Cats play at The AllWays Lounge, December 1-18.
The AllWays Lounge
Paul Oswell
(This feature first appeared in the The Guardian US)
Backstage at the Marigny Theatre in New Orleans, cat herding is taking place – literally. The show at hand is the Amazing Acro-Cats, America’s premier touring cat circus.
We’re between matinee and evening performances, and for the human crew, turnaround is frantic. Feeding trays and water bowls need to be replenished, and treats and cuddles dispensed amid a flurry of other tasks. Polly Smith, the Acro-Cats tour booker, sound engineer and all-round cheerleader, seizes me. “OK. You’re helping,” she explains.
I’m dispatched to the tour bus, aka the Catmobile, on a hygienic mission. I’m not sure my professional life will ever again approach the heady glamour of those 45 minutes spent wiping out a dozen litter trays complete with collateral kitty mess. I imagined my work akin to housekeepers negotiating a recently vacated Led Zeppelin hotel suite.
My duties complete, I join Polly in the sound booth and meet the astonishingly esoteric Acro-Cat team. Polly is a former music booker from Austin. Seunga Park is a stage assistant and an MBA-qualified former financial news journalist. Matthew Tilley is also an assistant and the warm-up comedian. They all say things like “I need this right meow” and “Are you kitten me?”, so I quickly learn that to work in this team, you have to love cat puns.
Samantha Martin, the founder and ringleader, has been touring the show since 2005. She’s an animal trainer who upgraded from a rat circus, and created the show to keep her stable of animals sharp between TV and commercial work. Her cats are trained via a clicker and reward system, and as the show begins amid climbing frames and rope walkways, the felines turn all manner of cute gymnastic and athletic tricks. Everywhere you look, there’s a cat doing something adorable. It’s essentially the internet, but live.
The family-heavy audience are transfixed. Martin mixes showbiz razzle-dazzle with information on cat training and animal welfare, even including a trained chicken called Cluck Norris and an anonymous groundhog. The crowd cheer every appearance by talismanic star Tuna, and gasp as agile Ally recreates her Guinness World Record longest cat jump.
The show climaxes with the Rock Cats, a six piece caterwaul of sound, with strummed toy guitars and pounded miniature keyboards and drum kits, all backed by Cluck Norris pecking a tambourine (Vice magazine, with only a hint of irony, dubbed them the most punk rock band of the last 20 years).
In the sound booth, Polly tells me that she met Samantha through mutual friends on MySpace, and booked the first Acro-Cats shows in Austin, leading to bookings in Portland and Seattle. “I told Sam that she had to take me with her. I just never got off the bus.” Polly tells me that back in Austin she used to book avant-garde “noise” music bands. “I do sometimes think to myself: ‘What am I doing with my life?’ Though I guess in some strange way, I'm still booking a noise music band.”
After the show, Polly talks me through the cats’ personality quirks. Nola is a kitten, and is the newest arrival. “Nola has this weird accent,” says Polly. “She thinks she’s British but she’s from East LA.” I nod. The cast and crew will sleep on the bus before heading to Florida the next day. They clock up to around 200 shows a year across North America. “Our tours follow the good weather,” Polly says. “We get small breaks of two weeks at a time, but we’re on the road a lot.”
Samantha, who is based in Chicago, fosters and adopts numerous cats. I ask her if this cat-focused life leaves time for a social life. “Well, you can only hide the fact that you own that many cats for so long from someone you are dating,” she says with a smile. “Three months at most, in my experience.”
During the show, the cats – being cats – sometimes do whatever they want, including wandering out into the audience. For the most part, though, they display uncharacteristic levels of discipline. Samantha says her techniques can be used at home, and she sells the clicker training system at their shows. “All cats can be trained,” she says. “Some cats are more motivated than others to learn, though. They have different skill sets.”
As we load the bus, Samantha talks about expanding the band to an orchestra, perhaps even with a cat singer. “And I’d like to find a steady theatre for when I’m tired of travelling,” she says. I ask her if she thinks the internet has reached peak cat. She doesn’t miss a beat. “Never!”
I text Polly the next day, the Catmobile trundling its way to Florida. “Thanks for showing me around,” I type. A couple minutes later, I get a message back. It simply says: “Meow.” I guess that means everything is fine.
The Amazing Acro-Cats play at The AllWays Lounge, December 1-18.