Lily Emerson, Karly Gesine Bergmann, Kevin Michael Wesson, and Leah Casey Photo by Glenn Stubbe Photography

The technical achievement of this production is astonishingly impressive. The four-member cast perform a highly choreographed dance of puppetry, moving from paper to shadow puppetry to live action performance, all projected on a vertical rectangular screen above center stage. Hummable music in a style the composers, Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter, describe as "synth pop" accompanies the action throughout, often supplemented by Narrator, Character Voices, Musician cast member Lily Emerson on guitar. Stage Manager Maydi Díaz does a fantastic job of providing live video, sound, and light cueing between projection, shadow puppet, and live action screens.

Despite the creative technical puppetry, the production is essentially a narrated story told by Emerson in two parts. The first part concerns the "terrible" monster Leonardo, a puppet voiced and puppeteered by Kevin Michael Wesson, searching for a "scaredy-cat" kid, Sam, portrayed by puppeteer Karly Gesine Bergmann, with an adorable, stuffy nose-sounding voice provided by Emerson. The second part expands upon the books and focuses primarily on a new character, Kerry, who, like Sam, is a human played by a puppeteer, Leah Casey, but voiced by Emerson. The voiceless actors deftly manipulate their performances for the projection screen.

As described by playwright and director Sara Fornace, Manual Cinema always shows "the process of making the performance," which is why the audience sees the puppeteers transitioning between mediums to create the video projection. Although fascinating to watch, the technical equipment creates an additional fourth wall between the performers and the audience for the entire production, whether it is the projector, live feed camera, or even Emerson's guitar. This separation between actor and audience is not something I'm accustomed to experiencing at CTC, particularly in the relatively intimate Cargill Stage. It leaves the few moments of audience interaction in the production feeling a bit forced.

This is a gentle, remarkable production that maintains the humor and imagination of the source material and will charm fans of Mo Willems' artwork and puppetry of all sorts. At 45-minutes long, CTC describes the production as "best for young audiences." It held my five-year-old's attention, but I don't think my three-year-old could have made it to part two.

Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster runs through March 9, 2025, at the Children's Theatre Company, 2400 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please call 612-874-0400 or visit childrenstheatre.org.