I’ve just realized that I haven’t featured Lady and Sir, the Starborn Revue’s Theatre Cats for quite a long time. Lady and Sir prowl the Starborn Theatre, making sure things are done just right, and teaching theatre kittens all they need to know about life in the theatre and about the arts in general.
They are part of a long line of theatre cats. They were often ’employed’ by theatres in long-ago days to keep down the rodent population, but they also occasionally appeared on stage (sometimes intentionally, sometimes cat-tentionally.) There aren’t as many theatre cats these days, but there are still a few — some you can even find on Facebook or Twitter!
Here are some websites that will tell you more about the tradition of theatre cats and about some great theatre cats of the past and present.
Purr-n-Fur‘s article about Theatre Cats.
Moggies‘ post about Theatre Cats.
An article in The Guardian online newspaper with photos of Theatre Cats.
Follow Duke, the Astor Theatre Cat on Facebook.
Find Pluto, the Battersea Arts Centre’s cat, on Twitter or Facebook.
There’s another kind of theatre cat, one that’s featured in a series of middle grade novels by Julia Golding about a girl known as Cat Royal, who lives in a theatre on Drury Lane in London, England back in the 1790s. They’re full of mystery and intrigue and fascinating details about the theatre back in that time. I’m currently reading the first, THE DIAMOND OF DRURY LANE. I’ll let you know what it’s like when I finish reading! In the meantime, here’s the author’s webpage about the books.