The actor and director Gunnar Helgason is in charge of LazyTown’s theater shows called LazyTown Live. It has just premiered in the UK and in Brazil, and it’s a real LazyTown craze in Mexico, where the show broke all records. “Our shows in Mexico set a record. No children’s show has sold more tickets. The band U2 was selling out at a concert at the same time and we achieved even better sales figures than U2. There’s a LazyTown craze in Mexico,” says Gunnar Helgason, who oversees the LazyTown Live shows around the world. The live shows are very successful and are “always a super hit” as Gunnar puts it.
Magnús Scheving’s LazyTown has contracted with theater producers around the world to stage the plays of LazyTown Live, and Gunnar oversees. “There was nobody looking after these things until I was hired last year. Since I arrived, we have premiered two new plays. One in the UK and one in Brazil,” says Gunnar, who was present at the premieres in both places. “I make sure everything is done to the highest standards.” Maggi sets the standards high and makes high demands. We can say that it was good that I traveled to these places and observed,” says Gunnar.
Although it is the same thing – LazyTown – there is a big and very noticeable difference between the shows both in England and in Brazil. “The plays we put on in the Spanish-speaking world of America are not the same as those put on in the UK. There is a different theater tradition. Very short actors are hired there to act. Then exact replicas of the puppet heads are made and they act with the puppet head on the actor’s head. They want it to be exactly as LazyTown is on TV. It took me a while to get used to it, but it’s really amazing,” says Gunnar, where in the UK, actors without puppet heads are seen at the shows.
At the beginning of July, there will be a new premiere in Melbourne, Australia, and then in Mexico this fall. Next year, live shows in Portugal, Spain and Argentina will be added, while the South American live shows travel all over the continent. The demand is high and there is a lot of traffic at the live shows. “The shows are staged in theaters with 1,500-3,000 people, and it is quite a huge crowd that travels to it. It is shown eight times a week, throughout the year. It’s an insane race against the clock. Still, this is a little less than last time. Then they overworked the actors with twelve shows a week,” says Gunnar Helgason, supervisor of the hugely popular LazyTown Live shows.
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