Two months after college graduation, "triple threat" Cat Widdifield is making her mark on stage.
Traveling for three months with a touring company presenting "Mame," the 2001 Traverse City West High School graduate is at step one of a planned career in musical theater. A phenomenal dancer and strong singer with loads of stage presence — an overall lukewarm review of a Florida production praised Widdifield for being "perfectly bitchy as Sally Cato" — Widdifield is in the right place at the right time.
"It's pretty demanding, vocally I'm singing all of the highest notes in the show and it's really, really high," said Widdifield. "And the dancing is pretty intense, too, and you have to sing at the same time. I'm pretty challenged by it."
Widdifield received her musical theater degree from New York University in January and landed the gig at her first post-college audition. She joined the show during a year-long tour that concludes in April, part of a 22-member cast that will perform in more than a dozen states.
One of the youngest members of the cast, she is learning from veterans on this stepping stone in what she hopes is her path to Broadway. Some dream roles she envisions down the road include Bianca in "Kiss Me Kate," Sally Bowles in "Cabaret" and Velma in "Chicago." She envisions that within ten years she will have one of these or a comparable role under her belt.
"It's going really well and I love the people in the cast, we have so much fun," she noted of "Mame." "I'd really love to do some straight theater, too, I'd love to do Lady Macbeth someday."
A promising dancer from a young age, Widdifield loved ballet. She studied at Dance Arts Academy and was part of the acclaimed Company Dance Traverse. However, she decide while in high school that the stress and strains of being a professional dancer were not for her.
"It was more than I was willing to put my body through," she recalled.
She branched out by acting in an Old Town Playhouse production in the ninth grade. Then she auditioned "on a whim" as a dancer her sophomore year at West for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat." Musical producer and director Pat Gallagher was so taken with Widdifield's talent and stage presence that she created a special solo dance number for her and encouraged her to learn to sing.
Next year, Widdifield was again in the annual West High School musical — "Pirates of Penzance" — this time in the chorus as well as being a dancer. Her voice had matured enough that she won a lead female role by her senior year's production of "Music Man."
Gallagher realized right away Widdifield had extraordinary talent, an indefinable spark. She and Russ Larimer, the choral director at West, actively encouraged her to learn to sing and watched her progress from chorus to starring role in just one year.
"We kind of pushed her into that, I could see her as a real triple threat because first of all she started out as a dancer," Gallagher said. "We encouraged her and developed her voice and she had such beautiful stage presence to begin with, such expressive eyes — she's just beautiful to watch on stage."
"It's such a delight to see someone you really like make it, not only as good a performer as she is but as good a person as she is," she added. "I wish her great success."
Widdifield said that despite her success in high school and Larimer and Gallagher's encouragement, she was insecure about her voice into college. There, a voice teacher praised her talent and she finally realized that she could be as good a singer as she was a dancer, a not-too-common combination.
"Dancers are notorious for not being able to sing and singers are notorious for not being able to dance," she noted of this versatility. "There are a few of us who can do both."