he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it’s great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
BRIAN HENSONIt’s actually good when the performers are nervous, because it kind of sharpens up your brain and a little bit of adrenaline is good. Initially it’s really tough.
More Brian Henson Quotes
-
-
I’m doing something that’s quite precise over here, working the puppet, and I’m doing something that’s very imprecise and creative and unleashed over here, which is the comedy side. And it’s kind of nice to allow your brain to be doing those two things at once.
BRIAN HENSON -
I think it’s a lot richer than what we call fleshy improv, I think it’s very funny, puppet improv and fleshy improv.
BRIAN HENSON -
The challenge is, well, there’s a huge challenge, which is when you’re improvising, you’re meant to sort of clear your mind completely, just be open and funny, and paying, you know, paying attention.
BRIAN HENSON -
In the show, we have recreated two sketches that my dad had, or pieces that my dad had developed. One that he had developed with my mother, one that Frank Oz had developed with my dad. And these are old pieces from the ’50’s and ’60’s, and we’re going to develop more, too.
BRIAN HENSON -
We took a show to the Aspen Comedy Festival, called “Puppet Up” at that point, and in Aspen we just did three shows, and in Aspen, there was a producer from the Edinborough Fringe Festival, who said, “Please come to Edinborough.”
BRIAN HENSON -
And that was always my father’s favorite part about shooting as well. Often my dad would shoot very, very late, he was quite a workaholic, they would do 20, 20-hour shoots and stuff like that.
BRIAN HENSON -
I think in a creative effort, in any creative effort, you need to, people need to be able to be taking risks and if it turns out to be a mistake, if it turns out not to have been the right choice, that should be applauded, you know, by everybody, and it will come up with another plan.
BRIAN HENSON -
We try to keep it a classy show, but it certainly is blue at times. And it all depends on the audience, sometimes we’ve have audiences that don’t really want us to go too far in that direction.
BRIAN HENSON -
But the fact that most of the show you can’t be prepared for, you have no idea really what’s coming is initially very nerve wracking, by now, it’s kind of fun.
BRIAN HENSON -
So while you’re trying to improvise, you’re also trying to puppeteer, you’re doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
BRIAN HENSON -
We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.
BRIAN HENSON -
And with puppets, especially in our company, we sort of demand a very high standard of puppetry, so it’s a real technical skill.
BRIAN HENSON -
I had a plan, but then I work with an army of great artists and I want all of them to create inside that creation.”
BRIAN HENSON -
But curriculum-wise, I was drawn to the sciences and specifically to physics, and I really enjoyed it and I think for a little while there, I was really thinking my schooling would be in physics, that that was something I loved.
BRIAN HENSON -
Oh, well, I can’t tell you; it would be telling you the end. It’s a one-character lip-syncing because in the early days, that’s what my dad was doing.
BRIAN HENSON