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[0:00] Robert Bannon: Are you ready? It's The Roundtable with me, Robert Bannon.

[0:10] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to The Roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to this on Broadway World, the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeart, Spotify. If you know anything about me personally, you know that I am a Muppet-obsessed human being. As a kid, I was obsessed with Kermit the Frog. And I'm obsessed with anything that is Jim Henson. And I love OFC Creations! In beautiful Rochester, New York, where you can get an egg sandwich in the morning, go see a show at night. They hook you up there. It is a full-blown extravaganza. They have the greatest casting. They have the most fun time. And last year, they had an incredible sold-out run of Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. Now, if you are a real person of a certain age, Jordan, not Jordan, not of a certain age, I am, then you remember it very well.

It's iconic, and it's an amazing moment. We have one of the incredible puppeteers, one of the incredible people who has worked. I don't know. He's done all sorts of things, from Broadway to tours to The Muppet Show. Yes, he's a real live puppeteer, and he is here. And I am so excited to welcome Jordan Browlee. Welcome to The Roundtable.

[1:13] Jordan Browlee: Thank you for having me.

[1:14] Robert Bannon: You're really a puppeteer?

[1:13] Jordan Browlee: Yeah, I've been pursuing puppetry since I was about seven years old, so a little over 20 years now. But I've been working professionally since 2019 was my first time ever getting paid to perform a puppet, yeah.

[1:32] Robert Bannon: When did you want to be a puppeteer?

[1:34] Jordan Browlee: Yeah, I was about seven. Because I grew up watching all this stuff. I watched Sesame Street and Between the Lions and Bear in the Big Blue House and Lazy Town, like all these puppet shows. And I was always curious, like, who are these people, how did they do this? And I remember I was about seven or eight, and Follow That Bird, the Sesame Street movie, was on TV. And I hadn't watched Sesame Street in a couple years at that point. I was like, okay, let me watch this movie. Let me see what it's about. And I watched it, and I really loved it. And I was reading the credits. And I saw Jim Henson as Kermit the Frog and Ernie. I'm like, okay, I guess that kind of makes sense. Frank Oz as Grover, Bert and Cookie Monster.

I'm like, oh, okay, I didn't realize that they were the same person. And then I saw Carol Spinney as Big Bird and Oscar. And I thought, well, wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. How are they the same person? And so that sort of started this deep dive into figuring out who are these people? And how do they do this? And how does it all work? And from then on, yeah, I just kind of realized, okay, I kind of now understand how this works. And I don't know how to do it, but I want to be a part of it. And so it became this lifelong mission. And yeah, once I was 20, I think, no, 19, I was 19. My first workshop was Sesame Street. And that sort of was my first, you know, foot in the door. And yeah.

[2:53] Robert Bannon: How do you get in there? What do you send a letter? Show up? What do you do?

[2:57] Jordan Browlee: Every now and then they'll do puppeteer workshops. And so it's not quite an audition, but it's sort of like a cattle call to just like, hey, if you want to pursue a career in puppetry, send in a video. And we'll see that. And then from there, you know, we might invite you to come and train for like either a few days or a few weeks or whatever. That one was three days in New York City. And yeah, I submitted a video. I think it was like, like a few hundred people submitted for that. And they picked, I think like 24 of us. So it was three days in New York with Sesame Street with Matt Vogel, Marty Robinson, Stephanie DeBriso, Peter Lins, Leslie Carr Rudolph popped in the last day. And yeah, it was just training just to see like what kind of skill sets do people have.

And they tell you from the beginning it's not an audition. You know, this is not a guarantee that you're going to work on the show. But, you know, really it's just so they can have an idea of who's around, who's available set. If we do hold auditions, then we have people we can reach out to. So like I got reached out to later that year because they were auditioning for a character. And so then, yeah, it's like myself and several other people get to audition. And, you know, a lot of people who were in that workshop now work on the show or have worked on the show and have done stuff with the Muppets and some companies since then. So it's really just a way for them to get to know you and see like, you know, what kind of skill set you have, but also like, do we want to hang out with you? Do we want to have you around to do future projects? So yes.

[4:22] Robert Bannon: Do you create your own characters as well? It's not just what you get hired to do. Do you are you creative? You make your own puppets, you make your own voices, you do all of that.

[4:31] Jordan Browlee: Oh, yeah. No, I started building puppets when I was about, yeah, about eight years old is when I like first figured out, I guess I guess I have to make these, you know, they don't just give them to you. And so I learned how to sew and I found out I'm not great on a sewing machine. I sew by hand. I do all my stuff by hand just because sewing machine, it's so fast. And like if you make a mistake, you have to go back. And but a lot of the details you want to do by hand. But yeah, I've built a ton of puppets over the years, some for myself, some for other people. I have a few characters that I use and, you know, puppets I use for auditions all the time. And so they've had many voices to them. One character I have is a mouse named Hickory, named after Hickory Dickory Dock.

And I've done my mom's an elementary school librarian. So we've done videos in the library of her reading with him. And it's all improv. We just, you know, maybe read the book together once and then we just improvise it. And I have a few other puppets I've built. I have a weasel that I made last year just for rehearsals for Emmet Otter in case someone needed it. And sure enough, we had someone who was in school at the time and she couldn't go to all the rehearsals. So I lent her this weasel puppet I made and said, just take this home and practice. And, you know, but yeah, I've been building for years and years.

[5:41] Robert Bannon: Before we talk about Emmet Otter and how it's been a part of your career and why people love it and about doing it again, will you tell us a little bit? So since you went on that workshop, since you decided to be a puppeteer and be an artist, what have you done? What have what have you done? Where have we seen?

[6:01] Jordan Browlee: What have I done? What is it? So, yeah, I did that workshop in 2019 and then auditioned for Sesame Street a couple of times. And then twenty twenty one, the Henson Company was doing a workshop and that was a whole diversity workshop. They were trying to see people of color, people in the LGBTQ plus community. They were starting to see more women, too, because they had a lot of straight white men. And they're like, we should try to get some people who aren't straight white men. And so that was I mean, that was international, too. We had people from Canada. We had some from Mexico. And yeah, that was three weeks of just like working and doing puppetry, but also improv. And then from there, I also got to know the folks over at Disney doing the Muppets.

And then after that, I did in the span of a few months, I did a music video with the Muppets. It was the Mr. Blue Sky thing. I did a show with Henson called Slumberkins. And then when I was at Slumberkins, John Tartaglia told me to audition for him off Broadway that same year. Then I've done Coldplay music video. I did the Muppets Mayhem for a couple of days. Yeah, I did the Muppets show pilot a little over a year ago now. Yeah, I'm probably forgetting a few things. You audition for stuff here and there.

[7:24] Robert Bannon: I love the new Muppets show. I love the pilot.

[7:30] Jordan Browlee: It was so good, wasn't it? It was so good. It needs to come back for a full season.

[7:32] Robert Bannon: Why Disney? Come on, Disney. Pay Jordan a whole bunch of money.

[7:37] Jordan Browlee: Iconic people. Before we talk about Emmet, because Emmet's a very classic character, but I have an obsession, Jordan, with the frog. My office is all green frogged out. My bedroom as a child was green. Have you seen in person the real Kermit the Frog?

[7:56] Jordan Browlee: Yeah, yeah. My first job with the Muppets, yeah, that Mr. Blue Sky video. I cry like a baby, Jordan. I just sob.

[8:02] Jordan Browlee: No, it's insane. It's so crazy seeing his puppets up close. Yeah, Kermit was there because it was for this YouTube Earth Day special, something like that. And so Kermit did an intro for the music video. So yeah, when I walked in, Kermit was on the table. But you can't take pictures of the puppets when they're on tables or anything. I saw him. I was like, oh, there he is. But then the rest of it, yeah, it was just with the band. And then Muppets Mayhem was just with the band. I saw Matt do Kermit at, it was this Panto show, I think in Pasadena, called The Winter of Oz. There are a few other stars in it. Yeah, Kermit played the Wizard of Oz. And so I saw him from afar, and I saw Matt afterwards at the stage door.

But yeah, the Muppets show was the first time I really got to see Matt do Kermit up close. And that was kind of crazy to see them doing that. And yeah, that was the first time I saw most of those Muppets up close. Because yeah, I mostly just worked with the band. So everybody was super surreal seeing that. But I'd seen Kermit in museums, you know, I'd seen him at home. But yeah, seeing him up close, moving and talking.

[9:15] Robert Bannon: The band is no slouch, by the way. I love, shout out to the band. Iconic.

[9:20] Jordan Browlee: Yeah, my first job was Floyd's Hands. See, come on. Floyd's Hands playing the bass.

[9:25] Robert Bannon: So if you want to see all of this incredible, he's fun. I love the hair. I love the whole, if you want to see this puppetry up close, you want to see what Jordan has made his life and career out of doing. And what has been a really, it truly is like a calling in an art form that's been passed down from generations and generations up close and personal. Then go to Rochester and go to OFC. The tickets are not expensive. They have great seats. They make it family friendly, hence why it sells out. So you better get a ticket right now. OFCcreations.com. When did you get called into this? When did you hear about OFC? How did this happen?

[9:58] Jordan Browlee: So, see, I heard about the production, because I think it was announced in like January or February of last year. And because I'm in like the, you know, the Emmet Otter Facebook group or whatever. So I saw it and I was like, OK, like, I hope they're fun. Congrats, because it was the first licensed production. I'd been a part of the production in New York and Chicago with the original team. And so I just assumed like, I'm not going to be a part of this, but I hope they have fun. But then, yeah, it was May 12th. I remember this because it was a few days after my birthday and I'd gone to knots with a friend of mine. I just came home. I was exhausted. I was about to go to sleep. And then I saw an email from Eric Vaughn Johnson and he said, hey, we're doing Emmet Otter in Rochester, New York.

We're having trouble finding a Doc Bullfrog. We saw you do the show in Chicago. You know, we were wondering, would you want to come do the show with us? And I was just like, I guess, you know, and I had mixed feelings at first. I'm like, I don't know, like I've done the show and, you know, maybe I'll go and do it. But I thought, you know what? Third time's a charm. Like, maybe this will be like a really, really, really, really fun time doing it. And it'll be a new city. I've never been to Rochester. So I thought, you know what? Why not? Let's do it. And so I did that. And same email, he invited me to audition for The Grinch. So I did The Grinch right after with them, too. I played old Max, which was fun.

But yeah, I went over to Rochester to do Emmet with them. And eventually I became the puppet director as well. And because I was the only one who'd ever done the show before. And so I had a lot of information of like, okay, this thing that you saw in Chicago didn't work as well backstage, like this thing broke all the time. Maybe you saw it on a show, it didn't, but this thing broke all the time. So let's figure out a different way to do it. Like, hey, we spent a lot of time in rehearsals working on this thing. Because we had half the rehearsal time. We spent a month rehearsing in Chicago. We had two weeks in Rochester. So I'm like, so we really got to figure out like how to save some time. And we somehow did it, we pulled it off.

It was miraculous. And then, you know, there were some scenes with these squirrel characters that, you know, I thought, you know, we try doing some dialogue in Chicago. And I'm like, I would really like to put that in there. Because I think the gibberish, I'm like, I get it. But I also kind of don't. So like, if we could rewrite the scenes and Tim, the producer from the original production and book writer as well, he was like, Jordan knows the show. And so, you know, if he wants to try it out, I trust him. And so I got to write these scenes, and he approved it. And we put those in there. And, and also, it's such a loose show, too. Like, Tim even says the script's a suggestion. And so I told that to the new cast as well.

[12:49] Jordan Browlee: Even though I wrote these scenes, I'm not precious about my words at all, anytime I write something. So I'm like, if you have something that you want to try, if you think something's funnier, like, let's try it out. Let's see. So like, the scenes were not the way that I wrote them. And that's kind of what I wanted. I wanted people to put their own ideas in and make it their own production. And so that's what it became. And I was really, really happy with that. And Tim got to see the second last show, and he really loved it. I think we made something really, really cool. And, you know, then yeah, it was the last day is when they announced that we're doing it again this year. And, you know, everybody's back.

And yeah, I'm pumped. I am so excited that everybody's back. Why do people, look, if you know about this show, this show, everybody, and if you haven't seen it, you got to show your kids. It's from 1977. It was a Christmas special. Like it was not, yet there's music by Paul Williams, who, you know, is Academy Award winning wrote "Rainbow Connection."

[13:40] Jordan Browlee: Sweetheart, too. The nicest man. The absolute sweetheart. But why do people, this 77 is 50, almost 50 years ago, and this still sells out and it's heartwarming. What is it about the story that makes people lean in and keep coming back? You know, it's funny because, you know, I was, I knew Emmet Otter before I joined the show. I knew Emmet Otter, I'd seen the special, like maybe four times. And I didn't know how big the fandom was until I joined it. And then, you know, you get to meet people who come to see the show. Because every time I've done it, people will drive over state lines to come see it. That's how much it means to people. And then you get to talk to people in the lobby. And they will tell you, you know, this is the special that my family watched every year when I was growing up.

Or this is the thing that my grandmother would show me. Or this is the thing I show my kids every year. And I think it's because it has great music and it has great humor. But it has a lot of heart. The story of Ma and Emmet is so heartwarming. And you see how they struggle, but they don't let that struggle get them down. And that they're always trying to find the positive spin on everything. And I think it's a message a lot of people can relate to. And so seeing people go through pain, but then try to find still the beauty in life. And, you know, I think the song "When the River Meets the Sea" is the best way to embody that. I think that's something that people really connect to. And it makes it so that this becomes one of their favorite stories.

[13:57] Jordan Browlee: It's funny when I, you know, I was gifted a lot of Emmet Otter t-shirts when I did the show. And, you know, I'll wear a shirt out in public. And it's so funny because people, you realize they either have no idea what it is, or it is their favorite thing. There's not a lot of in-between. And when people see it, it's their favorite thing, the way they react. And, you know, I've had people nearly cry talking about it. I had a really interesting interaction. Can I tell you about this? Yes, please. I was in college and I was living in this house. And one of my housemates had a friend who'd just gone through a terrible breakup. And she was, I'd never met this person, but I was in my room and I hear crying in the living room.

I go out there and I see this young woman crying and I'm like, is everything okay? And my housemate's like, yeah, she just broke up with this guy. And she's, and I go to talk to her. I'm like, how are you doing? Are you doing okay? And she, she eventually asked the guy, like, what do you do? I'm like, well, I'm a puppeteer. And she goes, oh, you know, when I was in college, we took this class and we talked about Jim Henson and we watched this, this weird TV special with like singing squirrels or something. I didn't really remember it. And I sat there, I'm singing squirrels and I go, was it Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas? She goes, yes, it was that. It was so cute. And I said, well, you know, I've, you know, I've got it on DVD.

Like, do you, like, do you want to watch it? She goes, yeah. And so I'm sitting in my living room with my housemate and this stranger who was crying 20 minutes ago, and we're watching Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas and she's got a smile on her face. And you know, it's like this crazy situation, but it's again, it completely changed how she felt in that moment. And you know, that, that's what I think about when it comes to show. It's moments like that. It's moments like, you know, people talking about their grief and talking about, again, these, these warm memories they have. I have friends who I've known for years and then I bring them Emmet on and they're like, oh gosh, we would watch that every year. It's like, oh, I had no idea. You know, it's this underground thing that it's, it's now spreading out more and more.

[17:19] Jordan Browlee: Like again, you know, the show is now being licensed. So not only is it going on at OFC, but it's happening in other productions as well. And this year they're also workshopping Emmet Jr. So the idea is that, you know, now like schools can put it on and kids can do it. That one, I believe at least this production is not going to have puppets, but you know, who knows that there might be schools where they want the kids to do puppets. And so, you know, it's a show that, you know, it seems like more and more people are finding out about and it's becoming a classic. And it's so funny because it hasn't aired on TV in years. It's really been this word of mouth thing that people either have on tape or on DVD.

I think there's a Blu-ray. I'm not positive. It's streaming usually. Right now it's on YouTube. You can just watch it for free, but yeah, more and more people are finding out about it. I'm excited about it. You can watch it for free on YouTube. You can go to the show. You can see tickets for less than a hundred dollars. You know, my mother and me would not win a talent competition, but I would find some way to, some way to get my Christmas gifts paid for. And it's got some heart and it's got love and it's got joy and it sells out. And if you want to see people, you want to see Jordan, who's done it all around the country and has been part of getting this together. Fourth time. This is the show to see.

[18:32] Robert Bannon: What did you love about being at Rochester? What do you like about this theater? Why did they get you back again?

[18:38] Jordan Browlee: You know, what I love about this company, they're so fun and collaborative, you know, cause you know, again, I, I signed on back in May of last year, but then yeah, throughout the next few months, like we would talk about, you know, the set and like things we needed for puppeteers. We would talk about getting rollies. I'd said like, Hey, we need a puppet wrangler. And we got Richard Michael Gomez. He's fantastic. And you know, we just talked about everything. I talked about props, you know, cause I, you know, when we'd done the show in the past, you know, we had very talented people who'd done so many shows, but a lot of them hadn't worked with puppets. And so we had some props that like were way too big or way too heavy or like the hands aren't attaching to them.

So it just didn't look quite right. And so we talked about all that stuff. It's like, we want to make sure everything functions as well as possible. And especially if you only have two weeks, it's like, we don't want to be in tech realizing like half the stuff doesn't work. And so they were super open to hearing that stuff. We actually, myself, Eric, Hunter, and Richard, we all went to the Henson workshop in New York to go check out the puppets ahead of time. And while we were there, we talked to them about rollies and we talked to them about puppet racks and puppets and sit on either side of the stage. And I talked to Hunter who is leading the set design and music direction. And I said, you know, we need to measure stuff because another thing that happened in New York City is that they made a door for Doc Bullfrog, who's the narrator of the stage production.

They made a door for him to step out of and narrate throughout the show. The door was smaller than the puppet. And so we couldn't use it. It just didn't work. And so I told them about that. I'm like, yeah, we like, let's measure the door, make sure. So we made sure to measure Doc Bullfrog, like make sure the door is bigger than him and make sure it's in a good spot when I'm performing him. But we also measure their puppet racks. We couldn't get their puppet racks. So Hunter measured the puppet racks at Henson. And then when I got to Rochester, like it looked exactly the same. Like, yeah, we rebuilt them exactly the same. So it was cool. Yeah. We're able to talk and make sure everything works properly.

But I mean, they're just fun to work with. They're really lovely people and everybody in the cast, you know, they have a lot of local actors they work with over and over again and they work with them because they're really great actors and really fun to be with. So it was just a lot of laughing and just getting to play with each other. You know, it was so much fun. It was some of the most fun I've ever had doing theater. And so when I heard they were doing it again, I'm like, well, I'm back. Let's go. Definitely. Let's go. Not a question about it. Yes, absolutely. A hundred percent.

[21:08] Robert Bannon: And yeah, obviously everyone else felt the same way. So you have your kids. It's a warm, fun environment. People have their kids. Or you have your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever. And it's going to be Thanksgiving week and you're not going to know what to do. Otherwise you're going to just go out and spend needless amounts of money on, I don't know, televisions and electronics and clothes.

[21:30] Jordan Browlee: Yeah. Might as well come see a puppet show, you know. Go see this show from November 25th to the 12th. I'm telling you it's going to sell out. OFCcreations.com is where you can go. I'm excited to follow you. I'm excited to be up on what Jordan's going to do, what the next creation is, the next character, the next time you're on our televisions and on our stages. Thank you for continuing the incredible legacy and lineage of my childhood and millions and millions of people. The work that you do moves us to tears. It is nostalgia. It is childhood. It is love. It is light. It is entertainment. It teaches us how to be good people. And the work that you do really matters. It really, really matters. And thank you for ushering a new generation to fall in love with Emmet Otter.

[22:08] Jordan Browlee: Thank you. That really means a lot. I mean, it's a real honor to keep this legacy alive, to keep these characters alive, keep the story alive and keep puppetry alive. Keep puppetry and live art and live form of puppetry and live art form and storytelling alive is important. I'm going to get up there. I'm trying to get up there to Rochester. I got to come see a show. I got to see that little Emmet Otter. I got to see it. I can't wait for people to check it out. It's so good. It's so good. Congratulations. Thank you for hanging out with us and we'll see you on stage and on screen.

[22:40] Jordan Browlee: Thank you for having me. Good. If you want to. We're adding to the story.

[22:51] Jordan Browlee: So when I first did the show in New York City, I had a beard and I've been growing it. And, you know, when you do theater, sometimes, you know, they want you to shave off your face. If they want to add a beard, they'll do whatever. So I meant to shave before my first costume fitting. But I remember I was on the subway going to Queens. I'm like, oh, I forgot to shave. Like, it's fine. They'll tell me what they want me to do. And I show up with this scraggly beard. And they said, you know, well, Chuck, you know, Chuck is the leader of the Nightmare Band. He's one of the villains of the show. And he's a rough and tumble and scruffy. And they said, well, you know, it would actually kind of look nice if he had this rough beard.

You know, it might blend in with his fur. So if you wouldn't mind, would you would you grow your beard out for the show? I said, sure. And so I brought my clippers from home. I never used them. I grew up my beard the rest of the time I was there for the next two months. And I just had this long, scraggly beard. And then a couple years later, the show's going on in Chicago. I join, I think in like May is when I knew I was doing the show. So I asked him like, hey, am I growing my beard out again? Like, actually, if you wouldn't mind. And so I said, OK, so I grew it out. And then when I joined the Rochester production last year, you know, I said, well, you know, I play Chuck. I always have this beard.

Like, would you want me to grow it? And like, yeah, if you would. I said, OK. It's like I grew it out again. And then for this year, I mean, yeah, I just asked Eric like beard. He's yes. So I was doing Seussical back in May. And so I shaved at the start of that. I was doing Horton the Elephant in that show and, you know, had a relatively low beard. And I've been growing it ever since. I've like cleaned it up. It's been trimmed. I did it. I did one on camera gig a couple of months ago and they cleaned it up a little bit. But other than that, like the length of the beard, this is the longest and thickest it's ever been. It's it's curling into my mouth and into my nostrils.

[24:43] Robert Bannon: Oh, it would drive me crazy because mine when I don't I got to get check. I got to say it's just so bad. I hate your you are. You will suffer for the art, Jordan.

[24:52] Jordan Browlee: Yeah. Yeah. I've been suffering for like five months now. So you've got to know I do. I do it for you. I do it for you. For you. You know, you get you get Chuck, you get the beer.

[25:03] Jordan Browlee: Yeah. Riverbottom Nightmare Band.

[25:13] Robert Bannon: Yeah. What else is there to say after that? Oh, and he's go get a ticket. Go get a ticket. Thank you. Please do. Thank you for doing this. Buy your tickets so I can shave in mid-December so we can go home and shave with a clean shave face for 2027. December 15th. This is gone. Gone. All of it. Thank you so much, Jordan.

[25:19] Jordan Browlee: Thank you.