The Very Hungry Caterpillar Show, created by Jonathan Rockefeller, has recently made its New York City debut. The show first appeared in Australia and received critical acclaim and a ton of praise from critics and viewers alike.
The show brings to life the beloved children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, as well as four other books by the author.
I was given tickets to see the show with my young son and we were delighted to see one of our favorite books play out right in front of our eyes. The colors in the show are just as vibrant as in the book, and kids are invited to talk and interact with the performers much like they are in Carle’s stories.
I talked to Rockefeller about the process of putting this show together and he gave me some insight into how the puppets were created and how much Carle was involved. Turns out it was a lot of hard work, but quite rewarding as well:
What inspired you to want to turn this book into a show?
It is one of my favorite books. I still have my original copy from when I was a boy. I just have wonderful memories of this book. I think it’s so colorful and vibrant and entertaining and I always loved the pages. I thought it would be a tremendously wonderful thing to bring that into a three-dimensional context and bring it off the page. But all of the books in the piece are wonderful stories. We don’t just focus on The Very Hungry Caterpillar; we actually have four of Eric Carle’s works come to life, The Very Lonely Firefly, The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, and Mister Seahorse. The caterpillar is the rock star of the piece, there’s no doubt about that, but these books are only 30 pages long, so we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just the caterpillar on stage for an hour. You’re getting four stories for the price of one.
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Main photo by Carol Rosegg
How were the puppets created?
I started by doing a series of sketches. I worked with Eric Carle and his people to refine them; we wanted to make sure it was a true, faithful interpretation of the books. Then I approached a puppet company here in New York called The Puppet Kitchen and we did even more intricate sketches of the mechanics and how they would actually operate and work and be brought to life. From that stage we built wide paper models, which are large-scale versions of the puppets, made from cardboard, so we could see how they moved and operated. Then we went forward and started to build the puppets, the whole process took about 8 months. The most rewarding time during that whole creative stage, for me, was working with Eric Carle and his people. It was just so wonderful that every time we were making something more complex than it needed to be, there was a sort of serenity that was brought back from the books that let us know it just needed to be simple and elegant and move beautifully, that was always our guiding light.
Did Carle have any involvement?
We made sure that everything was carried through in the eyes of Eric Carle. He has some wonderful people working with him that helped make sure that he was involved even beyond the initial creative stage. He has seen a video of the production and has even sent over notes and reviews. It is a nerve-wracking thing because it’s not my work, it’s his work, but we’ve added an entirely new dimension to it. We hope he sees the show in New York.
What can audiences expect from the show?
There’s a couple of things that are different about our show than other children’s shows. First of all, we respect that this might be the first time that many kids have come to the theater, so we actually don’t expect them to be quiet. We encourage them right at the start to ask their adult questions, to guess what’s going to happen next, and to interact with the show. We don’t have songs and dances like other children’s shows; we regard this as sophisticated children’s theater and treat it as such. It’s a true theatrical experience.
Also, it includes four stories. Every one knows the story of the caterpillar but won’t necessarily know the other three. They’re beautiful Eric Carle books, one is all about creativity, about an artist who paints in different colors, he paints red crocodiles and blue horses and I think that encourages kids to go away and do the same for themselves. There’s one story about belonging, which is The Very Lonely Firefly, and then the story of Mister Seahorse who has all these wonderful adventures under the sea and meets different parents who all parent in different ways. Each of these stories will leave you with a different life lesson and that’s what’s wonderful about Carle’s work. The Caterpillar has got the days of the week, numbers, and colors, it’s all in there. Carle has said that he refers to his work as “book toys” or “toy books,” and that all the books have a certain interaction about them to begin with and we wanted to make sure that that playfulness and adventure takes place on stage. You’ll never be able to guess what happens next in our show.
Are you looking forward to performing for a New York crowd?
It’s always fun bringing a show to a new city. I’m really interested to see how it goes in a place that is so populated with theater. But so far it has been really going well. I hope we get the same positive response and reviews we have had elsewhere. I’m very excited. It will be interesting because it’s running for a while and kids shows usually just come and go. Hopefully it becomes a fixture of New York. “Caterpillar in the Big Apple,” is a bit of a cliché but I think it’s a good one.
