How does a cucumber dance without legs? That’s just one of the questions answered by “Veggie Tales Live!” The live theatrical production debuted Jan. 29 in Minneapolis, and will tour the nation over the next two years.
Perhaps an even bigger question that will be answered is this: Why take the risk of trying to translate the nation’s top-selling direct-to-video children’s series into a live stage production? The answer may have more to do with the past of Veggie Tales than with its future.
“Both Phil and I got our start on the stage,” explains Mike Nawrocki, who provides the voice of Larry the Cucumber. He helped Big Idea Productions founder Phil Vischer (the voice of Bob the Tomato) dream up Veggie Tales after they met at Crown College in Minnesota. “I was really into theater and puppetry growing up and really got a charge out of it. That was my grooming for animation — I had to learn to be an animator after I was a puppeteer. When the opportunity came to do a live show I was excited.”
Both Vischer and Nawrocki visited similar live shows to evaluate the potential for a Veggie Tales production. “It’s a neat experience — a large experience,” Nawrocki explains. “We thought it would be fun to retell some of our favorite stories on the stage while adding new stuff, and make it a fun family experience.”
The core audience for the production is families with children, but it should appeal to all ages. “Every 3- year-old will understand the message of the stories, but we want to entertain the whole family,” says Nawrocki. “We hope to get high school and college kids coming out. The [Monty Python-inspired] French Peas are a big part of the show.”
During the 70-minute show, Bob, Larry and other favorite characters recreate the best-selling videos “Dave and the Giant Pickle” and “Josh and the Big Wall.” Nawrocki explains, “It really is storytelling very similar to the videos. We’re sharing lessons and values through stories — the lesson that with God’s help little guys can do big things, and that God’s way is the best way. It fits our mission of storytelling for teaching biblical values.”
The stage show could make a bigger impression on the audience than videos do, says Nawrocki. “People don’t experience live theater as much as video or TV or movies. I think the experience stays with them longer. I remember seeing ‘Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Les Miserables,’ and it’s a big experience. So the lesson that’s taught in that can have a big impact. The kids come away having learned a great lesson and having a great time in the process.”
Vischer adds, “Our videos are intended to help parents teach values to their kids in a slightly offbeat, wacky way. The ‘Veggie Tales Live’ tour gives us the opportunity to bring this concept to life on stage.”
A live stage show calls for a different set of skills from animation, but the Veggie Tales gang was able to hook up with Clear Channel Entertainment, the world’s largest producer and marketer of live entertainment events. Each year more than 62 million people attend some 26,000 events promoted or produced by Clear Channel Entertainment.
With the help of Clear Channel Entertainment, a top-flight group was assembled to bring Veggie Tales to the stage. Michael Barnard, the director and choreographer, has a body of work that includes more than 400 shows, including work as senior show director for Disney Entertainment where he staged “Pocahontas” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
The creative staff also includes Tony Award-winner Michael Curry, who designed the veggie characters’ costumes.
Curry is one of the country’s leading production design consultants and puppet experts, with credits including “The Lion King,” the Siegfried and Roy show, and the Ringling Brothers Circus.
Curry said he was intrigued by the challenges posed by the project. “My kids love Veggie Tales, so I was excited to work on this project anyway,” he explained. “But it was also very challenging to create stage costumes with no arms and legs. The results are amazing.
“The audience will love the costumes and set design,” Curry said.
The reason Bob and Larry have no legs is simple: it was easier to do the computer animation that way. Vischer recalls, “It was never a particular fondness for vegetables or wanting kids to eat them more. It was just that this was a character we could create, and it was great. A cucumber was such a simple shape that it was very easy to do all of my tests for facial animation and bounce cycles. He needed a sidekick so he got someone short and round to match his tallness, and that was a tomato. Those were the first two I made, and then I realized we needed some sort of child protagonist. I thought of asparagus because they have ‘hair,’ and that makes them more interesting to animate.”
Producers said great effort is made to capture the flavor of the popular video series. Which brings us back to our opening question: How does a cucumber dance without legs?
“They hop and they shuffle,” Nawrocki reveals. “They cast dancers for the puppeteers inside the costumes. There is a lot of choreography and physicality involved in operating these live puppets.”
Because the characters have no arms, they can’t carry props. “There’s a human character — a stage manager — whenever there’s a need for picking up things or carrying things,” says Nawrocki. “There are also lots of sheep, and at least they have legs. But it’s kind of neat because it forces creative decisions. Where it might be easy to say ‘They pick it up and do this,’ instead it leads to some interesting things when you have to think your way around it.”
(EP)
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