Sesame Street Live is the live touring show

Adapted live stage tours

Adapted live stage tours are theatrical or stadium productions, based on directly or indirectly on licensed properties.* Bear in the Big Blue House Live, VEE Corporation* Big Comfy Couch Live* Blue's Clues Live* Caillou Live...

 based on the children's television show Sesame Street

Sesame Street

Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...

.

Produced by Minneapolis-based

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

 VEE Corporation, the show opened on September 17, 1980, with a production of Sesame Street Live "Missing Bird Mystery" playing at the Met Center in Bloomington, Minnesota

Bloomington, Minnesota

Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...

. Sesame Street Live is now produced as three or four separate tours, each performing a different show, with its own plot, characters, scenery, and soundtrack. Shows are performed in arenas and theatres around the world, generally working on an eight to ten month touring schedule ending in the spring and resuming in the late summer. While in the United States, Sesame Street Live is a bus and truck show, with the equipment moving by two or three truck

Truck

A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...

s and the personnel travelling by bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

. (This is contrasted with a show that travels by rail, such as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.) Outside of the United States, air cargo

Cargo airline

Cargo airlines are airlines dedicated to the transport of cargo. Some cargo airlines are divisions or subsidiaries of larger passenger airlines.-Logistics:...

 and sea container

Containerization

Containerization is a system of freight transport based on a range of steel intermodal containers...

s are used.

The shows feature original music scores and songs, complemented with old favorites from the show, and professional dancers as costumed characters performing the parts of the Muppets. The productions are done in a theatrical

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 style. In an arena

Arena

An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...

, a stage

Stage (theatre)

In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...

 is built and a false proscenium

Proscenium

A proscenium theatre is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch , which is located at or near the front of the stage...

 is created to make the experience more similar to going to a theatre.

Vincent E. Egan founded VEE Corporation in 1980. Meeting with executives of Children's Television Workshop and Muppets creator Jim Henson

Jim Henson

James Maury "Jim" Henson was an American puppeteer best known as the creator of The Muppets. As a puppeteer, Henson performed in various television programs, such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, films such as The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper, and created advanced puppets for...

, he struck a long-term deal to be the exclusive creator of life-size replicas of the Sesame Street Muppets for touring stage shows.

The first Sesame Street Live opened at the Metropolitan Sports Center

Metropolitan Sports Center

The Met Center was an indoor arena that stood in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The arena, which was completed in 1967 just to the north of Metropolitan Stadium, seated 15,000. It was best known as the home of the Minnesota North Stars of the NHL from 1967-1993...

 in Bloomington, Minnesota

Bloomington, Minnesota

Bloomington is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota in Hennepin County. Located on the north bank of the Minnesota River above its confluence with the Mississippi River, Bloomington lies at the heart of the southern...

, September 1980. It played that Christmas for four weeks at Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...

, and has been a popular production ever since. It is the longest running stage tour for children.

The show has been staged in the United States, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

, Barbados

Barbados

Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, Germany, Bahrain

Bahrain

' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, England, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, Dubai

Dubai

Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

, and the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

.

Productions

In order to keep the show running annually in the same cities, new plotlines are created and rotated through the tour. Because the target audience changes as children grow up, shows are often removed from the rotation for a few years, then return with some modifications.

In order of their creation, the Sesame Street Live shows have been:

• Missing Bird Mystery (1980)
• Big Bird's Super Spectacular Totally Amateur Show (1981–82)
• Sesame Jamboree (1982)
• Around the World (1983)
• Save Our Street (1985)
• Big Bird Goes to Hollywood (1986–87)
• Big Bird and the ABCs (1987)
• Big Bird's Sesame Street Story (1987–89)
• Silly Dancing (1989–91)
• Let's Play School (1990–92)
• Sleeping Birdie (1991)
• Where's the Birdie? (1991–1995)
• When I Grow Up (1993–2001)
• Big Bird and Friends (1993–94)
• Let's Be Friends (2000)
• Big Bird's Sunny Day Camp Out (2000)
• 1-2-3...Imagine! (2002)
• Everyone Makes Music (2003)
• Out of This World (2003–04)
• Elmo's Coloring Book (1997–2004)
• Super Grover! Ready for Action (2005)
• Elmo Makes Music (2006–07)
• When Elmo Grows Up (2007)
• Elmo's Green Thumb (2008)
• 1-2-3...Imagine! with Elmo and Friends (2009)
• Elmo's Healthy Heroes! (2010)

External links

• Official site
• Muppet Wiki: Sesame Street Live