Just today I got a little interested in a 2017 musical made by the same director and theatre as Cats Warsaw, and this time it's their original production
It’s called “Piloci” (Pilots), it’s really good, there is a song about tea sang by two Englishmen, there’s a plane on stage, and few of the Cats Warsaw actors are also there (most notably Skimble and Tugger’s actors in the tea song) but it’s about shenanigans of four Polish pilots fighting in UK during WW2, so it’s not really very fandom inspiring or anything
But what hit me the most about it is how easy I can find loads of information and everything about it compared to Cats Warsaw
Like for the past few weeks I’ve been scavenging YouTube and internet archives of some newspapers, bought a book (of which only a few copies exist), visited some extinct forums just to find anything Cats Warsaw related and STILL I have no idea who plays Munk in the one recording that can be found, and I’m not even trying to find out who in that recording plays Old D or Grizabella, because there is just not enough photos and info about the actors to do that (also I’m not very good at recognizing people, so there’s that)
And with “Piloci”? There are loads of interviews, fragments of rehearsals and promotional performances on YouTube, I even found some excerpts of songs to learn for casting participants, and you can listen to the whole thing on Spotify
And last year they put recording of it on some streaming platform, and I can even buy it on DVD/Blu-ray if I want (also there is some merch, so that's cool)
And I know they put out Cats Warsaw in 2004, YouTube was non-existent till a year later, hell, when they put out Cats Warsaw, Poland was still 5 months away from becoming a member of the EU (idk how it’s related to the whole thing, but it really trips me up every time I think about it), Roma wasn’t the musical theatre it is now, internet was different back then, of course there’s much less info and everything
It’s just a little shocking to me how little work it takes to find info about that newer show, compared to literal hours of research I just put into Cats Warsaw
[Also fun fact, I think I put a lot more time into researching Cats Warsaw, then I put into research for my Bachelor’s thesis this year (granted I still have a few months to write it but still)]
