Cast members and young cast members are asked to supply their own footwear for Cats.
Young cast members all require tan footwear (except Charlie/Rumpus Cat, who wears black shoes).
Older cast: Orange cats wear tan shoes; everyone else wears black shoes.
The first preference for everyone is jazz shoes with flat heels. These can be found at discountdance.com, amazon.com and other retailers. We advise you to pay attention to two things:
Check the quality ratings. You certainly don’t need top-rated shoes for this project. All dance shoes will wear out. You want a pair with reasonably good ratings.
Also check comments regarding sizing. Like many shoes, these may run a bit different in size than the shoes you’re currently wearing. It’s common, for example, for male performers to wear jazz shoes about a half size smaller than the shoes they normally wear. However, look at the comments of the specific shoes that you’re purchasing — they are likely to indicate “true to size” or “you should size down,” etc.
If you do not have flat-heeled jazz shoes but you do have canvas ballet slippers, these may also work, if they’re the correct color. Please bring them in to confirm.
This is an example of tan jazz shoes with flat heels. You do not need this specific pair of shoes.