The curtain is about to open on an exciting new offering from Julie Andrews, Emma Walton Hamilton, Lisa Henson and a whole host of others, including brand new Henson puppets! It’s a wonderful opportunity for kids (and not-kids) to learn stagecraft and to experience all that the arts has to offer in a person’s life.
Julie’s Greenroom is a new Netflix series (13-parts for this debut season) ostensibly for preschoolers, but I think all ages of kids — and even teens and adults — will enjoy, benefit from, and learn from the series and the many guest stars who will be teaching various elements of stagecraft.
The premise is that Miss Julie (the fictional character played by Julie Andrews) and her assistant Gus (played by Giullian Yao Gioiello) run a center for the performing arts. They interact with a group of kids (and a duck) collectively called Greenies (played by Henson puppets). In each episode there is a guest star who teaches some aspect of the craft, such as Alec Baldwin teaching about acting, Joshua Bell teaching about orchestras, and so on.
The kids (and the duck) are, as I mentioned, Henson puppets and were created specifically for this series. I have seen the puppets in clips on television spots that Ms. Andrews and Emma have done, and they are absolutely delightful. It is also delightful to see Ms. Andrews interact with the puppets as if they were really kids. (And I can hardly wait to see the duck in action!)
The series debuts on Netflix on Friday, March 17, and will be on Netflix International so those of us not in the United States don’t need to worry about being left out.
You can see the official trailer here.
Read an excellent article in the New Yorker based on an interview with Emma Walton Hamilton and Lisa Henson here.
See the press release from the Jim Henson Company here.
And here’s a review (why yes, I *did* choose it because it mentions the duck).
O this week stands for On stage, On with the show, Offering, Opportunity, and the Ovation I suspect viewers will want to give after they watch the Opening episode. Oh — it also stands for Ornithological wonders (that’s the only way I could think of to get O to stand for Duck. 😉 )