The misfits are taking over Christmas. A stage adaptation of the immortal Christmas TV special “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” has taken the country by snowstorm, with two separate tours touching down in 55 cities this year. Hartford’s Bushnell hosted some of the musical’s first performances last year.
“It was important to keep this as close to the original as possible,” says Bob Penola, a writer and producer with the national tour, who spent a decade and a half developing the stage show so that it would appeal to the legions of reindeer fans who’ve made the TV special, which was created by Rankin-Bass Productions and first broadcast in 1964, a seasonal staple for half a century. “We tried so many things,” Penola says. “It’s an issue of translating the magic of characters who are non-human. One big question we wrestled with was, ‘Should Rudolph and the other reindeer be on two legs or four?”
Penola, a producing partner on the project who has “been working in commercial entertainment my whole life” (including numerous theme park and cruise ship shows), is delighted that “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer — The Musical” also stands on its own furry feet as a stage musical. “This show is being seen by young children who haven’t even seen the special.” He recently sat behind a child at a performance in Boston who wept at the final curtain: “They have to come back!” the boy wailed.
For his part, Penola finds “an incredible contemporary relevance to this story” of a young buck who’s mocked for his uncommon facial features and discouraged from taking part in reindeer games. “It’s about someone who’s been bullied. That’s an important issue in schools and society today.” Rudolph, Penola says, has been used in a national anti-bullying “Shine Bright” campaign by PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center.
Bringing these characters to vivid life requires dozens of stage performers, many of them puppeteers who manipulate the limbs of such larger-than-life creatures as The Snow Monster. “It’s very immersive,” Penola says. “We’re giving people everything. There’s a real, organic reason why this show works so well.”
Adapting stop-motion animation to the stage was just one challenge for the creative team for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer —The Musical.” Another was the length of the show — the original runs less than an hour (without commercial breaks), and the producers wanted to build it up without, as Penola puts it, “adding anything that wasn’t there already.” The secret in expanding the TV special into a musical theater piece was to take some of the background melodies composed by Johnny Marks and turn them into full-blown production numbers. This includes “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” which is hinted at in the TV score but is now a stand-out number. The song, which Marks wrote for the singer Brenda Lee, was a pop hit in 1958. Memorable songs from the original “Rudolph” include “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Fame and Fortune,” “There’s Always Tomorrow” and “A Couple of Misfits.” The songs are sung by the cast members over a prerecorded musical score.
Refitting a Christmas classic to a new style “is easy and it’s hard,” says Rudolph himself, Lexy Baeza, who’ll be donning the nose antlers at the Bushnell this week, and also played the role here last year. “They want a very specific voice and acting style.” As an example, she snuffles out the memorable line when Rudolph’s nose is covered by a lump of mud, and the poor deer finds it “not vewy cummftable.” Although a lot of the action hews closely to the televised original, Baeza notes that there’s plenty for an actor to do that differentiates “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” from its stop-motion predecessor. There’s the flying, for starters. “I fly three times,” Baeza says, and she has prior experience in that fine art from having played John (and understudied the title role) in a Cathy Rigby tour of “Peter Pan.”
Baeza says she didn’t realize how popular Rudolph had become until the tour made its debut in Hartford last year and she saw how many audience members had worn Rudolph hats, scarves and T-shirts to the show.
Baeza notes the suspension of disbelief required for audiences to accept “my face sticking out of Rudolph’s neck,” but believes that all the puppeteering and other live special effects add a level of humanity to the proceedings. “You can only get so much emotion out of claymation,” she says.
“RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER — THE MUSICAL” has eight performances over four days, Dec. 11 to 14: Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.; and Monday at 10 a.m. The Dec. 14 show is a special “sensory-friendly” show in which sound volumes, lighting effects and other elements are adjusted to be more accessible for audience members who are on the autism spectrum or have other sensitivity issues. The Bushnell is at 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford. Tickets range from $16 to $53.50. Information: 860-987-5900 and bushnell.org.
