Theater of Young America:

The Three Wise Cats:

A Christmas Musical

Theatre for Young America (TYA) began in 1974 at the Waldo Astoria Dinner Playhouse. In 1977, the troupe became an independent organization and moved to Overland Park, Kansas, where it performed for 17 years in a converted cinema theatre. During this time the organization grew from 4 productions to 7 or 8 per season, added drama classes, summer workshops and summer productions, and outreach workshops in schools. TYA operated in the Mission Center Mall from 1994 to 2003.

Today TYA performs on the City Stage at Union Station.

The play we saw was The Three Wise Cats: A Christmas Musical.

This holiday musical takes place in winter in the alley beside the St. Francis Residential Hotel in New York City. Max, a street musician, Emily, a young mother, and Maureen, a homeless lady, share the alley with three cats. The plan to convert the hotel into a condominium threatens to disrupt everybody’s lives, including the three cats. So these three wise cats costume themselves as the Three Wise Men and rearrange the alley trash into a giant holiday display and they launch the first annual Christmas Cat Carnival right there in the alley. It is a big musical hit which the people of New York see as a real miracle. It is a miracle that rescues the homes and lives of the residents, and, of course, the Three Wise Cats from the East (East Manhattan).