The Cats Soundtrack May Have Saved Us From Nuclear War
That's not enough to redeem it
As a native New Yorker, it’s no shock that President Donald J. Trump has been to a Broadway musical or two in his day. But as former Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham confirms in I’ll Take Your Questions Now, a new tell-all book, Trump isn’t just a casual fan. Much like anyone who knows who Shoshana Bean is, he is a total theater nerd.
According to the New York Times, Grisham writes that the former President’s aides “designated an unnamed White House official known as the ‘Music Man’ to play him his favorite show tunes, including “Memory” from “Cats,” to pull him from the brink of rage.”
While making it part of someone’s job description to connect to the Oval Office bluetooth speakers and play “Memory” is wild, the fact that Trump loves show tunes is not. He actually has a well-documented history of having very specific taste in musicals.
While running for president in 2016, both “Memory” and “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera were on his rally playlist. In his 2004 book Think Like A Billionaire, he wrote that his favorite musical was Evita.
So yes, like any musical theater fan who lacks taste and more than five working neurons, Trump is an Andrew Lloyd Webber stan. It makes perfect sense. Webber musicals are big and showy and require almost no intellectual rigor to comprehend. You say you didn’t understand the “plot” of Cats? Baby, there is no plot, that’s the point, just watch ‘em dance.
It’s not at all shocking that the modicum of intellectual rigor required to enjoy a Stephen Sondheim show was too much for the former President. But hopefully, just once, the “Music Man” slipped in “Being Alive” from Company just to fuck with him.
