Puppets

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Jules Bass, Co-Producer of TV Holiday Staples, Is Dead at 87

      by

      The animation company he ran with Arthur Rankin Jr. gave the world “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and much more.Jules Bass, who created an animation empire with his business partner, Arthur Rankin Jr., that produced perennial Christmastime television favorites like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” died on Tuesday in Rye, N.Y. He was 87.His death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by Jennifer Ruff, whose mother was Mr. Bass’s first wife.The Rankin/Bass studio was a major force in animated programming, mostly on television, from the early 1960s to the late ’80s. Some of its TV shows and movies used traditional hand-drawn cel animation, but it carved out a separate specialty in the stop-motion puppet animation familiar to viewers since “Gumby” in the 1950s.Rankin/Bass’s stop-motion specials included “Rudolph” (1964), featuring the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman;“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” (1970), with Fred Astaire as the narrator and Mickey Rooney as the voice of Kris Kringle; and “Jack Frost” (1979), with Robert Morse voicing the title role.“Frosty” (1969), narrated by Jimmy Durante, used traditional animation.To create the stop-motion effect, animators in Japan painstakingly shot thousands of pictures of the tiniest movements and gestures of inches-tall puppets. When run at 24 frames a second, the images generated a whimsical sort of herky-jerky animation that became the Rankin/Bass signature.“When I saw their cartoons, they left a great impression on me because they had dimensionality versus drawn animation,” said Tom Gasek, a professor in the school of film and animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology who was inspired by Rankin/Bass’s work to become a stop-motion animator. “They were not high quality by any means, but they were charming and their designs were very smart.”Mr. Bass and Mr. Rankin were often credited as the directors of their work and offered input on scripts and storyboards. But they played different roles at the company, said Rick Goldschmidt, the studio’s official historian.Mr. Bass composed much of the music. He hired and worked closely with the musical supervisor, Maury Laws, and ran the company’s business in Manhattan while Mr. Rankin was in Japan supervising the animation.“Where Jules is really the star of Rankin/Bass is as a songwriter and his partnership with Maury,” Mr. Goldschmidt said in a phone interview.Mr. Rankin, who was the studio’s chief executive, also sold the shows to TV networks and made sure they were delivered on time.“After a while, we were never seen together — I’d be doing production in Tokyo and he’d be recording a soundtrack in New York,” Mr. Rankin said in an interview in 2003 with the Museum of Television and Radio, now the Paley Center for Media. “If we were together, one of us wasn’t necessary.”Mr. Bass was rarely quoted publicly, and little is known about his private life. But the two partners spoke during a joint interview with The New York Times in 1982 when their animated theatrical feature, “The Last Unicorn,” was released.When they were asked who did most of the directing — the movie credits both of them — they initially said they did it together.“Anything he can do, I can do better,” Mr. Rankin said.Mr. Bass countered: “He never worked a day on the film. I did everything.”Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the screenplay for “The Last Unicorn” and the novel it was based on, recalled in a phone interview that his dealings with Mr. Bass “were very professional.” But, he added, “he was very private, and I never had a true sense of what was going on deepest in his head.”He added, “I’m grateful that the film came out pretty much as I wrote it.”Arthur Rankin Jr., left, and Mr. Bass in 1965. Both men were credited as producers and directors of their TV specials, but Mr. Bass was more involved with the music and Mr. Rankin with the animation.Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt ArchivesJulius Bass was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 1935. His father, Max, was a wholesale beer salesman, and his mother, Bernice (Palat) Bass, was a homemaker.He attended New York University, where he studied marketing from 1952 to 1954, but he did not graduate. He was hired by Gardner Advertising in Manhattan, where he met Mr. Rankin, who was making TV commercials under the banner of his company, Videocraft International.Mr. Bass joined Videocraft in the mid-1950s, and the two men produced commercials, occasionally using animation, for agencies that represented clients including General Electric and the A.&P. supermarket chain. They wearied of commercial production and shifted to animation in 1960 with a TV series, “The New Adventures of Pinocchio,” which used the stop-motion technique Mr. Bass had discovered in Japan.The company eventually changed its name to Rankin/Bass, and its work toggled between stop-motion and traditional cel animation.Although Rankin/Bass was best known for its Christmas programs, it also made TV movies like “The Ballad of Smokey the Bear” (1966), which was narrated by James Cagney,; “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” (1971); and “The Hobbit” (1977), which earned a Peabody Award. They also produced animated TV series like “King Kong” (1966), “The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show” (1970), the “Jackson 5ive” (1971),“TigerSharks” (1985) and “Thundercats” (1987).Mr. Bass and Mr. Rankin ended their partnership in the late 1980s after their company was acquired by Lorimar-Telepictures, which was subsequently bought by Warner Communications, which is now Warner Bros. Discovery. Mr. Rankin died in 2014.Mr. Bass later wrote three children’s books. “Herb the Vegetarian Dragon” and “Cooking With Herb the Vegetarian Dragon,” illustrated by Debbie Harter, were both published in 1999. “The Mythomaniacs” (2013), with illustrations by Lawrence Christmas, is about a teenage magician who sends a group of readers of his father’s fairy tales into the books as characters.He also wrote an adult novel, “Headhunters” (2001), about four women from New Jersey who go to Monte Carlo and pretend to be among the world’s wealthiest women. It was adapted into a 2011 film, “Monte Carlo,” starring Selena Gomez.Mr. Bass leaves no immediate survivors. His daughter, Jean Nicole Bass, died this year. His marriages to Renee Fisherman and Sylvia Bass ended in divorce.The power of two of Rankin/Bass’s best-known productions has reverberated for decades since they were released: Both “Rudolph” and “Frosty” remain highly rated cornerstones of CBS’s pre-Christmas programming.In 2014, CBS promoted “Rudolph” on its 50th anniversary with ads that used stop motion to show the renowned reindeer and Sam the Snowman walking around the network’s backlot, meeting the stars of some of its other shows, including Mayim Bialik of “The Big Bang Theory” and Michael Weatherly of “NCIS.”“They’re the fabric of our Christmas hearth, the wood in the Christmas fire,” George Schweitzer, CBS’s former president of marketing, said in a phone interview. “You knew Christmas was coming when Rudolph and Frosty showed up on CBS.” More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      Is Little Amal Getting Lost in New York?

      by

      Parading down the middle of West 63rd Street last Saturday afternoon, we were following a giant puppet — a whole crowd of us, trekking along behind Little Amal.The 12-foot-tall Syrian refugee child, a creation of the renowned Handspring Puppet Company, was en route to Lincoln Center to greet more of her public, who would throng the wide plaza there to catch a glimpse of her with their own eyes, and capture proof of the encounter on their phones.Fueled by a savvy social media campaign — and surely also by recent headlines about migrants and asylum seekers being bused and flown north by Republican governors — Little Amal is the hottest celebrity in New York right now, drawing masses of admirers to her dozens of scheduled appearances.Since last year she has traveled across Europe, a sympathetic, high-profile emblem of the global migrant crisis. Her current 19-day tour of these five boroughs lasts only until Oct. 2, and as always with in-demand visitors, the time limit adds to her cachet.Making connections: Amal is in town through Oct. 2 and will be visiting all five boroughs over her 19-day stay in the city.For me, a puppetry fan with an interest in political theater, Little Amal — who is operated by one puppeteer strapped into stilts inside her torso and two others controlling her arms — should have been an almost automatic fascination. And yet she left me cold when I first went to scope her out, on Fifth Avenue in front of the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, on Sept. 15, the day after she arrived. Even when she bent down to cuddle Patience, one of the famous marble lions, I was unmoved.Amal is a 10-year-old, but with her gargantuan hands and forceful jaw, she reminded me of one of those paintings of a child before painters figured out that children weren’t merely miniature adults. Worse, the event felt like barely more than a photo op. I wondered if she is truly meant to be experienced in person — if, in fact, she counts as theater — or if the main purpose of this wordless puppet is to be an object, recorded in photos and videos in glamorous locations that people all over the world will recognize.Then, last weekend, my heart abruptly cracked wide open. On that tree-lined stretch of West 63rd Street, the brass band accompanying Amal broke into a festive rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and she began to dance as she walked along. It was a gentle, reveling bounce, and it made her utterly enchanting.In Central Park last weekend, spectators of all ages followed Amal.Later that day, her path cleared by a police escort, Amal led another procession up Central Park West. As her band played, we trooped along in the street — grown-ups, little kids riding on shoulders, the occasional dog. The mood was buoyant, happy, kind.There is something to be said for what is, in effect, a citywide party in honor of a refugee — even if she is merely a puppet, even if she is so well-connected that St. Ann’s Warehouse helped to bring her here. Symbolic behavior matters.Up ahead, Amal’s long brown hair swayed in the breeze, adorned with a bright red ribbon that was a beacon for those farther back. A thought crossed my mind that took me entirely by surprise. Although I was raised Roman Catholic, I’m not religious, and definitely not accustomed to bits of Bible verses floating through my consciousness.Still, there it was, inescapably, a line from Isaiah: “and a little child shall lead them.”Gulp.This, of course, is the point of Little Amal — to use the visceral power of puppetry, and of theater at its most disarming, to make us feel, and cajole us into considering what we owe to the most vulnerable among us. And ultimately, presumably, to act on that moral imperative.She was greeted at Lincoln Center on Sept. 17.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesBut it is so easy for any message to get lost on the grand stage set that is New York, and maybe even more so when collaborations with the city’s cultural institutions can come across as mutually promotional opportunities, bereft of substance. When Amal visited Lincoln Center, she seemed more like a dignitary granting an audience than a child ambassador for a cause. Her context had disappeared; without it she registered as a buzzy spectacle, one you want to be able to say you saw.Still, the visuals were terrific — musicians serenading her from the balcony of the Metropolitan Opera House — and people strained to get near her, to touch those enormous hands. It is astonishing when she gets really close, looming right above you. Looking up, all you see is her huge face, with those big, brown, blinking eyes. (Makes a great photo, actually.)I followed Amal late on Sunday morning to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the vast front doorway posed no obstacle to her height, and where the lyrics of one hymn were particularly apt — not so much for her but for the rest of us: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”Some people are seeking out Amal around town, while others, instantly smitten, seem to be ditching their plans to tag along.And I followed her early on Monday morning to Coney Island, Brooklyn, where she wandered the wooden boardwalk forlornly, peering through the gates of rides not open just then for customers. The carnival colors popped, the moody clouds cast a flattering light and when she looked over the side of a pier into the water, the sound was of crashing waves and clicking shutters.If it seemed contrived — which, to be fair, it was; this was theater — there was no feigning the interest in her as she strode along with a gathering entourage, while a persistent drone hovered unnervingly overhead. Some people had made the pilgrimage to see Amal; others, like a smitten woman in a one-piece swimsuit and pink bathing cap, seemed to have ditched their beach plans to tag along.Amal’s performance that night, with its narrative of a weary child’s peregrination through Dumbo to the glass-walled carousel in Brooklyn Bridge Park, should have been delicate and gorgeous. But from the moment she set off from the walk’s starting point, a triangle in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, something was wrong.In Coney Island, on Sept. 19, Amal found the space she needed to stand out as she strode along with a gathering entourage. But later that night, in Dumbo, the crowd overwhelmed her event.It wasn’t only that the hundreds of us were too many for the narrow cobblestone streets; the spirit of the evening was off, too. In that most Instagrammable of the city’s neighborhoods, the focus of the crowd was palpably on getting the shot — and Amal, in that lighting, did look glorious. (She stopped, lingeringly, in precisely the ultra-photogenic spot that’s illustrated on the cover of the current issue of The New Yorker.)But this wasn’t the joyous welcome of an attentive audience; it felt like a flash mob that had gotten out of hand. And when we reached the carousel — an elevated and brilliantly illuminated space that should have made an ideal stage — it was so surrounded by people that the performance was impossible to see unless you were up front. Even being 12 feet tall couldn’t help Amal there.The creepiest thing about that evening’s walk, though, was the sense that allegiance had been replaced by pursuit. It had the feeling of a hunt, with the puppet refugee as quarry. People jostled for position, cut in front of one another, tried to anticipate where Amal was going and get there first.And so I wonder, a little worriedly, with Saturday’s walk across the Brooklyn Bridge coming right up: Are we ruining Little Amal for ourselves?There may be no solution to the problem of the sheer numbers she draws, especially when the vistas promise to be breathtaking. But one tenet of theater suggests a way to better experience her live.Be present.Shoot a few photos if you like, a snippet of video. But mostly, just put down your camera, put away your phone. Be there, in the moment, walking with her. And feel. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Theater

      A Welcome Gust of Weird, and Adventures in Shadow Puppetry

      by

      “My Onliness” is voluptuous and frenetic, while “This and That” is a slip of a show. Both are pleasingly peculiar.Some theaters dim the lights momentarily to signal that the performance is about to begin. Others sound a delicate three-note chime.At the New Ohio Theater, in Greenwich Village, audience members crowded into the lobby waiting to see the madcap new play “My Onliness” are alerted to curtain time by the sudden blast of a conch shell and the arrival of a human with a unicorn head, who leads a procession into the house.Don’t mind the man in swim goggles showering onstage under a thin stream of water, wearing a sign that says “WRITER” and a tall foil hat that looks like the progeny of a Hershey’s Kiss and a bishop’s miter. Just take in the voluptuous strangeness of it all. For theater lovers ravenous for the downtown-peculiar, “My Onliness” is savory sustenance.The cast of characters includes a ginormous lobster, who is warm of heart and terribly charming. But first in this dark, frenetic fable by Robert Lyons, with music by Kamala Sankaram, there is the Mad King.Dressed in sequined red, his face sparkly with glitter, the Mad King (Daniel Irizarry, who directed the show) occupies a throne that is quite literally a high chair — the perfect perch for a childish narcissist extraordinaire, who considers himself “a great genius of living.”“Listen up!” he barks at the audience arrayed around him on three sides. “I told you that in my presence you are all equal. It’s true! You are equally nothing.”A danger to the Writer (Rhys Tivey), whom he considers a threat, and an enemy to Morbidita (Cynthia LaCruz), a subject who dares to approach him with a petition, the Mad King nonetheless has a sneaky charisma, and he’s well-mannered when it suits him.If he wants to lie across spectators’ laps, or recruit someone to drag him around the stage, he asks nicely and does take no for an answer. Ditto when he goes seat to seat, offering generous slugs of rum to each of us. Who says consent protocols can’t be fun?Presented with One-Eighth Theater and IRT Theater, “My Onliness” is sprinkled with songs and performed in English and American Sign Language, with two graceful, glamorous Court Mediums (Malik Paris, who also plays the lobster, and Dickie Hearts) signing the show. (Artistic sign language direction is by Alexandria Wailes and Kailyn Aaron-Lozano.) The musicians, Joanie Brittingham and Drew Fleming, are comparatively subtle presences onstage — until the show turns operatic and Brittingham unleashes her lovely soprano.Lyons calls his play “an homage to Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz,” the early 20th-century, anti-totalitarian avant-gardist who was a visual artist as well as a playwright. With a crimson, alley-style set by Jungah Han, vivid lighting by Christina Tang and phantasmagorical costumes by James Terrell and Brittani Beresford, this show is saturated with color and tinged with the absurd. Occasionally delicate, it’s more often chaotic, and gleefully so.And while it’s a political play — “You have to wonder why someone doesn’t just kill him,” the Writer says of the Mad King — it’s less about plot than about a near onslaught of sensation, some of which is lost to poor sight lines.“My Onliness” is the kind of show that in its muchness may leave you slightly mystified. But there’s an unhinged jollity to it, too. It is a welcome gust of weird.“This and That” at the Chocolate Factory Theater in Queens uses shadow puppets and projections to create a plotless landscape of music and morphing shapes.Maya SharpeAt the Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City, Queens, the Institute of Useless Activity’s “This and That” is also experimental, but it occupies the other end of the overload spectrum. Its medium is light and shadow.Created by Steven Wendt and Phil Soltanoff, and performed by Wendt, one of the Blue Men of Blue Man Group, it is a slip of a show — no plot or dialogue, just projections, shadow puppetry, music.Presented with the Bushwick Starr and directed by Soltanoff, it’s soothing stuff. The first section gets gently psychedelic, with kaleidoscopic colors and morphing shapes, and lots of following an emerald-green light. If you have a favorite edible, I imagine that preshow would be a fine time to indulge.Later Wendt makes shadow puppets, which are variously impressive — such as the form of an adult and a child, sweetly rocking — and perplexing. There was one that I never did figure out.A grain of salt: At the performance I saw, someone in the front row was shooting cellphone video for the Chocolate Factory’s archives. In a show about light and darkness, a brightly glowing phone screen is as loud as a shout, and as disruptive. I might have been able to lose myself more to the experience without that.It is a playful production, though, with a spirit of inquiry. In just under an hour, it doesn’t add up to much, but, then again, the clue is in the name. “This and That” is a sampling — curated odds and ends.My OnlinessThrough Sept. 24 at the New Ohio Theater, Manhattan; newohiotheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes.This and ThatThrough Sept. 24 at the Chocolate Factory Theater, Queens; thebushwickstarr.org. Running time: 55 minutes. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      Little Amal Arrives in New York, With a Message of Hope and Humanity

      by

      The 12-foot-tall Syrian refugee puppet traveled from Turkey to Britain last year. Now, she will spend nearly three weeks in the five boroughs taking part in numerous events.As her head peeked out from above metal barriers, Little Amal widened her eyes as she took in the arrivals terminal at Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday. She looked left, then right, clutching her big green suitcase with its rainbow and sun stickers. She was, as newcomers to New York City so often are, a little nervous, and a little lost.But then, some music. As Little Amal lumbered through the terminal, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, its music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and its children’s chorus began to perform music of welcome: the final chorus from Philip Glass’s opera about Gandhi’s early life, “Satyagraha” — whose title translates loosely to “resistance.”Amal, a 10-year-old Syrian refugee puppet, appeared transfixed by the music — much like the many travelers strolling by with their suitcases appeared transfixed by the 12-foot-tall puppet suddenly towering before them. Still, she was trepidatious, a tad reluctant to approach the orchestra. At least, that is, until a chorus member — a girl wearing a sunflower yellow shirt — went up to her and took her by the hand.Amal and her puppeteers made their way through Terminal 4, and were welcomed by members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and its children’s choir.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAmal has traveled across Europe and met with Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Now she has made her way to the Big Apple with big plans. For the rest of this month, she will tour all five boroughs, visiting with children, artists, politicians and community leaders as she begins a search for her uncle, and, her creators hope, helps highlight the experience, hardship and beauty of millions of displaced refugees.Her extended walk through New York City will include more than 50 events of welcome like the one at the airport on Wednesday. She will pick flowers at a community garden in Queens, walk across the High Bridge in the Bronx, ride the Staten Island Ferry, dance in the streets of Washington Heights and find herself amid a Syrian wedding procession in Bay Ridge.“She will render visibility to something people don’t want to see,” said Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artistic director of the Walk Productions, which is presenting the public art involving Amal, along with St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.Amal has already traveled quite a distance — 5,000 miles from Turkey to Britain last year — in search of her mother. And on Wednesday, when she stepped into the arrivals terminal she was greeted by a top-flight welcome committee.Embarking on a U.S. walk: Amal will participate in over 50 events across the five boroughs through Oct. 2.Todd Heisler/The New York Times“Opera is about dreaming and it’s also about reflecting our world,” Nézet-Séguin told The New York Times before the welcome. “Especially in the past years and months, the Met has been showing how important it is to welcome everyone to our opera house and also to really, truly respond to our times and connect with everyone in the world.”“I know this is going to be a very moving event,” he added.For those unfamiliar with Little Amal’s story and her journey, here is a look at who Amal is, where she has been, where she is going — and why.The making of AmalAmal, whose name means “hope” in Arabic, is operated by up to four people, including one person on stilts. Designed by the Handspring Puppet Company based in South Africa, Amal is delicate — her arms and upper body are made of bamboo canes — and she sometimes requires maintenance.The puppet is the protagonist in what is ostensibly a traveling theater project meant to remind a news-fatigued public about the children fleeing violence and persecution. Syrian refugees garnered considerable attention in 2015 and 2016 as they fled the country. The Walk in Europe followed a route similar to the one taken by some Syrians who fled.As it happened, Amal began her European walk in the summer of 2021, shortly after the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, which spurred a fresh migration crisis in Europe. Over four months, Amal crossed the continent, stopping at refugee camps, town squares and the Royal Opera House in London. To date, she has been part of more than 190 events in more than 80 towns, cities and villages in 12 countries.Amal and her puppeteers in Calais, France, last October. It was one of many stops she made during a four-month, 5,000-mile journey from Turkey to Britain.Elliott Verdier for The New York Times“We were really taken by the amount of people who took to the streets to welcome her,” Zuabi said during a recent interview conducted via Zoom. “It became very clear that while the governments are talking on a certain level on this issue, the people of the cities are willing to engage.”Now Amal is continuing her journey in New York.“New York’s ethos — or at least the way it perceives itself — is this great human endeavor created by wave on wave of migration,” Zuabi said. “New Yorkers celebrate what they have achieved through this melting pot of migrations and how stories have amalgamated for growth and for culture. Taking Amal here was a way to investigate that and also investigate the United States in a very particular moment.“How do you want to welcome her?” he added. “I truly hope that in this very busy, very hectic city, people will take a moment and come and be empathetic and reach out to each other through this stranger.”As was the case in Europe, many of Little Amal’s stops are planned and include visits with artistic and institutional leaders; other encounters may be more spontaneous. And there are plans in the works, officials say, for a later trip across America.“It’s one big theater show happening for free on your streets,” Zuabi said. “You don’t need to travel far to a fancy theater and get dressed — you can walk down in your pajamas if you want.”July 2021: TurkeyIn Adana, Turkey, children flew flocks of homemade birds around Amal.Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York TimesAmal’s first stop was in Gaziantep, a city in southern Turkey just 40 miles from the Syrian border. It’s where many Syrian refugees have settled. At one point, she visited a park where Syrian children sang to her; another group gave her a handmade trunk, filled with gifts for her journey.August 2021: GreeceAmal met some resistance in Greece. She had planned to visit the Greek World Heritage site of Meteora, known for Orthodox monasteries perched upon towering rocks. But a local council banned her scheduled picnic on the grounds that a “Muslim doll from Syria” shouldn’t be performing in a space important to Greek Orthodox believers. (Amal’s religion has never been specified.)Later, in Larissa, in central Greece, people pelted Amal with eggs, fruit and even stones. Then in Athens, her planned events drew protests and counterprotests.September 2021: RomeDuring a visit to Vatican City to meet the pope, Amal embraced a bronze statue in St. Peter’s Square that depicts 140 migrants, including Jews fleeing the Nazis.Remo Casilli/ReutersUpon arriving in Rome, Amal went to the Vatican, strolled through St. Peter’s Square, hugged a bronze statue depicting 140 migrants and met Pope Francis, a vocal supporter of refugees. She proceeded to the Teatro India, one of Rome’s most well-known theaters, where paintings, collages and digital works by the Syrian artist Tammam Azzam flashed up on a wall behind her. The works were nightmarish visions of the war-torn home she’d left behind.October 2021: FranceAt a town square, with locals leaning out of apartment windows, Amal danced to the music performed by a group of refugee and migrant rappers. Then she headed for the beach, where she was joined by 30 other puppets her size. Joyce DiDonato, the American opera singer, offered a serenade.November 2021: EnglandTo close out her long journey, Amal went to Manchester, where thousands of fans waited for her at the Castlefield Bowl, many expecting her to be reunited with her mother. As she took her final steps, a flock of wooden puppet swallows surrounded her and then, in a burst of smoke, an image of a woman’s face appeared — her mother in spirit, if not person.“Daughter, you’ve got so far — so very far away from home — and it’s cold, so stay warm,” a gentle voice intoned in Arabic. “I’m proud of you.”May 2022: UkraineSince completing her 2021 journey, Amal has traveled to Lviv and to several cities in Poland to visit Ukrainian refugee children and families who were forced to flee after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Sept. 14 and 21: QueensTodd Heisler/The New York TimesAfter her arrival at Kennedy Airport on Wednesday, Little Amal will set out for Jamaica, Queens, with her big suitcase. She may get some help navigating the city from her friends at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. But how will she fare in Astoria when night falls?Little Amal will return to Queens on Sept. 21 to visit Corona and Jackson Heights.Sept. 15 to Oct. 1: ManhattanLittle Amal will not leave New York without seeing all of the sights. While in Manhattan, she has planned visits to Grand Central Terminal, the New York Public Library, Times Square, Lincoln Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral.Later in her trip, she will go to City Hall, and visit Washington Heights, Harlem, Chinatown and several other neighborhoods.Sept. 19 to Oct. 2: BrooklynAs it turns out, Amal has some roots in Brooklyn: In 2018, St. Ann’s Warehouse presented an Off Broadway play, “The Jungle,” that introduced the character of Amal.The play will return to St. Ann’s early next year.“We left like we needed her here,” said Susan Feldman, the president and artistic director of St. Ann’s Warehouse, an organizer of Little Amal’s New York walk.“If you ask me what is the best thing to do, you want to walk with her,” Feldman said. “The best times are when people first see her.”During her time in the borough, Amal will make stops at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Green-Wood Cemetery and several Brooklyn neighborhoods. She will also make multiple visits to St. Ann’s Warehouse, including on her last day in the city, on Oct. 2.Sept. 25 and 26: The BronxAmal will visit Mott Haven in search of the waterfront. She is also interested in crossing the High Bridge but may need help from the community to overcome her fear of heights.Sept. 30: Staten IslandAmal will ride the Staten Island Ferry, and head to Snug Harbor, where she will be welcomed by a parade.Alex Marshall contributed reporting. More

    • 175 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      The Saga of a World War II Ancestor of Miss Piggy, Bert and Yoda

      by

      Long before Frank Oz brought many Muppets to life, his father, an amateur Dutch puppeteer, made a Hitler marionette as an act of defiance. He buried it during the war.The puppet stands 20 inches tall, hand-painted and carved out of wood, its uniform tattered and torn. But for all it has endured over more than 80 years — buried in a backyard in Belgium at the outset of World War II, dug up after the war and taken on a nine-day cross-Atlantic journey, stored and almost forgotten in an attic in Oakland, Calif. — it remains, with its black toothbrush mustache and right arm raised in a Nazi salute, immediately and chillingly recognizable.It is a depiction of Hitler, hand-carved and painted in the late 1930s by an amateur Dutch puppeteer, Isidore (Mike) Oznowicz, and clothed by his Flemish wife, Frances, as they lived in prewar Belgium.The Hitler marionette, an instrument of parody and defiance, offers an intriguing glimpse into the strong puppetry tradition in the family of the man who retrieved it from that attic: Frank Oz, one of its creators’ sons, who went on to become one of the 20th century’s best-known puppeteers, bringing Cookie Monster, Bert, Miss Piggy and others to life through his collaborations with Jim Henson, and later becoming a force in the Star Wars movies, giving voice to Yoda. The marionette will be shown publicly for the first time later this month at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.Oz’s father was drawn to puppetry from the day when, as an 11-year-old boy, he passed a street show of outsize, colorful Sicilian puppets in Antwerp. “As a youngster, I was interested in things three-dimensional,” Oznowicz told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1990. After they arrived in Oakland in 1951, Oz’s parents founded the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild, and the family living room became a gathering spot for puppet makers and enthusiasts from across the region. Oz learned how to string puppets from his father, and as a teenager, he earned $25 an hour doing puppet shows, and served as an apprentice puppeteer at Children’s Fairyland, an amusement park.Mike and Frances Oznowicz at a puppet fair in Children’s Fairyland in 1956.via the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and Children’s Fairyland ArchivesBut Oz — who parlayed his successes in puppetry into a long career as an actor and a director — was never drawn to carrying on the family tradition.“It was a great training ground for me until I hit 18 and I said, I’m done with this, I don’t want to be a puppeteer,” Oz, 78, said in a recent interview as he sat on a bench in Riverside Park in New York. “I never wanted to be a puppeteer. I want to be a journalist, actually.”It was a chance encounter with Henson, whom he met at a puppeteer’s convention when he was still a teenager, that changed the course of his life.“I really don’t care about puppets,” Oz said, under the mist of a light June rain. “I really don’t. And never did. And Jim showed me how to be successful. Then I became successful at the very thing that I didn’t initially want, but the joy was working with Jim and the Muppets.”Oz was startled when he came across the puppet years ago in the attic of his family home in Oakland — “I thought, ‘Oh My God.’” He brought it to New York where he displayed it, along with seven marionette heads carved by his father, in a museum case in his apartment on the Upper West Side.The puppet, the carved heads and a video interview Frank conducted with his father before his death in 1998, will be shown at “Oz is for Oznowicz: A Puppet Family’s History,” opening at the Contemporary Jewish Museum on July 21. (Frank’s nom-de-Hollywood is “Oz,” but his legal name remains Oznowicz.)“I never wanted to be a puppeteer,” Frank Oz said. He parlayed his successes with puppets into a long career as an actor and a director.Victor Llorente for The New York TimesThe exhibition tracks the remarkable story of this puppet and how Isidore, who was Jewish and was born in Amsterdam, and Frances, who was Catholic, fled Antwerp in 1940 as the Nazis advanced and bombs exploded across Belgium. At the urging of Frances’s mother, who was fearful that they would be captured with such a defiant marionette as they tried to outrace the Nazis, they buried the puppet in their backyard.“He and Mom made a pact that when the bombs landed in Antwerp — and they were expecting that — they’d be ready go to,” said Ronald Oznowicz, 80, who is Frank’s older brother. “They had their bikes ready and their food ready. They had a whole plan and the object was to get to England.”Isidore and Frances traveled through southern France, Spain, Morocco and Portugal — the tale of their journey is recounted in the video interview — before settling in England, where Frank and Ronald were born.The family returned to Antwerp after the war and dug up the puppet. It was another five years before they obtained a visa and came to the United States. The puppet came with them. (A third child, Jenny, was born after they settled in the United States.)“I have to tell you: This is a son’s remembrance,” Oz said. “My parents left Belgium in time. But sadly, half of his family was killed in the gas chambers because they didn’t leave. My father never really liked to talk about it. It was too difficult for him.”“All these stories of my mother and father, they were just fairy tales to me,” he said.Indeed, much of this story is murky, as it reconstructs the life of the parents of one of the men so instrumental in making the Muppets beloved: Isidore was, by day, a window trimmer and sign painter, and Frances became a dressmaker. It is not exactly clear how — or even if — the Hitler puppet was used in performances.An old photograph of the Hitler marionette, which was buried in a backyard in Belgium at the outset of World War II, dug up after the war and taken on a nine-day cross-Atlantic journey, stored and almost forgotten in an attic in Oakland, Calif.via Frank Oznowicz, Jenny Oznowicz and Ronald Oznowicz; Jason MadellaThis exhibit came to be because of happenstance. “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited,” which was first shown at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, was set to move this summer to The Contemporary Jewish Museum, and the institution, in keeping with its mission, was looking for ways to place the exhibition in some sort of Jewish context.“I was aware that Frank Oz was Jewish and wondered if there was any kind of story that Frank would want to tell here,” said Heidi Rabben, the senior curator of the museum. Karen Falk, the head archivist for the Henson collection, told her about the puppet that Oz had retrieved from his parents’ attic, and Rabben asked Oz if she could borrow it for this exhibit.“It was such an incredibly inspiring story about resilience and resistance,” Rabben said. “That is what we are interested in: What are the ways we can share stories of the Holocaust? We have limited information and it’s very selective based on what our parents and grandparents chose to share. How do we make sure we never forget?”The two exhibits will overlap for a few weeks; the Henson exhibit closes in mid-August.The Hitler puppet is the centerpiece of “Oz is for Oznowicz.” The mustache, the hair and the eyebrows are painted black; Isidore carved the mustache so that it protrudes from the puppet. A Nazi arm band is strapped around the left arm. No effort was made to refurbish the Hitler puppet or any of the heads; they are being presented the way Frank found them. The marionette’s right leg is exposed because of a tear in the uniform.Given its subject matter and the sensitivities of a museum dedicated to addressing questions of Jewish history, “Oz is for Oznowicz,” contains a warning for attendees: “This exhibition contains a marionette of Adolf Hitler that may be disturbing for some viewers. Our intention in displaying this object is to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive through the objects and firsthand stories of those who experienced its persecution, and to encourage conversation and education about the ongoing horrors of antisemitism and authoritarianism today.”Isidore’s sons remember him as a man of pointed humor with a strong political sensibility, and said it was in character for him to use humor and parody for political effect. But once they made it back to the United States, and embarked on lives as immigrants in a new country, they tried to put that chapter of their lives behind them.After their meeting at a convention of the National Puppeteers of America, Jim Henson asked Frank Oz to come to New York and work part-time with him for six months in 1963. He stayed with Henson until 1986.Oz said he jumped at the chance to lend his parents’ work to the Henson exhibition.“I want to show how people can express themselves in a positive way during a war — and make fun of people through other means,” he said. “I just want to honor my parents. I want to people to see how lucky we are right now, even in the terrible situation we are in right now.” More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Theater

      She’ll Have You at Moo: Milky White and the Power of Puppetry

      by

      Once upon a time on Broadway, back in 1987, the skinny old “cow as white as milk” in the new James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim musical “Into the Woods” was played by a prop as still as a statue. The cow, Milky White, has no lines, so it worked.Years went by, the fairy-tale mash-up musical returned to Broadway in 2002, and this time Milky White was played by an actor in a cow suit. Now she could dance, and that worked, too.Decades passed, and in the frenzied spring of 2022 came a hit Encores! revival so delicious that it transferred almost instantly from New York City Center to Broadway. Now in previews at the St. James Theater, where it opens on July 10, this “Into the Woods” presents Milky White as a puppet who breathes, coughs, moos and mourns — which works enchantingly.Or as an enchantment? It is a mysterious thing, the preternatural dynamic between a puppet onstage and the people in the seats, even the grown-up ones.”We’re best friends,” the actor Kennedy Kanagawa said of the cow puppet that he brings to life in “Into the Woods.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesWe, the savvy spectators, know that the puppet isn’t what it pretends to be. We can plainly see, for example, that Milky White is not an actual cow, that her scrawny ribs are built of cardboard, that an agile actor — the Broadway newcomer Kennedy Kanagawa — is operating her. But we look right past the artifice and invest in the puppet. Whereupon it unlocks in us a less guarded, more primal sympathy than we might allow ourselves to feel for a human performer.“There is a funny sort of yes-and that has to take place,” said James Ortiz, the Obie Award winner (for the puppet-filled Tin Man prequel “The Woodsman”) who designed Milky White. “There’s a magical sort of agreement that automatically happens. I really can’t explain fully why, but an audience just leans in and goes, ‘It’s real.’”In the musical, Milky White is the cow traded by Jack — the not-so-bright boy of beanstalk fame — for a pittance of five magic beans. With floppy ears, a free-swinging udder and a head of soft foam textured with paper, she has a handmade aesthetic that’s ideal for Lear deBessonet, the revival’s director, who confessed to having “almost an inverse emotional relationship” to slickly engineered production elements.For her, high-tech means low emotion. Whereas with Milky White, deBessonet melted as soon as she saw her move — though that initial glimpse was digital, in a short video that Ortiz shot after he first built Milky White.Kanagawa, Milky White and Cole Thompson during a rehearsal of “Into the Woods” at New 42nd Studios.Vincent Tullo for The New York Times“He conceived a cow that has a full range of ecstasy and sadness and embarrassment and longing and all of these things,” said deBessonet, the artistic director of Encores!, who is making her Broadway debut with this production. “He knows how to leave just that right amount of space for the actor’s imagination, the puppeteer’s imagination and the audience’s imagination to combine and lift that object into this whole other stratosphere of meaning and play.”As high-profile Sondheim revivals tend to be, deBessonet’s is packed with stars: Brian d’Arcy James as the Baker, Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife, Phillipa Soo as Cinderella, Patina Miller as the Witch, Gavin Creel as the Wolf and Joshua Henry as Rapunzel’s Prince.Milky White is the principal puppet, but Ortiz has designed her some puppet company: a gargantuan and sinister pair of witch’s hands; the Giant’s elegant, open-weave boots (for which Ortiz tapped the wicker expertise of a fellow puppet designer, Camille Labarre); and, as Cinderella’s loyal friends, a flock of normal-size birds. Their wings have fragments of text on them, even though Ortiz knows the detail is too tiny for the audience to see.“The feathers are made out of torn-up pieces of poetry,” he said. “There’s also bits of Shakespeare in there from ‘Twelfth Night,’ because it’s about a young girl who disguises herself and finds love.”Early one evening in June, after the first rehearsal for the Broadway run, Ortiz and Kanagawa were sitting in a rehearsal studio on West 42nd Street, giving an interview for this article. A few feet away Milky White hung next to the birds on a metal rack, looking as lifeless as any puppet does without its puppeteer.Phillipa Soo, right, as Cinderella and Albert Guerzon, rehearsing a scene in which he operates a flock of birds, Cinderella’s loyal friends.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesKanagawa walked over and, after checking with Ortiz to make sure it was OK, took her down. Holding her by the handles, Kanagawa played with her spindly, splaying cardboard legs and recounted how he learned to shift her udder to one side when she needs to sit down. But he wasn’t puppeteering her just yet; she was still inanimate.Then he tilted her head ever so slightly, and instantly there she was: imbued with life and seemingly quizzical — even if her big, almost teary eyes are really just beveled foam coated with clear epoxy that catches the light.“Yeah, we’re best friends,” said Kanagawa, who was praised for his expert puppeteering in Alexis Soloski’s review of the Encores! production in The New York Times.It’s a recent skill for Kanagawa. Ortiz asked him to play Milky White because of his playfulness and imagination as an actor and his deep-rooted passion for the show. Then he taught him how to do it.This production has offered both of them the space to evolve the musical’s performance tradition, considering the sparsely written Milky White as a full character in puppet form.“We just kind of talk endlessly about cow logic,” Ortiz said.“Which honestly is kind of dog logic,” Kanagawa said. “Milky is a pet.”There’s the “right amount of space for the actor’s imagination, the puppeteer’s imagination and the audience’s imagination to combine and lift that object into this whole other stratosphere of meaning,” said Lear deBessonet, the revival’s director.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesOrtiz, 38, grew up in Dallas, and made his Broadway debut this spring, designing the frolicsome mammoth and dinosaur puppets for “The Skin of Our Teeth” — and, the season being what it was, filling in for three performances as that show’s head puppeteer. The first live musical he ever saw was a high school production of “Into the Woods,” with a statue-style cow.Kanagawa, 37, was born in Tokyo and moved to the Washington, D.C., area when he was 10. In seventh grade, at a birthday party, he watched the video recording of “Into the Woods” with its original Broadway cast and original Broadway cow — then got his own VHS copy and, he said, “absolutely destroyed it with watching it so many times.”More recently, in Rob Marshall’s 2014 movie version (with James Corden as the Baker, Emily Blunt as the Baker’s Wife, Anna Kendrick as Cinderella, and Meryl Streep as the Witch), a genuine cow played the cow — not a casting decision likely to be emulated by many stage productions.Long before that, though, an idea percolated in Hollywood that might have permanently altered the performance tradition of “Into the Woods.” The Muppets creator Jim Henson was interested in making a film adaptation. He “saw the show and was a fan,” Lapine wrote in an email. “He was a wonderful fellow.” But Henson died in 1990.Five years later, the idea moved forward anyway at Columbia Pictures. As Sondheim recalls in his book “Look, I Made a Hat,” the animals in the movie were to be played by “Henson creatures.” The script got a couple of readings with a couple of deliriously starry casts (one had Robin Williams as the Baker, Cher as the Witch and Carrie Fisher and Bebe Neuwirth as Cinderella’s stepsisters) before, Sondheim writes, the project was killed in a studio shake-up.It’s easy to envision a profusion of puppet Milky Whites, a whole generation’s worth, blossoming forth onstage if that film had happened. Instead, the cow that deBessonet asked for, and Ortiz designed, and Kanagawa operates, will be Broadway’s first puppet Milky White.Just lean in and look into her eyes. There’s no question at all: She’s real. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Little Amal, a Refugee Puppet Who Traveled Europe, Will Visit New York

      by

      Last year, the 12-foot-tall Syrian girl trekked from Turkey to Britain to find her mother. This fall, she’ll visit all five boroughs.Little Amal, a 12-foot-tall puppet depicting a 10-year-old Syrian refugee, has seen about a dozen countries, visited London’s Royal Opera House and other sightseeing destinations, and even met the Pope.But this fall, Amal will embark on an entirely new adventure, crossing the Atlantic for the first time in a trip to New York intended to promote an open embrace of refugees and immigrants.Amal is scheduled to arrive at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sept. 14, with plans to travel to all five boroughs, visiting with children, artists, politicians and community leaders along the way, according to an announcement on Thursday from the Walk Productions, which is co-producing the visit with St. Ann’s Warehouse.Her original 5,000-mile journey from Turkey to England last year — which included visits to migrant camps — was designed to highlight the plight of millions of Syrian refugees in Europe who traveled long distances across the continent to flee the country’s civil war. The project was supposed to end there, said its artistic director, Amir Nizar Zuabi, but about two-thirds of the way through the journey, the creative team realized that Amal could have a future beyond those specific geopolitical circumstances.“She became an excuse for communities to come together and be kind to a foreigner,” Zuabi said, “and by doing that, understand something about themselves — understand what there is to celebrate in their communities.”The towering puppet — which is operated by three people, including one person on stilts — will visit St. Ann’s, and several other New York cultural institutions will be involved in her trip, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center and the Classical Theater of Harlem. The visit, which has a budget of over $1 million, is planned to conclude in early October with a trip to the Statue of Liberty.In 2018, St. Ann’s presented an Off Broadway play, “The Jungle,” that inspired the character of Amal. First staged at the Young Vic Theater before transferring to the West End, “The Jungle” is based on what its writers, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, observed when they set up an interactive arts center in a migrant camp in Calais, France. The play will be returning to St. Ann’s next February.Susan Feldman, the artistic director of St. Ann’s, said she first saw Amal’s effect on the public during a trip last year to an elementary school in a Paris suburb, where the students started screaming and following her around as soon as they laid eyes on her.“She became a bit of a Pied Piper,” Feldman said. “It was very magical.”Although Amal’s presence is not overtly political, Feldman said she felt that the visit to the United States would send an important message in a country where immigration has become a “political football” and migrant children have faced perilous living conditions.To Feldman, Amal’s visits in Europe felt like a parade of innocence and hope. “To have that in the streets in a very visible way could be very beautiful,” she said.Designed by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, Amal is quite delicate — her arms and upper body are made of bamboo canes — and has needed plenty of maintenance over her months of travel, Zuabi said. Earlier this year, she visited young Ukrainian refugees in Poland.But New York is not likely to be her last journey: Amal has had requests to visit countries around the world, he said, and there are plans in the works for trips elsewhere in the U.S. next year. More

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ at 40: The Plant That Conquered the World

      by

      Members of the cast and creative team from the original production, as well as the current Off Broadway revival, look back on how the show came together and discuss its enduring influence.“Little Shop of Horrors” was Alan Menken’s last shot.It was the winter of 1979 when Menken, a young composer, and Howard Ashman, the lyricist, playwright and director, were coming off a disappointing Off Broadway run of a musical version of the Kurt Vonnegut novel “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”So, when Ashman called with the idea to develop a low-budget musical comedy about a murderous plant, based on Roger Corman’s semi-obscure 1960 black comedy film, Menken made a deal with himself: He would give musical theater one more shot. If it didn’t work, he would commit to writing advertising jingles full time.Of course, the off-the-wall, low-budget musical would go on to become an improbable success, selling out houses at the 98-seat WPA Theater in the East Village before transferring to the 347-seat Orpheum Theater, where it would run for a little over five years. In the decades since, it’s reached cult classic status and become one of the most produced shows at high schools across the country.On the 40th anniversary of the original Off Off Broadway production, which opened on May 20, 1982, at the WPA Theater, members of the original cast and creative team, as well as some from the current Off Broadway revival and family members of Ashman, who died in 1991 from AIDS, at 40, reflected on how it came together, its improbable success and why it still resonates. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.Howard Ashman directing Ellen Greene, who played Audrey. “He just loved me, and when a director just adores your creativity, your creativity blooms,” she said. Estate of Howard AshmanThe seed that would become “Little Shop of Horrors” had been planted in Ashman’s head for a few decades, ever since he saw Corman’s black-and-white horror spoof of the same name when he was around 14. But revisiting it proved a bit tricky.SARAH ASHMAN GILLESPIE (sister of Howard Ashman) My husband and I were the only people Howard knew who had the Betamax, and we rented “Little Shop” — the movie — for us all to watch. Except for Howard, we were appalled. We didn’t think it would be a good idea at all to do the show. Of course, he ignored us entirely. That was Howard’s way; when he had a vision for something, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.And Ashman had the perfect partner in mind: The composer Alan Menken, with whom he’d just collaborated on “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.”BILL LAUCH (Ashman’s partner) Howard had the idea that “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” had an Off Broadway sensibility, but it was just too expensive. He resolved that the next musical he was going to do is going to have a very small cast — under 10 characters. And it was going to have some kind of element at the heart of it that would be so unusual that it would just demand attention.ALAN MENKEN (composer) I hadn’t seen the film, but a few weeks after he told me he wanted to make a musical, it showed up on cable TV. My God, there were so many fun elements!40 Years of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’The off-the-wall musical comedy about a murderous plant, which debuted in 1982 Off Off Broadway, continues to resonate.  Revisiting a Classic: The comedy becomes a morality tale for the age of universal celebrity in Michael Mayer’s revival, which opened in 2019. Leading Man: Conrad Ricamora just ended his run in the revival as Seymour, the show’s nebbishy hero.Inhabiting Seymour: The actor Jonathan Groff took on the iconic role in 2019. From the Archives: In 1982, our critic described “Little Shop of Horrors” as a show “for horticulturists, horror-cultists, sci-fi fans and anyone with a taste for the outrageous.”The production at the WPA had to come together quickly, cheaply and without the reassurance of big names in the cast.MENKEN The theater was run by Howard and Kyle Renick, and they used to joke that WPA stands for “We’ll Produce Anything.” Howard and I paid for Marty Robinson to be able to construct the first Audrey II, and I played [the piano in] the show myself.FRANC LUZ (Orin Scrivello, Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend in “Little Shop”) They sent me the script, and I turned the audition down. I was like, “How did this get at the highly regarded WPA with lines like, ‘Oh, Seymour?’” It wasn’t until I heard the demo cassette tape Howard and Alan had made that it made sense. I thought, “Jesus, this is really special.”LEE WILKOF (Seymour) I originally auditioned for the dentist. But Alan Menken, who I had known from a revue I did some years earlier, was giggling at me in the toupee — I’d been bald since I was 18 — so I took it off. And Howard Ashman said, “You’re a Seymour!” It came down to me and Nathan Lane for the part, and Connie Grappo, who was Ashman’s assistant director, told Howard to cast me. That’s why I married her! [Laughs]Christian Borle, left, as the dentist and Jonathan Groff as Seymour in the Off Broadway revival that opened in October 2019.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesNext was his most important piece of casting: The person who would design, build and perform the murderous plant, Audrey II.MARTIN P. ROBINSON (puppeteer) Howard told me later that when he presented the challenges of the script — the need for a plant that would start small and get bigger in increments, as well as talk, sing and take over the stage, then the world — most people he talked to said, “Well, you’re going to have to give up this.” I was the only guy who said, “Yeah, sure, you can do all that.”Rehearsals began in earnest, with Menken and Ashman continuing to prune their project as the actors settled into their roles.ELLEN GREENE (Audrey) Howard lived on Greenwich Avenue right around the corner from the Pink Tea Cup, and Alan would be sitting at the piano, and Howard would pace up and down shouting. He was a very strong director — very bright, with a dry sense of humor and tremendous heart. Alan wanted to please Howard, and it was like a dance between the two of them. It was glorious to watch.LUZ Ashman had that kind of intellect that goes at 100 miles faster than everybody else. He would remember lyrics, and he knew every bit of music from the ’60s and ’70s.MENKEN Howard could be impatient about music because it was the one thing he couldn’t directly do himself! [Laughs]For the score, Menken opted for a blend of pop, rock and Latin music.MENKEN It’s the dark side of “Grease,” but there are also elements winking at the late ’50s and early ’60s — beach blanket horror movies with people dancing on the beach while some monster came in from the water to terrorize people — as well as Phil Spector rock, which is apocalyptic in tone. And then our narrators were a girl group derived from the Ronettes and the Shirelles. It was a real cocktail of really dark themes and fun spoof elements.Thanks to his father, Menken had an idea for the stage musical that would become iconic.MENKEN My dad, who was a dentist, was actually president of the New York chapter of the American Analgesia Society, which is a society of dentists who promote the use of nitrous oxide as safe. So I had the idea that Orin was obsessed with nitrous oxide and put the mask on himself to enjoy the sadomasochistic joy of drilling teeth and then get the mask stuck. Howard thought it was hilarious. My dad actually provided the slides for the “Look, Seymour, this could happen to you” part!Ashman was an intense, demanding director, but his dry wit captured the hearts of the cast.LUZ Even if we fought about something — “You know, I don’t think this character would do that” — he’d say, “Oh, he would, he would.” Eventually, you just learned that he was always right.GREENE Howard and I had a respect and a free-flowing love between the two of us. We just got each other. He just loved me, and when a director just adores your creativity, your creativity blooms.MENKEN He was brilliant, and I don’t say that lightly.Meanwhile, the enormous, man-eating Audrey II puppet was taking shape in Robinson’s apartment.ROBINSON I started with the imagery in the Corman film, but I made the shape a little more sophisticated, with curved sharp teeth hidden on the inside that you didn’t see until she started talking. It’s carpeted inside, with a red, hairy interior. It was a workout moving those arms, but I was 28 and I was jacked. I see pictures of myself back then and say, “Oh, my God.”LUZ Marty started the show as this tall, skinny guy with this big Afro, and by the end of it, he had a swimmer’s body. He was like Adonis.Finally, after two weeks of previews, opening night arrived on May 20, 1982.WILKOF We blew the roof off the first night.MENKEN People just went absolutely crazy.WILKOF We were all just floating during that performance. I’ve never experienced anything like it in my career.“Little Shop of Horrors” was a smashing success — and quickly became the hottest ticket in town.WILKOF I was going around the week before opening night handing out fliers, and casting directors would go, “What the hell is this?” And two weeks later, they were calling and asking — no, begging — me for tickets.Rick Moranis as Seymour in the 1986 film.Globe Photos/ZUMAPRESS, via Alamy After a month of performances at the WPA, “Little Shop” transferred Off Broadway to the Orpheum. When it closed on Nov. 1, 1987, it was the third-longest-running musical and the highest-grossing production in Off Broadway history.MICHAEL MAYER (director of the current Off Broadway revival) The buzz around it was incredible. It walked to the razor’s edge of being a satire of a kind of B movie, and yet it had so much true heart.The musical went on to receive Los Angeles and West End productions in 1983 before being turned into a film in 1986, which starred Greene as Audrey and Rick Moranis as Seymour. More than two decades after its original opening night, it finally debuted on Broadway in 2003. Ashman, who had declined a Broadway transfer, believing a smaller house was needed to preserve the impression of the plant’s massive size, never got to see it.LUZ It’s still a shock and a shame that we lost him so young. In October 2019, the current Off Broadway revival opened at the Westside Theater, starring Jonathan Groff as Seymour, opposite Christian Borle as the dentist.MAYER I never saw the film, so I tried to be true to my memory of what Howard did as director.CHRISTIAN BORLE (Orin Scrivello in the current Off Broadway revival) Obviously it has to be funny, but the abuse stuff is so ugly, especially in this day and age, that I felt compelled to play that stuff as straight and dark and awful as possible. Ultimately, he has to be worthy of being fed to the plant.Though the original cast and creative team have gone on to other careers, including Menken’s award-winning run with Disney’s animated musicals, they all agree: They’ve never come across another project like “Little Shop.”ROBINSON When you’re 28, you think, “Oh, this happens all the time.” But that was a once-in-a-lifetime thing.MENKEN Howard and I jokingly called “Part of Your World” from “The Little Mermaid” “Somewhere That’s Wet.” “Little Shop” is the DNA of everything that ended up exploding at Disney, in a funny way.MAYER It resonates more than ever right now — the idea of the Faustian bargain you make for fame and success in a world where people are making a living being TikTok performers and Instagram influencers, and people are famous for being famous more than at any other time in history. It examines the dark side of the American dream, and because it’s so funny and entertaining and moving, it isn’t going to bum you out so much. More