INTERVIEW: Scooby Doo is back with an all-new stage adventure
Photo: Scooby Doo! and The Lost City of Gold is currently touring North America. Photo courtesy of Monlove Creations Inc. / Warner Bros. Consumer Products / Provided by press kit with permission.
Scooby Doo! and The Lost City of Gold is a new stage musical that features everyone’s favorite adventure-seeking ghost hunters. There’s Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, Velma and, of course, Scooby, and this time around, they explore a South American town where there has been sightings of La Dama de Oro (the Lady in Gold), according to press notes. Along the way, the team sings, dances and takes in the unique surroundings, all while trying to keep a few feet ahead of the ghosts on their trail.
The new Scooby Doo! show comes courtesy of Monlove, a theatrical company founded in 2005 by Ella Louise Allaire, in partnership with Martin Lord Ferguson. The company did such a commendable job with the Ice Age stage adaptation a few years ago that Warner Bros. came knocking and asked them to adapt Scooby Doo! Over the years, the company has built a reputation for adapting large franchises into successful live shows.
“It’s a new story, so the gang are solving a new mystery, something we haven’t seen in any of the series or any of the films that Warner Bros. has produced before,” Allaire said in a recent phone interview. “It’s a musical, so the story is told with dialogue and song. They can expect also acrobatics. They can expect laughs, so there’s a lot of humor, comedy, video interactions. The video work is pretty exceptional. It’s a great show for all the family, I should say. Adults enjoy it, teenagers enjoy it, children enjoy it, so it’s a good show that you can bring everyone from 2 to 102.”
Allaire added: “The very first task when you want to create a project like this is to immerse yourself with the work that has been done before. … What is great about it? Why is it so popular? Why has it been around for 50 years? Why do people like it? We realized that humor was definitely a part of it. The teamwork was something very important also. The equality of gender — there’s two guys, there’s two girls.”
Allaire, who is a composer, producer, librettist and lyricist, also pointed to the characters’ ingenuity and how the team pool their resources and skills to solve a mystery during each episode. This mystery usually brings a fear factor as well, so there can be scary elements in the narrative (but not too scary for the children in the audience).
“That makes great entertainment, but it has to be humorous, comical all the time,” she said. “There’s always an angle that is comic, so those were the first elements that we started with.”
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed production for Monlove. Allaire said that the company also lost many technicians to the film and TV industries, so they had to rebuild their team when they received the green light to move forward with performances. However, Allaire has been accompanying the production while on tour, and she is quite impressed with the results.
“We’re very, very happy,” she said. “People love the show, and when you start with a show, you never know if people are going to like it or not. … It is a joy. Like in every field, there are always challenges. But I grew up in a music family, so I was pretty much born an artist. Since I was a kid, I knew I wanted to work in musical theater or work in music. And after I studied classical music at the conservatory, I needed to be in this world.”
Allaire’s time in this world will continue because Monlove will soon bring Looney Tunes to the stage as well.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Scooby Doo! and The Lost City of Gold is currently on tour in North America. Upcoming dates include April 24 in Laval, Quebec, and June dates in Oklahoma and Texas. Click here for more information and tickets.
