1/15/2025
Performances and Artists
For many eighties babies and nineties kids, Jim Henson’s quintet of Fraggles were rock star-level icons.
Debuting in 1983, the musical children’s television series Fraggle Rock included Henson’s signature snappy songs and an astounding assortment of puppetry possibilities. The energetic and engaging series also found creative ways to subtilty weave important life lessons into each entertaining episode.
Gobo, Red, Mokey, Wembley and Boober returned to the small screen in April 2020 with Fraggle Rock: Rock On! (six live-action shorts broadcast on AppleTV+ during lockdown), then the Fraggles were greenlit for a full reboot in 2021. But if Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock wasn’t already exciting enough for nostalgic grown-ups, fans of all ages can experience Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock universe live onstage for the first time ever.
Coming to The Smith Center’s Reynolds Hall on January 26, Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock Live is everything a Fraggle fan could dream of –because the Fraggle Rock universe is literally in the good hands of a dedicated fan, Tony Award® -nominated puppeteer John Tartaglia.
“It's literally the show that changed my life and got me into the business,” Tartaglia tells The Smith Center.
The acclaimed actor, director and writer grew up re-creating the Fraggles’ world in his own room and realized early on that he wanted to become a puppeteer. From starting out with Sesame Street as a teenager to originating the roles of Princeton and Rod in the Tony-winning Avenue Q (even performing during the show’s Las Vegas run circa 2004 at Wynn), when it was time to reintroduce the Fraggles to the world, Tartaglia jumped at the chance to share Gobo’s adventures in new ways.
“One of the things I couldn't believe was that in 40 years of the show being around, they had never done a live tour,” Tartaglia says. Many thoughtful conversations were had about how to translate the Fraggles into a theatrical experience. “We felt like upsizing them to walk around allows us to have them actually dance and actually do fun things – you get to see what Red really looks like when she kicks her leg up over her head and does a triple spin!”
Along with the human-sized Fraggles in the live show, other familiar characters were upscaled, such as the Doozers, who are now Fraggle hand-puppet sized.
“There's such a purposeful, very distinct reason why we put so many different kinds of puppetry into the show, because it is a Jim Henson production,” he explains. “Heather Henson is one of our producers on the show, and she's so passionate about puppetry and showing different kinds of puppetry to the world, so we were just very mindful of that.”
Fraggle fans of all ages will be delighted by the live experience. “We've made a show that, if you have kids, they're going to be entertained, you're going to be entertained, your aunt and your cousin and your teenage kid – everyone's going to be entertained,” Tartaglia says.
“And if you don't have kids? As a fan, you're gonna be like, ‘Oh my God! This is my favorite song! Oh my God! There's a reference to that!.’ There's a lot of referential one-liners that Boober has to the audience,” he says. “Then you add in all these great cave creatures that are unique to Fraggle Rock, you add black light, you add bubbles and confetti and everything else that makes the live experience really special.”