by kellie abrahamson kabrahamson1@aol.com
When I was a kid, the closest I got to seeing my favorite toys come to life was on TV during Saturday morning cartoons. These days, nearly all of my children’s favorite toys have stage shows or live-action movies about them, and My Little Pony is no exception. A toy that I grew up loving, My Little Pony is now a favorite of my five-year-old daughter. The very first My Little Pony stage show, “The World’s Biggest Tea Party,” is coming to Jacksonville on July 19th, and EU got an opportunity to speak with one of the performers, Timothy Caouette, who plays Rainbow Dash.
EU: What’s your theater background?
Timothy Caouette: Last spring I graduated from Long Island College with a degree in Musical Theater. I’ve basically been a performer ever since I was little. I would just put on shows for my family back at home, and when I was in middle school I joined the drama club, and…the choir and…the band. As I got into high school- that’s when really I got into musical theater. I did all the shows in high school. I really fell in love with theater at that point, and that’s when I decided that’s what I wanted to go to school for. So, when I graduated in the spring [from Long Island College] that’s when I auditioned with the VEE Corporation. They ended up offering me the job.
EU: How long have you been on tour?
TC: We first got together to begin rehearsals for the show at the end of September 2006, and the show opened in mid-October. We’ve been on tour ever since.
EU: What’s a typical day on tour like for you?
TC: Well, basically we will travel to a new city on Monday, and then our first show is usually on a Thursday night. We’ll get to the theater and we’ll do our notes session, and we’ll usually do a blocking rehearsal. Then we have performances all weekend long, Thursday through Sunday.
EU: What is “The World’s Biggest Tea Party” about?
TC: It takes you through a day in the life of everybody’s favorite My Little Pony characters. It takes you through all of the ponies waking up in the morning and trying to decide what they want to do that day and, of course, all the ponies have their own favorite thing they like to do. So, Pinkie Pie, who is basically the star of the show, she decides, with the help of the audience, that they’re going put on a big tea party, and they’re going to bring everybody’s favorite activities together all in one day. As the show goes along, you get to see all the ponies helping to bring their favorite thing to the tea party. Eventually, toward the end of the show, there’s a big problem that, with the audience’s help, they’re able to still put on the tea party.
EU: So, it sounds like there’s a lot of audience participation.
TC: Oh, absolutely. The kids are very involved from start to finish.
EU: Tell us about your character, Rainbow Dash.
TC: Well, her favorite thing, of course as her name would suggest, is rainbows. She’s a very girlie-girl, and she loves to have fun. She loves to play dress up with the other ponies. She’s a lot of fun.
EU: What’s you’re favorite part of the show?
TC: Rainbow Dash actually has a big dance number in the second act of the show. It’s called “Disco Dash,” and that would have to be my favorite part of the show. There’s a lot of stuff going on; all the ponies are on stage dancing around in pretty boas and the audience loves it. It gets one of the biggest audience reactions in the show.
EU: Tell me about these costumes. Looking at pictures, I can’t imagine you can see, let alone move around and hit your marks and dance.
TC: You would actually be surprised at how expressive the costumes are. Basically…the front legs of the pony are the performers front legs, we put them on like they’re pants. The backside of the pony is onto like a harness and the back legs are connected to our front legs, so basically, if I step forward with my legs, then the pony’s rear legs will move as well. The head sits on top and basically takes up our entire upper torso and our arms and one of our hands will work the mouth of the pony and the other will blink the eyes.
EU: So how heavy is the costume?
TC: They’re really not very heavy at all. If you actually watch the show, you can see the ponies dance around and jump around. They’re very mobile, they’re very agile, and they’re very expressive.
EU: What message will the children take away from the show?
TC: There’s a very strong message of friendship and working together. Hasbro, one of the partners putting on the show, are a very firm believer in little girls being able to be little girls, and that’s basically what the My Little Pony franchise is all about. A lot of toys for little girls today kind of encourage little girls to grow up too fast, you know, whether its baby dolls where a little girl is playing a mom or Barbie dolls where it’s kind of encouraging little girls to act like teenagers or young adults. My Little Ponies do everything that little girls love to do: they like to play dress up, they like to have tea parties, and they like to bake cookies and cakes. The whole My Little Pony franchise just really embraces little girls being able to be little girls and have fun and do the things that they really love to do.
EU: I played with My Little Ponies as a kid. If I brought my daughter, is this a show I’ll enjoy too?
TC: Absolutely. We actually hear about that all the time. It’s ironic because the My Little Pony franchise originally came out in 1983, which was the year I was born, so there were My Little Ponies in my house when I was growing up. My sister loved to play with them. So we hear a lot of mothers who come to the show and say, “I grew up with My Little Pony. I watched the TV show, I played with the toys and now it’s something that I get to enjoy with my own children.” We really enjoy hearing things like that, and we hear them all the time. You see the parents out in the audience with their kids enjoying it just as much as they are.
EU: What’s the best part of your job?
TC: The best part of my job, without a doubt, is seeing the reaction from the kids. When you’re in the concert performing on stage, there are a lot of times where the kids come right up close to the stage and they’re screaming out the name of their favorite pony, they’re laughing, they’re dancing around, they’re singing and they’re just having a great time. To be able to bring that kind of excitement to kids is an extremely rewarding thing for me.
My Little Pony Live! The World’s Biggest Tea Party will be at the Florida Time-Union Center- Moran Theater Thursday, July 19 through Sunday, July 22. Tickets range in price from $14 to $30. For more information, visit mylittleponylive.net or call (904) 353-3309.
|
EU Critic’s Choice Awards
