Playbill: It’s a Monday morning, and I'm the most nervous I’ve ever been in my career. I’m about to interview one of my childhood heroes, and he is a two-foot-tall amphibian. “Hi ho, Jeffrey,” he says with that instantly recognizable voice that transports me right back to my childhood home, watching The Muppets on TV. Yeah, I’m sitting across from Kermit the Frog and next to him, illusionist Rob Lake, radiates the quiet assurance of someone who understands how to create wonder right in front of your eyes. “There’s just something magical about live theatre,” Kermit says, almost shyly. “Especially with a little extra magic from Rob Lake.”
2 comments:
The muppets are so important and culturally significant across many generations in a way that I think is really interesting. I have a set of little muppet figurine toys that I used to play with as a kid, and they had been my mothers which she received for her second birthday. Now when my little cousins come to my house they play with them, because we've all grown up with the various pieces of muppet media. I love how in this interview they talked to both Rob Lake the magician, and also Kermit the frog. Kermit is definitely a celebrity in his own right and I find it so endearing and adorable that they're interviewing him the way you would interview a cast member of a show. This show seems super cute, I love that they're doing a magic show on broadway with the muppets. It's too bad that it closed prematurely, because it seems like a fun time.
I like how much this article talks about magic, inspiration, and childhood. As someone who grew up surrounded by old VHS tapes of muppet movies and CDs of seasons of The Muppet Show, I can connect a lot with what Rob Lake talks about in this interview. The Muppets are a pop culture icon, and I hope they remain so for years to come. The zany, crazier than life Muppet Show and movies filled my childhood with so much imaginative fuel and their backstage antics were one of the first things that led me towards pursuing design and production. I think “wonder” as it’s used in this article is the most appropriate term. As a kid watching the Muppets you wonder at the strange creatures on screen in front of you, and as you grow up, you wonder just how Jim Henson and his team were able to accomplish all of that creative magic. I think as long as we have Muppets, we’ll always have good in the world.
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