W.C. Fields famously warned actors to "never work with animals or children," and if you catch Richard Greenberg's intriguing new stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, you'll see exactly what he meant. Though most of the performances are excellent—especially stars Emilia Clarke and Cory Michael Smith—everyone is upstaged by the production's feline actors, who appear several times during the show and miraculously manage to follow direction. There's something spellbinding about seeing a cat surface in a huge theater in front of hundreds of people and not freak out. Who are these supernatural kitties? How on earth are they so cooperative? WHAT'S STOPPING THEM FROM POUNCING INTO THE AUDIENCE AND CLAWING OUR FACES OFF?
Babette Corelli, a show biz animal wrangler with Dawn Animal Agency, is the human behind the star kitties. In this interview she tells us all about working with stage cats, as well as the challenges of bringing attack dogs onstage and getting a horse to jump a NYC taxi. Breakfast at Tiffany's continues at the Cort Theater on West 48th Street; tickets here.
So how did you get into this line of work? Well, it's a family business, involving three generations of women in my family, and we supply animals for movies and commercials. Exotic and domestic, farm, pretty much anything. It started in 1959 with my mother and my aunt. And three generations of the women in my family. My niece, my aunt and mother, my sister and myself. And we also run a sanctuary for animals. We take in abused and stray animals, regardless of species, and find a permanent home. We don't do much adoption because we really don't have time to follow up on it, so we are really like a last stop. We take ones that no one else has a place to put.
So you were contacted by the Breakfast at Tiffany's people... Correct. We've done many many Broadway shows. Our first one we did was The Deputy back in the early 60s. With attack dogs, and we've done…
With attack dogs?! Uh-huh. It had an attack onstage.
Who did they attack, a person? Yeah.
Wow, that sounds really difficult. I was very, very young at the time. I don't remember much, but I remember we had Shepards that were trained to attack—they had to attack my stepfather because he was in the costume.
So did he have extra padding for them to bite onto? Oh yeah. They were trained to go for the arms, and they'd take him down to the ground.
Incredible. The things we do for money, right?
Tell me about it! So you were approached by them for this, for a cat. What was your reaction when you heard they wanted to put a cat on stage? Well, I really don't have a problem with that. I do most of the training of the cats, so I know my cats well, and I just picked two I thought would be the best ones for it. And we went through a few cats, but we finally decided on a couple that are working out nicely right now.
So you had cats ready to go? Yeah, yeah. I've trained a lot of cats for commercials and movies and whatnot, so…and they all have different behaviors and whatnot, but I needed a cat that was very sensible and not startled easily, who enjoyed being around people. Now we're using Chessie and Montie. And Woody's the third understudy, and then I still haven't decided on the fourth one. I like to have a couple of extra cats around just in case one of them is not feeling well. So it can be swung out.
Which cat was featured in The New York Times story? That was Vito. We generally use the majority of our own animals, but sometimes when we don't have the exact right animal, or we know someone who has one that is perfect for it, we will hire them to work with us. And we had worked with Michael and Vito on 30 Rock on one point, a number of years ago, and it worked out very well. And we thought that Vito would be a good cat to have in the city, so that we could swing it out, and he'd be there. But it turned out that Vito's really not a stage cat—he's more of a movie and commercial cat. The constant pressure is just a bit much for him. So we decided to let him retire from that, and we'll stick with the cats we have at the farm here.
For every light on Broadway, there's a thousand broken hearts. (Nathan Johnson)
He's a big orange cat, right? Yes. Mhm.
He seemed very comfortable when I saw the show. I was amazed because the cats I've encountered in my life do not do what anyone wants them to do, ever. So it was miraculous just to see a cat follow direction like that. I helped Michael with the training of him, and he's a very, very good cat, but as I said, it just wasn't the right vehicle for him, with the constant 6 days a week, 8 shows. Even though we were swinging out, it was just too much pressure. And we didn't want to have it turn into a negative experience, so we decided to let him retire from the stage.
What did he do that gave you the impression that he wasn't going to be able to handle it? He just was a little tense, and he was tired a lot. He was tired and he didn't act like he was happy. You know, he wasn't unhappy, but he wasn't happy. [cats meowing in the background] The cats I have at the theater right now really enjoy being petted by everybody, and in fact Chessie—who's the one that goes on now—in the first scene, instead of exiting immediately, he wandered around the party. And visits! And on Sunday he went and stared out into the audience, like, "Hi, how are you?" So he has the better personality for that, and Woody is an orange and white, and he's got an extremely outgoing personality, and as I said, it wasn't working right for Vito... and Michael. It just wasn't a happy situation for them. So it was decided after much thought to let them go onto different vehicles.
It can be a tough break getting fired from a Broadway show. How did they take it? Not really fired, it was more of a mutual—just, this isn't right for us. And so you don't want the cat to sour on something and not enjoy it. So you have to think what's best for the animal.
Yeah, yeah. So how many cats do you have now? Four? I have three trained and I want to get a fourth one trained.
THAT'S the stuff.
During a performance, have any of them misbehaved in any way? On the one scene in the window, in the finale, when they're talking, and he's looking for the cat, and he finally sees it in the window, one time Chessie left a little bit early; about 30 seconds. Instead of waiting for the blackout. But that's the only thing that's really been different. Otherwise they're very good about doing their cues.
I was worried that one of them would just run into the audience or get lost backstage. What precautions do you have in place in case that happens? I know my animals. I wouldn't bring a cat in that has any indication of doing that. They come to the theater and they see a show while the other cats are doing it. And I watch their reactions with the thunder and lightning and if there's anything negative, I'll expose them to it, and see if they can accept it, or if they just don't want to do it, and I'll switch out cats if they don't want to do it. I've brought a number of cats that didn't like the lights and whatnot.
How do you decide, when you go in for the day, who's going to be the one who's performing? I stick between Chessie and Monty, pretty much. Because they're the most comfortable doing it. But the other ones go on also. Depends on who I feel like on the day. Who seems to be in the best mood.
Are all the actors cat people? Everyone likes cats; it's very fortunate, the whole theater, cast, crew, and production are very very nice people, and they all enjoy the cats. We do have a couple people that are allergic, and because of that I do wash the cats once a week, and they also get wiped down with anti-allergy wipes every day. And we do avoid hanging out near them. But everyone likes them very much.
They're not jealous of getting upstaged by the cats? It's...[laughs] They might be, but they don't say anything. I don't think they are. They enjoy the animals there.
What is the most challenging project that you've had to arrange an animal for? Goodness. When I did Sex and the City, I had to train a cat to lay on a bed next to kicking and screaming baby. The umbilical cord falls off the baby, the cat picks it up, jumps off the bed, runs out the door, and turns and runs down the hallway. That took me 6 weeks.
How do you do it? What's the secret? You have to think like a cat. Why would they do this? What would make them want to pick this up? And then you have to teach them to hold. And you also just pick the right cat, one that you can take its natural inclinations and develop it into what you need.
I've never met any cats who are even remotely trainable. How do you know that a cat is going to be cooperative, and have the potential? It's one of the things I've grown up with, and I can't really tell you how I do it, I just do. And my sister does that with horses, and we have an elephant, big cats, bears, etc. We have a lot of different animals. You can just learn to read them. And you see their personality and their strong points and their weak points, and you just work around it.
"It's a living."
What's the hardest animal to work? Oh goodness. That's a hard one. Sometimes the cockroaches are pretty tough, because you can't really [laughs]. I mean, it sounds funny, but it's very... you can drag a scent trail, and they'll follow it to a point. But when you have a lot of cockroaches in a scene, it's a free-for-all.
Do you have cockroaches on hand? I have 'em on hand. I have Madagascars and a few others; the cave cockroaches and a few others. Think about, like, Men in Black. The scene where he kicks the garbage can, and all these roaches fall out. Or you see a roach crawling along a pipe. And it doesn't even really register, but someone has to supply that roach! And you know we do a lot of those things. Rats are pretty easy...
So you have rats? Yeah. They can learn to follow patterns, and go A to B. And we just handle our rats a lot, and take them out, and out on other jobs to see things, so they're not afraid of stuff. But as far as the hardest animal, it's really not the animal, it's the job. It depends on what you need us to get them to do.
What's another tough? Let me think for a second. Michael J. Fox's…with a horse that had to jump the taxi cab. We had to get two horses that matched; one for Michael J. Fox to ride, because he couldn't ride the jumper, and then the jumper. And getting [the horse] to jump the car, that was a difficult one.
Do you have to check in with the Animal Care and Control? Oh, we're licensed by the USDA and the state and every time we bring an animal into the city we get a Department of Health permit. And we have monthly inspections by a veterinarian, we're inspected by the USDA four times a year. And every animal is permitted. So yeah, we follow all the rules in that respect. And we work very closely with the Department of Health; it works to our advantage to have all those permits in case of an accident or something. And also we work very closely with the American Humane Society; they're the people who say 'No animal was harmed in this film.' We have a very good working relationship with those people. They're very helpful on a set, and if you feel something is unsafe they will back you up.
Do people wait by the stage door after Breakfast at Tiffany's to meet the cats? They might, but I get out of the theater fairly quickly because I have a long drive home every night.
And I guess there's no costume changes for the cats. Right, exactly, I can do my curtain call and run.
