National tour of “PJ Masks Live” kicks off Tuesday at the Garde
Earlier this week, the stage of the Garde Arts Center is in the midst of a transformation. Giant props ranging from a children’s playground slide to a makeshift car made out of plywood lay scattered around the stage. Behind them, a giant LED backscreen flashed bright colors and background animations. A seven-foot-tall, six-foot-wide puppet resembling an alien robot sat off to the right. Trusses rigged with sophisticated lighting equipment hung directly above the stage entwined with a jungle of cables. Meanwhile, stage crew members rushed around the theater taking measurements and running tests.
These efforts are all in the name of bringing the animated child superheroes of Disney Jr’s hit television series “PJ Masks” to an on-stage live-action musical. The musical, which is being produced by Round Room Presents, a company that specializes in creating theater productions out of television shows, will launch the national premiere of “PJ Masks Live! Time to Be a Hero” at the Garde Tuesday.
The cast and crew of “PJ Masks,” which totals 24 people, have been developing, rehearsing and finalizing the show’s last elements at the theater since Monday alongside 30 crew members from the Garde before going on tour in 63 cities throughout North America.
The show will make stops at venues such as Madison Square Garden in New York City, Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore and Wang Theatre in Boston, among several other large and small theaters over the next three months.
With this incarnation comes a great opportunity for those at the Garde to take part in a world-class production, Steven Sigel, executive director of the Garde, says.
“This is an extension of what we typically do as a crew for shows, which only typically come in for one day,” he says. “But with this, (the Garde’s crew members) get to be a part of the process of actually putting the production together, and that’s a great experience for them.”
The television show “PJ Masks,” produced by Entertainment One, began airing daily on Disney Jr in late 2015. The show tells the stories of three friends, Connor, Amaya and Greg, who become superheroes at night after putting on their pajamas. Turning into their alter egos — Catboy, Owlette and Gekko — they embark on adventures and solve mysteries.
Since its beginning, the television show has reached more than 8 million children aged 2 through 5, according to "PJ Masks" executive producer Josh Blackburn.
“We really saw great potential with ‘PJ Masks’ and believed that it would make for a great live show,” says Blackburn. “The intellectual property for that show is amazing, and it is inspiring to young children. The popularity of it is just starting to take off, so now is the perfect time to launch a staged production of it.”
But finding the perfect location to host “PJ Masks Live” for its inception was the next task at hand.
“We needed a place that was smaller to finalize the production in because we will be performing in smaller venues. But we also needed a space with the right stage dimensions, the right location, and nine free days in their schedule to accommodate us,” Blackburn says.
The Garde fit that bill — a stroke of luck, according to Sigel, who says that the theater’s show season typically begins in early September. This year, however, the sweeping renovations taking place throughout the theater over the last month set the season’s start date back a couple weeks, allowing for “PJ Masks” to be slotted in.
“It was perfect timing really, but we also saw it as a great opportunity for our community to interact with a creative company,” Sigel says. “It’s rare for us to be able to hang out with artists like this and to learn from them.”
The excitement all began on Monday, when three 52-foot tractor-trailers arrived to the backstage doors of the Garde. After a day of unloading, an around-the-clock schedule of show finalizations began, ranging from stage setup to 12-hour rehearsal days.
By Tuesday, the 11 cast members, all professional performers mostly coming from New York City, were energetically rehearsing their song-and-dance numbers in the Oasis Room, while stage crews, animation and sound technicians worked feverishly inside the theater.
“We’ve been rehearsing for two weeks in New York City with the cast before coming here, and 90 percent of the show is ready to go. This last week is all about putting the finishing touches on and finalizing everything before we go on tour,” Blackburn says.
“The biggest challenge is to take these characters that 3- to 7-year-olds love so much in an animated world, where there are no limits. And in New London, we are trying to figure out how to stage this show with the same amount of animation,” he says. “Things like super cat speed are great for TV. But in real life, our super cat doesn’t run quite as fast, so it’s things like that, that we need to figure out during this week.”
Below the stage in the Green Room, Garde wardrobe and crew members Charlotte Fields and Bobby Graham were stitching and sewing costumes together before fitting them to the actors.
“This is my first time having a sort of residency with a professional crew like this,” Fields says. “It is giving us more experience in how to put these shows together. Normally, for a show we just help with quick costume changes. Those shows are already organized, but here we are a part of creating what the show will be later.”
Another Garde employee helping to make the show come together is programming and production manager Jay Silva. He quickly paced along the length of stage Tuesday afternoon, plugging wires into speakers.
“I’m just setting up the house sound, speakers and monitors,” Silva says. “Right now, we are trying to help them with patching into our system while also setting up their sound system.”
Silva, who has worked with traveling television show productions in the past, says that he is used to this type of work. But the experience for the other crew members, and to the theater as a whole, will prove to be invaluable, he says.
“This is really exciting because this is the world premiere of the show,” he says. “This opportunity shows how talented our guys are here, and it’s an opportunity to mix our world with theirs. We hope that we will get more opportunities like this.”
If you go
WHAT: "PJ Masks Live! Time to Be a Hero"
WHERE: The Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London
WHEN: 6 p.m. Tuesday
ADMISSION: $25-$95
CONTACT: (860) 444-7373,
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