ROB LAKE MAGIC WITH SPECIAL GUESTS THE MUPPETS Previews — Page 2

JSquared2 said: "tacotheatrelover said: "The muppets getting less than 10 minutes in their Broadway debut is another reason why I hate The Disney Corporation. Eat **** Bob Iger I hope you step on legos"



Did you forget to take your meds today?

"

I think I left them on my Xbox before I left today, but thanks for the reminder kind human!

tacotheatrelover said: "JSquared2 said: "tacotheatrelover said: "The muppets getting less than 10 minutes in their Broadway debut is another reason why I hate The Disney Corporation. Eat **** Bob Iger I hope you step on legos"



Did you forget to take your meds today?

"

I think I left them on my Xbox before I left today, butthanks for the reminder kind human!"



De nada. But seriously -- there are a LOT of reasons to hate Disney and Bob Iger -- but I wouldn't even list this in the top 100 list of their offenses towards humanity!

JSquared2 said: "tacotheatrelover said: "JSquared2 said: "tacotheatrelover said: "The muppets getting less than 10 minutes in their Broadway debut is another reason why I hate The Disney Corporation. Eat **** Bob Iger I hope you step on legos"



Did you forget to take your meds today?

"

I think I left them on my Xbox before I left today, but thanks for the reminder kind human!"



De nada. But seriously -- there are a LOT of reasons to hate Disney and Bob Iger -- but I wouldn't even list this in the top 100 list of their offenses towards humanity!"

Yea, there's a thousand reasons to hate the company like the atrocities they've committed against human life in the past two years. I hate them to shreds, I pirate their media and don't take in any of their new properties. It's gonna suck giving them the smallest bit of money when I go to my local theatre next month for frozen, I love them but hate I giving even a penny to that evil corporation that values money over human life.

The Muppets are the least of my concerns, they'll be fine. The company needs to change their ways, but money speaks more than human life to those people.

I’m saying it again they would make so much money for Broadway Cares with a photo op with the Muppets

Wick3 said: "WldKingdomHM said: "I’m saying it again they would make so much money for Broadway Cares with a photo op with the Muppets"

Before pandemic Avenue Q always did a photo-op with one of the puppets (alongside their puppeteer)after the show during BroadwayCares. It’s one of my favorite photos! I think it cost $10 donation back then."

On that topic, it's nice to see AVENUE Q long-timer Ben Durocher is involved in this show as one of the puppeteers!

Maybe I'm wrong, but are the Muppets ever seen with their puppeteers? Seems very Disney to want to keep the magic hidden.

Generic magic show and maybe 10 minutes of the Muppets. I was disappointed, but not as much as the family I sat next to.

Saw it tonight, the show ran exactly 80 mins, no tech stops. Started 7:02 and ended 8:22.

It was… fine. A basic magic show with some brief appearances by the muppets (who all got huge applause from the audience.) The tricks (illusions!) were impressive to see live and up close but nothing new that hasn’t already been done before in umpteen tv magic shows. I was in 3rd row center which was cool, but there was nothing that made me go “Wow, how’d he do that!?” like I get from sometimes watching Fool Us.

And tbh the obvious use of an audience plant in one trick (the rings) really took away from the magic-ness of it and just made it unimpressive.

Is there supposed to be a “special guest” at each show? Because the person we had tonight was so nothing that I didn’t even realize it was a guest. At one point Rob invited a young woman up to the stage and said something about her being from TikTok and Instagram. Oh wow.

It’s really more a show for kids and families. The Muppets are such a non-entity here. I really have no idea why they are even in the show. They wheel them on a few times throughout the show, they say some jokes and then leave.

I was more impressed with the illusions in Stranger Things to be perfectly honest.

Updated On: 11/2/25 at 09:13 PM

CoffeeBreak said: "Who have been the "special" guests?

1st preview - Thomas Schumacher"


Sorry but I think you may have misunderstood the question…?

Went this afternoon on a comp. It went exactly 80 minutes and it was just mind-mumblingly basic. There were maybe one or two magic tricks that mildly impressed me, but mostly I was exchanging glances of mutual boredom with my friend. One very ornately designed water levitations illusion was extremely easy to figure out if you know the dimensions of the stage, particularly the depth. Also, there was only one trick in the entire show that allowed a child to participate, which led to a sea of disappointed children when they thought they would be picked only to have Rob say “okay, pass (object) to the nearest grown-up”.

Additionally, I found it almost fraudulent how they hype up the Muppets and they are really only VERY brief cameos - even use of the term “Featuring” feels like a gross overstatement. They were onstage for roughly under 10 minutes. (I counted 9:26 today) and were basically just talking props.

Maybe I’m just being curmudgeonly about it, but I don’t think this is worth money at all, for adults or children, since I think anyone there is going to leave this otherwise pedestrian Vegas act feeling like the only thing that disappeared was their ticket money.

I hardly enjoyed myself. This needs a director. Rob Lake & the prod. doesn't connect. Audience doesn't know when to applaud. A Bethany Pettigrew is listed as 'creative consultant' & a Kevin J. Zak 'additional material by' - but ROB LAKE needs to have hired a better performer to take over & possibly make this better than it currently is. The 'role' of pedestrian individual who transforms into showman is not fleshed out & the simple act of changing into a jacket onstage isn't cutting it, esp. when the 'transformation' is just a simple ungarnished piece that couldn't even be called a costume. Rob Lakes patter is not delivered well (worse than Doug Henning, mind you) & his physical comportment is mincing. He is just not a strong showman & the Muppets are not even given a number. Too much goingout into the audience to pick people - it's just so boring the 'me me ooh pick me' routine. A forced standing ovation by asking audience members to stand up in groups that add up to 100% of the house is just CHEESY & unsophisticated. The marquee pics are generic, not the current show & look at the merchandising - worse than the old touring circuses. A playbill feature "A Frog + An Illusionist=Broadway Magic" by Jeffrey Vizcaino unfortunately needs to trim it's title to exclude 'Broadway' because the mere fact that Holiday or Special Events rent a Bwy house does not make it Broadway Magic.

I saw this yesterday, and I ended up thinking a lot about Mischief Theatre's Mind Mangler which I saw off-Broadway a couple of years ago. It was way funnier and had more interesting character work, which was the main point, but also I think the magic was at the same level as Rob Lake, who does this for a living.

If everyone is doing variations on the same tricks, and there's a lot of Lake saying here's my take on a routine someone did over 100 years ago, enjoying it is very personality dependent. I thought Lake was very inoffensive, but ridged.

For example, whenever there was an audience participation segment, he clarifies kids can't participate. If you don't want to work with kids, why get into magic? He did have one dedicated section where he brought a 5 year old on stage, and of course that got a bigger audience reaction than even The Muppets.

In terms of integrating The Muppets into the show, they're the most exciting part but there's no "wow, how did they do that with a Muppet?" moment such as Jim Henson getting Muppets to ride bikes in a movie. Like there's a levitating woman illusion in the show. Why not just figure out how to do that with a Muppet?

Animal I think also gets an audio moment at the curtain call.

Updated On: 11/6/25 at 04:32 PM