Drat! The Cat!
# Drat! The Cat!

Drat! The Cat! is a musical with a book and lyrics by Ira Levin and music by Milton Schafer.

Originally called Cat and Mouse, this spoof of late-Victorian melodrama has at its core Alice Van Guilder, who wants to be a career girl at a time when nice young ladies marry well instead of having careers. Frustrated by the obstacles standing in her way, she becomes a cat burglar and plunders the homes of Manhattan's high society in the 1890s.

After an out-of-town try-out at the Shubert Theatre in Philadelphia in September, 1965, and 11 previews, the Broadway production, presented by Jerry Adler and Norman Rosemont, directed and choreographed by Joe Layton, opened on October 10, 1965, at the Martin Beck Theatre, where it ran for only eight performances. The cast included Lesley Ann Warren, Elliott Gould, Charles Durning, Jane Connell, and Beth Howland. Conductor Herbert Grossman served as music director and Clare Grundman wrote the orchestra score. Warren won the Theatre World Award for her performance, and the show was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Scenic Design.

A demo recording of the pre-Broadway Philadelphia show was released as a demo-only lp on Capitol Custom (TB-504) in 1965. Long after the show closed, Blue Pear Records issued an original cast album from a recording surreptitiously made during a live performance. Gould's wife at the time, Barbra Streisand, had a hit with her recording of "He Touched Me", a gender-reversed version of one of the show's songs, which went to number two on the Easy Listening chart. On the B-side of that single, Streisand recorded "I Like Him", also from the show. In 1997, Varèse Sarabande released a studio recording featuring Susan Egan, Jason Graae, Judy Kaye, Bryan Batt, Jonathan Freeman, and Elaine Stritch. The recording was produced by Bruce Kimmel.

