Drat! The Cat!

Drat! The Cat!
Original Cast Recording
Music	Milton Schafer
Lyrics	Ira Levin
Book	Ira Levin
Productions	1965 Broadway

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 11 previews, the Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Joe Layton, opened on October 10, 1965 at the Martin Beck Theatre, where it ran for 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.

Long after the show closed, Blue Pear 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 a gender-reversal version of one of the show's tunes: "He Touched Me," which went to number two on the Easy Listening chart. On the B-side of that single, Streisand also recorded, "I Like Him." 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.