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 HENSONWe 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 HENSONThere’s an awful lot of scenes where we don’t know what the scene’s going to be about, we ask the audience, pick a place that the scene is happening, pick the relationship, tell us who they are, things like that.
BRIAN HENSONSo it’s Rosemary Clooney – Rosemary? Rosemary Clooney, right? The singer? Yes. Clooney, doing, singing. “
BRIAN HENSONI try to emulate his approach of really get the most out of people by allowing them to experiment and certainly allowing people to make mistakes.
BRIAN HENSONI have nothing really prepared,” and actually I say that, the show is not all improvising.
BRIAN HENSONIn 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 HENSONI always very much enjoyed arts and it was so central in my family, my mother was also an art teacher, as well as founding the Henson Company with my dad, there was a lot of art going on in our household.
BRIAN HENSONhe puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it’s great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
BRIAN HENSONWe 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 HENSONThis is certainly the raunchiest, if you use that word, raunchy. The roots of Jim Henson, though, was adult comedy.
BRIAN HENSONYou get used to it, you look forward to the adrenaline of the stage fright before you go out.
BRIAN HENSONOh, 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 HENSONAnd with puppets, especially in our company, we sort of demand a very high standard of puppetry, so it’s a real technical skill.
BRIAN HENSONI 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 HENSONWe wanted to premiere it in New York, because New York is sort of the home of the Jim Henson Company and it’s sort of the tone and flavor, always, of the puppet work that we’ve done traditionally. And that’s what brought us here and now we’re here.
BRIAN HENSONMy dad and mom were, they would take what were popular hits, and lip-sync to them with puppets and do a ridiculous story.
BRIAN HENSON