A Day in Missy Mode at Cats: The Jellicle Ball

By Missy

Hi again, readers!

I recently had the pleasure of spending an entire day in “Missy mode” when I had the chance to attend Cats: The Jellicle Ball on Broadway with close friends and their daughters.

If you are unfamiliar with the musical, it is a revival of the classic Cats, reimagined within the world of 1980s New York City LGBTQ+ ballroom culture. The songs and characters are the same as the original, but the new setting, apropos costuming and choreography — including runway strutting, voguing and other ballroom-style “competitions” — shift the storyline in a fresh and exciting direction.

You can find details at: https://catsthejellicleball.com/. It is also worth mentioning that Cats: The Jellicle Ball deservedly won Tony Awards for Best Costume Design, Choreography and Directing.

Now for my backstory.

Back in the spring, I decided to treat my friends to a performance of Mrs. Doubtfire: The Musical in New Haven. Unfortunately, a family emergency prevented me from attending, so they ended up using the tickets themselves. They are big theatergoers and enjoyed the show, but they said they still wanted to attend a musical with Missy. To make it up to me, they invited me to Cats: The Jellicle Ball. Once I researched what the musical was about, I wholeheartedly agreed.

As Femulate readers might remember from Stana’s posting of my 2026 prom experience this past June, these good friends have also acted as my fashion consultants. In fact, they had already picked out what I should wear to Broadway for this show.

Who was I to argue?

The dress did indeed fit the vibe of the show. A couple of days before our trip, my wife helped me pick out the appropriate jewelry: dangling earrings, a small choker necklace and a few gold and green rings, later supplemented by a cute rhinestone-studded cat pin from my friends. We also settled on shoes — gold 4.5-inch Calvin Klein sandals I found dirt cheap at Savers — and a neutral/gold makeup palette. Plus, with some patience that morning, I was even able to get false eyelashes to attach properly, which is something that usually gives me trouble!

I tried to coerce my wife into attending, but she is neither a big-city gal nor a musical-lover, so it was a hard pass. Thus, I would be attending with my friends and their three teenage daughters, who had already spent time with me as Missy once before.

In my experience, most teenagers tend to be pretty open-minded and accepting, and these three barely batted a false eyelash at my presentation. They were very complimentary, and the whole family’s ability to see nothing unusual whatsoever made for a very comfortable day.

Although she did not want to attend the show, my wife made a delicious brunch for all of us before we left, and I am so grateful for her continued support. After we departed, she texted pictures of me with our guests to our children, who are also supportive. The responses — “YAAAAAAAAS! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️” from our eldest daughter and “Your fit is the cat’s meow” from our son — were just what I had hoped for.

I was told that the theater district of New York is among the most diverse and accepting areas in the country, and upon arrival, that certainly seemed to be the case. As we made our way to the show, we received plenty of compliments — mostly because my friend’s fabulous pink suit and glittery boots garnered even more attention than my dress — and I honestly did not mind having some of the attention diverted.

After waiting outside for a bit, we entered the Broadhurst Theatre, where the stage was set up like a drag runway. It is a somewhat intimate venue, but the perfect size for this musical.

Before the show began, we decided to take care of the restroom. I admit that one initial fear I had was using the restroom without any issue. My friend eased my mind ahead of time by letting me know that every theater in the city has a sign posted that reads, “Gender diversity is welcome here. Please use the restroom that best fits your gender identity or expression.”

Amazing! Why can’t the whole country get on board?

For the record, I used the gents’ room, and he was right: nobody said a word. So my fear that the experience was going to be something like that scene from the film Bachelor Party — if you know, you know — was completely unwarranted.

The show itself was a spectacle from start to finish. The costumes were fanciful, the choreography and runway work were phenomenal, the scenes were sexy and suggestive at times, poignant and heartfelt at others, and there was so much going on that it was hard to know exactly where to look. My head was basically on a swivel the whole afternoon.

Moreover, the crowd was fully into it, which elevated the show even more. All in all, it was probably the best performance of any sort I have ever attended. If you are in the New York City area, you should treat yourself to the show while it is still running.

After the show, we grabbed dinner and gelato in a different part of the city. Even though we were no longer in the theater district, I was still met only with acceptance from everyone I encountered, from strangers on the street to other customers to servers and workers.

Is it possible that the hate-mongering toward crossdressers and members of our community is blown out of proportion? I tend to think so. I also tend to think that those who stir up trouble are in the minority.

I understand that attitudes vary widely by location, but I was mentally buoyed by this outing. Spending the entire day en femme was a first for me, and hopefully not the last. As I have said before, I know I do not pass, but I did my best to be confident, open and friendly, and simply be myself.

The experience was both affirming and joyful.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read another piece of my ongoing story. I will report back to Stana with any new happenings in the coming months.

Wearing Boston Proper

A crossdressing party in the 1961 French film Callaghan remet ça (Callaghan is back).
Click here to view this film on YouTube.

Liking Like It Hot

Is a remake in the works?

TCM showed Some Like It Hot Monday night. I had not seen the film from beginning to end since it was first shown on television in 1964. Since the Missus went to bed early and the kiddo went to a Jelly Roll concert, I figured it was a good opportunity to watch the film uninterrupted — and so it was.

Marilyn Monroe was gorgeous. In my opinion, she was more gorgeous in Some Like It Hot than in any other film she ever appeared in.

Some Like It Hot was not an original. Two foreign films with very similar plots preceded it, and more foreign versions followed after its success (see below).

The boys’ femulations were inconsistent. Jack Lemmon’s Daphne was uniform throughout the film, but Tony Curtis’ Josephine was better in the first half than in the second half. Perhaps because, in the second half, he switched genders a few times and was unable to spend as much time doing his makeup as he did when he was full-time Josephine in the first half.

By the way, Josephine’s voice was dubbed by voice actor Paul Frees during most of the film.

I guess nobody’s perfect.

Fernand Gravey and Julien Carette femulating in the 1935 French film Fanfare d'amour (Fanfare of Love).
Click here to view this film on YouTube.

Dieter Borsche and Georg Thomalla femulating in the 1951 West German film Fanfaren der Liebe (Fanfares of Love).
Click here to view this film on YouTube.

Sadri Alışık and İzzet Günay in the 1964 Turkish film Fıstık Gibi Maşallah.
Click here to view this film on YouTube.

Petticoats on the Prairie

In the mining towns and cattle camps of the Old West, women were scarce and loneliness was as common as dust. A dance hall without girls was a losing proposition, so the proprietors learned to be practical. If the frontier could not provide enough ladies, then the frontier would make do.

This practice grew naturally out of the older tradition of “stag dances,” where men danced with one another in the absence of women, sometimes designating certain partners to take the “ladies’” role. What began as a simple, pragmatic solution—men pairing off to waltz or square dance—evolved in some places into something more elaborate and theatrical.

Behind the painted doors of many saloons, the “dance hall girls” were not women at all, but young men carefully transformed for the evening trade. By day, some worked as clerks, cooks, laundresses’ helpers, or stable boys. By night, they stepped behind a curtain and emerged powdered, corseted, perfumed, and petticoated, their hair curled beneath ribbons and their rough hands hidden in lace gloves.

The customers rarely objected. Many did not know, and many who knew pretended not to. After weeks on a trail drive or months in a mining camp, a pretty face, a swishing skirt, and a willing partner for a waltz were worth more than questions. The dance hall boys learned to move lightly, laugh sweetly, and let a lonely cowboy believe, for the length of one song, that civilization had followed him west.

Some became local favorites. They had stage names like Miss Pearl, Daisy Bell, Frenchy Rose, or Little Lottie. They knew how to tease a gambler into buying another bottle, how to flatter a prospector who had struck silver, and how to avoid the hands of a drunk who forgot the rules. The best of them were not merely substitutes for women; they were performers, hostesses, diplomats, and survivors.

In time, the arrangement became one of the West’s open secrets. A town might lack a schoolhouse, a church, or a proper hotel, but if it had a saloon with music, it had its girls—even if some of those girls shaved before supper and changed back into trousers before dawn.

Wearing Shein

Jack Benny (1894-1974) was an American entertainer who appeared en femme on television, film, stage and even on radio.