Princess has a new puppet master
Princess Cruises has its third original stage production produced by Tony Award-winning Stephen Schwartz, this time with a whole stage full of puppets.
“The Secret Silk” debuted on Royal Princess sailing out of Port Everglades and is directed by John Tartaglia, famous for originating roles in “Avenue Q” and TV shows like “Johnny and the Sprites.”
“I think we had an open door to create the best show possible,” Tartaglia said. He took a fable known as “The Grateful Crane,” and created a story that mixes puppetry alongside singing and dancing set to a score of selected popular music from the last 40 years as well as a moving original song titled “Sing to the Sky.”
Producer Schwartz, known for Broadway shows “Wicked,” “Pippin” and “Godspell” among others, began a partnership with the cruise line four years ago.
For the new show, he wanted to pursue an Asian theme, but put the idea in the hands of Tartaglia, who has been working with puppets since he first appeared on “Sesame Street” when he was 16.
“It was kind of like an big open treasure box of possibilities, and as a creator, that’s the thing you dream about,” Tartaglia said. “Here you have an audience who is so excited for theater, and Stephen Schwartz who is so passionate about bringing Broadway theater to Princess guests, so it was kind of like, here’s the keys to the kingdom, dream as big as you want, use as many elements as you can think of and we really did.”
To that end, there are a wide variety of puppets used, some built in unique ways such as the main character, a crane that is a beautiful origami-themed construction, and a climactic villainous puppet that takes up the whole stage.
“That was part of the challenge,” Tartaglia said. “I wanted to show as many kinds of puppetry as possible. People tend to in America, at least until recently, a lot of times you hear the word puppet, and everyone pictures a guy behind a sheet at a birthday party. Working for the Jim Henson company for so many years, I was always involved in so many different kinds of puppetry, so I had a big exposure.”
The 50-minute show has two performances on each cruise itinerary along with several other stage shows, that also feature the performers from “A Secret Silk.”
Just like the other Schwartz productions across the cruise line, the stage show will be rolled out to more than one ship including the Diamond Princess that sails out of Japan, said Denise Savage, Princess Cruises vice president of entertainment.
“A huge mission for us is bringing the destination on board,” Savage said. “We really truly are the cruise line of the world. We touch all seven continents and so the destination and being true to the destination, so this — ‘The Secret Silk’ — based on an ancient Asian folk tale delivers that element for us of a piece of a world where we cruise and hope to deliver an enriching experience for our guests.”
“The Secret Silk” is the third of four productions developed by Schwartz for Princess Cruises including “Magic To Do” and “Born To Dance.” The fourth is coming in 2019.
“This has just exceeded certainly my expectations when Princess first invited me to partner with all of you in trying to elevate and change the level of entertainment on cruise ships,” Schwartz said. “You just see a piece like this that is completely original and daring and I think absolutely just beautiful the work everybody has done...to see something sort of reach like this is very exciting for me and I’m really grateful for Princess for the opportunity.”