Cats the Musical at NARA for Next Three Nights

Warm nights. Excited, talented kids. A free performance. It’s the stuff summer fun is made of.

Starting tonight, members of . will perform Cats at NARA Park for three consecutive evenings, in what director Mary Spinosa-Wilson said she hopes will become a summertime tradition.

“I want it to be the Nutcracker of the summer,” said Spinosa-Wilson. “Over time the kids will change, but I love the idea of doing the same performance every July at NARA.”

Spinosa-Wilson, a longtime local theater professional who opened Theatre with a Twist last year, said she chose Cats for NARA because the production lends itself well to outdoor performances as well as to various aspects of theater education she incorporates into the participants’ experience.

“The show emulates the whole educational background of Theater with a Twist,” said Spinosa-Wilson.

As such, performers participated in various aspects of "crafting,” which included making their own wigs out of nylon and yarn, and taking classes to learn to apply their own individualized cat makeup—an hour-long process that the performers got to practice at a dress rehearsal last night at NARA.

The dress rehearsal also gave performers the chance to make costume adjustments, and to practice their singing and dancing, which was co-choreographed by Robin Wilson, Spinosa-Wilson’s 17-year-old daughter.

Robin, who hopes to study dance in college after graduating next year, said she got her start by choreographing some of Theater with a Twist’s plays for younger children and that she enjoyed getting to work with her peer group in Cats.

“It was fun to try (incorporating) different elements,” said Wilson, whose mother added that the choreography is “very original.”

The performers mostly range in age from 13-18 with the youngest, 11-year-old Acton resident Jack Olson, a seasoned performer who called the production “the best I’ve ever done” and the oldest, Leominster resident Jay Reitano, a theater enthusiast who called the group “a great bunch of talented kids” and said “I think it’s going to be very enjoyable for everyone who wants to see it.”

The untimely and sudden arrival of ominous-looking storm clouds followed by rain during the dress rehearsal meant a delayed and relocated performance that ran late, but Spinosa-Wilson said the long months preparing for the show will carry the performers through.

The performers' experience is “so beyond, ‘I’m an actor, let’s put on a show.' They’ve done so much more. They’re ready,” she said.

Cats is scheduled for tonight, tomorrow and Saturday, July 7-9, at 8 p.m. at the NARA amphitheater, with attendees encouraged to arrive early. The show was produced in collaboration with the Acton Recreation Department and with the help of several local businesses, said Spinosa-Wilson.