January 2024. No gigs. No calls. No nothing.
That’s New York in winter, and it’s one of the primary reasons I won’t be here forever. No sun, no warmth, trapped inside watching the city turn gray. I’ve endured it for decades and every year it gets harder to justify. But in January of 2024, stuck inside, staring at my phone that wasn’t getting any texts, Trevor Holder called.
Trevor is the beats arranger for Cats: The Jellicle Ball.
He’s also someone I’ve known since the 1990s.
We came up together in Black Rock Coalition circles. Downtown venues, same rooms, same communities of musicians grinding through the same New York that most people only romanticize from the outside. We weren’t networking. We were just showing up, playing, talking, existing in the same world. A lot of that world was held together by people like Greg Tate, someone who connected musicians across scenes in a way that was genuinely rare. Greg is no longer with us. But the relationships he helped build are still standing.
Mine and Trevor’s certainly is.
When Trevor called in January 2024, he wasn't calling a name from a list. He was calling someone he knew and trusted. He knew I'd played Cats before. He knew I could play to click tracks. He knew I could handle the updated beats for this production. But the real reason was simpler than any of that.
He knew me. And I knew him. Thirty years of that is worth something.
If you’ve seen Cats: The Jellicle Ball, you know what Trevor created with The Bows. That groove is no joke. One of the most physically moving things happening on a Broadway stage right now. Every night I’m in that pit and the beat starts, I think: DAMN! Trevor killed this. The audience doesn’t always know his name, but they feel what he made.
Broadway noticed.
Cats: The Jellicle Ball received 9 Tony nominations at the 79th Annual Tony Awards:
Best Revival of a Musical
Best Direction — Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch
Best Choreography — Omari Wiles and Arturo Lyons
Best Featured Actor in a Musical — André De Shields
Best Scenic Design of a Musical — Rachel Hauck
Best Costume Design of a Musical — Qween Jean
Best Lighting Design of a Musical — Adam Honoré and Donald Holder
Best Sound Design of a Musical — Kai Harada
Best Orchestrations — Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Wilson, Doug Schadt and Trevor Holder
I’m proud of every person on that list.
And I’m grateful for the recognition. But I’ll be honest about where my head is when I walk into that pit at night. I’m thinking about the show. Tonight’s show. The people in those seats who saved up, maybe got a babysitter, bought the tickets and made the trip. They didn’t come to see a nominated production. They came to be moved. That’s my job every single time, nomination or not.
Winning would be great. I want that for this cast, this crew, this creative team. But I also want every production on Broadway to do well, because when theater thrives, we all work. I know what it’s like when the phone doesn’t ring. I remember Trevor and me running from gig to gig in the ‘90s, back to back on the same shows. He’d finish his set and I’d wait for him to break down his whole kit, then I’d put mine up. We were always rushing. Always. And our kits smelled like smoke because every room smelled like smoke. That was the job. That was the training ground.
Kids today have no idea. You show up to a club now and there’s a backline waiting. All you need is your cymbals and maybe a snare. We were dragging drums up two flights of steep stairs at a catering hall in Battery Park. Hauling cases through a slippery kitchen after a wedding, trying not to fall, then back down the stairs and into your cold car in December.
Damn… I think I just became Gus the Theatre Cat.
For those who don’t know, Gus is a character in Cats — a faded, nostalgic old theater cat who can’t stop talking about how things used to be done. And here I am, exactly that. I became Gus and I didn’t even see it coming.
But those gigs were the education. Every smoky room, every terrible load-in, every gig that paid nothing but experience — that’s what built the ears, the instincts, and the stamina that Broadway eventually required. You can’t manufacture that in a practice room. Some lessons only come from showing up in the dark and doing the work anyway.
I’m fine with it. More than fine.
What I’m saying is: I don’t take a single performance for granted. The nomination is an honor. The show is the mission.
And none of it happens without the relationship. Not the gig, not the nominations, not the nightly opportunity to do work I’m proud of. It all started with a phone call in January 2024 from someone I’d been building trust with since the ‘90s.
Chapter 6 of Broadway Bound and Beyond is called “People Skills: Why Relationships Matter More Than Chops.” It’s the chapter I consider the foundation of everything else in the book, because without this piece none of the rest works. Not your chops. Not your credits. Not your content.
Broadway is not a meritocracy. It’s a trust economy.
Post your reels. Build your audience. Practice until your hands fall off. But none of it replaces being face-to-face with people, in real rooms, over real time. The Instagram algorithm cannot vouch for you. A cold DM cannot replace thirty years of showing up as yourself.
I’ve known Trevor Holder for over 30 years. That’s why he called.
You might not have 30 years yet. Start now.
If you want the full breakdown on how to actually do that, it’s in the book.
→ broadwayboundbook.com