Improv and Puppets! Interview with Josh & Tamra

So are the puppets always the same characters, or do they just have personality traits that carry over from show to show?

Josh Cohen: The only thing in the show that’s locked down is the actual character's personalities. Grandpa’s always Grandpa. If we need a doctor in a scene, and Grandpa plays the doctor, it’s Grandpa … playing a doctor. They’re very specific characters to their personalities, so they kind of stay locked down. In the beginning we kind of switched around with them, but now they’re very definitive.

Tamra, what’s it like interacting with the puppets on stage?

Tamra Malaga: It’s like an adventure—you can do anything with the characters, which is awesome. At first, it’s hard to look into a puppet's eyes and get any emotion or get to know what they’re thinking, because it’s fabric or felt. But I’ve learned to read it through Josh’s energy, which is weird...I can’t really explain it.

JC: She’s developed a great sense of reading the character and predicting its moves and its tells. It’s great for the audience because they get to see that this is real because she makes it real. Otherwise, it’s just a puppet up there alone, fooling around and cursing.

Josh, how did you get hooked up with The Jim Henson Company?

JC: The real igniting flame of the whole thing was I answered an ad in an acting publication just for a general audition. I went, didn’t get it, went six months later for a different thing, got that and wound up getting hired for the original job that I didn’t get in the first place.

I didn’t really set out to go work for them. I just had the skill set from previous jobs that really matched me up well for the particular work that they were hiring for at the time. It was my full-time job for a good many years. It was a great gig...it was awesome. It still is.

TM: You just did something with Robin Williams, right? What’s that called?

JC: I shot a film last summer with Robin Williams and John Travolta called…Old Dogs?

TM: Yeah, Old Dogs. He did a puppet through Henson. What kind of puppet?



JC: It was a big, bird thing. I kind of got pigeonholed early on with the Hensons as a body puppeteer, so it was really great to work with Tamra to break out and do hand puppetry stuff. I did a bunch of hand puppetry stuff with “Sesame Street,” but for the Muppets, more specifically, my role is to work with “Bear in the Big Blue House,” so I was one of the B Bears, TV stunt Bear and road PR Bear.

What’s waiting for you guys in LA?

JC: A whole bunch of different stuff. We produced, directed and starred in a TV pilot that won the Best Comedy award at the New York Television Festival. It’s gotten us a lot of attention from some of the buyers and folks in LA who make TV shows, so we’re going out there to talk to a whole bunch of different people about that stuff. That’s kind of the number one thing we’re going out there for.

There’s a lot of work possibilities for us right now. We went out there for Tamra’s birthday and also July 4th this year and realized that the talent pool and the people that we usually work with in New York have all moved to LA, so we just kind of want to continue to collaborate with the people we’ve been working with on a larger scale.

Is it scary to leave New York?

TM: I think it’s actually really refreshing. I’m used to the pace of New York and the familiarity of it. We’re really looking forward to going to California and starting from scratch, in a way, but having a little jump start on contacts and meetings, so it’s kind of more reassuring for me.

Do you think people approach your shows with lowered expectations because of the puppets?

JC: One of the things we’re really striving for in our work or my work with puppets is that we’re trying to create really grounded characters, so that people aren’t really seeing the puppet, they’re seeing a performance of a different kind.

It’s kind of a good time for puppets right now, because even though we’ve been doing the show pre-dating Avenue Q, the popularity of a show like that kind of helps, and what was going on with “Crank Yankers” kind of helps. Not that we want to align directly with those projects, but they’re puppet projects and they’ve been enormously successful. We’re excited to change people’s outlook on what puppetry and improv can be.

The perception that people have going in, it’s really great to hear them after the show be like “I thought Grandpa was really great tonight. He was hilarious.” And Tamra and I are standing there, being like …

TM: “Josh is Grandpa.” [laughs]

JC: We have fans of the show who aren’t fans of me, they’re fans of Baby Jessica, which is just ridiculous when you think about it, but it’s great. I certainly don’t want to compare ourselves to the Muppets or anything, but I have a favorite Muppet character—I don’t have a favorite Muppet performer. I don’t think that Frank Oz is my favorite guy, I think Fozzie Bear’s my favorite guy.

The puppets are much more like fellow cast members than tools or accessories.

TM: Exactly.
JC: As much as I try to deny that it’s basically going that way.