Episode 30: Kevin Del Aguila

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

STEPHEN FALA: I’m Stephen Fala, and you’re listening to Pipe and Drape, the only podcast that spotlights the creative minds behind the Theatre For Young Audiences industry. Every two weeks I sit down with a theatre professional to hear their pipe and drape stories. These are the stories that take place behind the pipe and drape scenery in the theatre for young audiences world. Theatre for young audiences (or TYA) inspires young minds by entertaining audiences with topics big and little in any and every setting. My guests have mounted shows small enough to fit in a minivan to productions so big they travel by caravan, and on this podcast we discuss the ways theatre for young audiences helps all artists and theatregoers make this world a better place. Thank you for listening with me today.

[promotional music from Cat Kid Comic Club plays]

STEPHEN: Hi everyone! I’m here with actor, writer, director Kevin Del Aguila. Kevin’s work has been seen on the big screen, the Broadway stage, the small screen, and the local gynmacafetorium. Kevin recently received a Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination for his performance as Osgood in Some Like It Hot, and was in the original Broadway casts of Peter and the Starcatcher, Rocky, and Frozen. Also, his voice and be heard in the original film version of Frozen! He has received multiple Daytime Emmy awards and nominations for his writing work on the PBS series Peg + Cat, and he’s written numerous episodes for other popular series including Clifford The Big Red Dog and Blues Clues & You. On stage you’ve heard Kevin Del Aguila books and/or lyrics in Altar Boyz, Madagascar, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and half a dozen shows that are currently touring with TheaterWorks/USA, including this season’s Off Broadway summer hits Dogman and Cat Kid Comic Club. He’s juggled his writing and performing with directing world premiers Off-Broadway and at Barrington Stage, and he’s here with me now before a two-show day on Broadway! Kevin, welcome.

KEVIN: Wow, that makes it sound like I don't have any time anymore. [Laughter.]

STEPHEN: I mean, I do wonder about your time. In listening on a previous interview you did, you talked about how you were writing episodes of Blue’s Clues from your dressing room in Some Like It Hot, which I admire so much. 'cause I I have a day job or a, an office job that I take with me whenever I do shows. So I was doing a production of Mary Poppins where I was not really on stage that much, so I was just working in my dressing room and I'd run out and do a scene, come back, send more emails. So it's so cool to hear that that, that that is happening, you know, on the Broadway stage as well, and that you're also contributing to a huge national brand. There's a million kids who are watching Blue’s Clues and loving it.

KEVIN: Yes. It was actually during Frozen, it was before the pandemic. And it was but it was the greatest job ever because in Frozen, I played, I played Oaken you know, the little “woo-hoo big summer blowout” guy. [Laughter.] And so I only had one big juicy number at the beginning of Act II. 

[“Hygge” from Frozen begins to play in the background]

So all of Act I, I would just sit backstage and write Blue’s Clues and then at a certain point put on my costume and get ready to go out and come back. And yeah. So it was great. It was able to do, you know, have two careers at once my writing career and and to perform on Broadway. So I, that was the, an incredible, incredible incredibly lucky that, that it worked out that way. Not, it doesn't always work out that way.

STEPHEN: Yeah. It's such a juggling act of like…where do you have to be and what’s…and you love all aspects of what you're doing. And it's hard sometimes to make those decisions and figure out…and sometimes the dates totally work out and the the timing totally falls into place. At least that's happened for me. But that's so, so cool that you have been able to do that. Are you…you’re still working with Blue’s Clues, correct?

KEVIN: I’m not still working with Blue’s Clues, no. After I worked with them throughout the pandemic and then when they were gearing up for this last season that they're, they're currently doing, this is actually an interesting story. I got a deal to develop a Netflix show, one of the Netflix shows, an animated Netflix show for kids. And I had been developing that and working on that, and it came in direct conflict with Some Like It Hot with my Some Like It Hot workshop. We were doing a little workshop of Some Like It Hot, it was supposed to have an out of town tryout in Chicago and then come in and go to Broadway. And the out of town tryout got scrapped because of the lockdown and, and COVID. And so they were just gonna do this big workshop for six weeks and then open cold on Broadway in the winter. And so I started doing this workshop for six weeks, and Netflix was like, ‘What? Where are you? What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I'm doing that workshop that I told you that I was gonna be doing.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, well, how long is that?’ I'm like, 'Well, it's six weeks.’ They're like, ‘Six weeks?! Well, what, wait a minute, what, you can't be doing workshops for six weeks? What, what is this thing?’ ‘Well, it's a Broadway show,’ and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, ‘Well, you can't do a Broadway show and also write for us.’ And I was like, ‘I've done this before. I did it Frozen. I can do it.’ And they're like, ‘No, no, no. It's either them or us. You either take our job working for us, or you take your Broadway job, but you can't do both.’ And I was like, oh my gosh, this is the first time that I've really had to like, choose between these two. I mean, a great problem to have, let’s get me wrong. But but still, I was like, oh my gosh, I think I'm about to say no to this Broadway show. And and then the Broadway people, I told them about it, and they were like, ‘We gotta figure out how to make it work.’ So it was very flattering that both people wanted me to kind of work together, but I thought this is gonna be a nightmare. But then Fate stepped in, Netflix's stock started dropping, and they started to get rid of a bunch of things that they were developing, and mine was one of them. So I was like, Broadway, here I come! [Laughter.]

STEPHEN: Great. Well, we're so glad, because I mean this show is a huge hit and I don't know what it would be without you, so we’re glad. Sorry about Netflix.

KEVIN: It’s okay. I mean, I was actually kind of relieved because I was like, well, now I can be present for this Broadway show, and I can kind of enjoy doing it, as opposed to, ‘Gotta go everybody. I gotta write, you know, I've got a meeting, I've gotta go,’ you know? So it, it all worked out.

STEPHEN: Yeah. Do you remember the the shows that you were watching as a kid? So that sort of now Blue’s Clues/Peg + Cat age, what were you watching at that point in your life?

KEVIN: Gosh. Well, I'm kind of an old man. So, I mean, I was back in the, the days of Saturday morning cartoons and really weird shows that nobody ever talks about anymore. There was a show called Vegetable Soup. There was a show called Outer Scope One, there's these weird, weird shows with puppets. And like, you know, back then, like in the ‘70s, there was all of these, shows that had all these interstitials kind of like, you know Sesame Street, and I watched Sesame Street and all of those shows. But a lot of shows did that. They would have these, like, you know, a section with puppets, then an animated section, then some song with a bunch of things. So it was a real kind of smorgasbord of media in a weird way that would put that they'd shoved together for these kids shows. And I remember enjoying, you know, watching shows like that. And oh, and of course, Zoom. I watched Zoom with all the kids. And and I think that was kind of weirdly formative, too, because you'd watch these kids perform, you'd watch them do skits, you'd watch them dress up with like mustache and stuff and be in some kind of sketch, and you were like, ‘Wow, the kids are doing…’ and they'd teach you little magic tricks or teach you like little, you know…it was like that girl who did the dance with her hands kind of thing, that you were like, ‘Oh!’ you know? And it was weirdly like, they were showing you you can do this, too. And so I think growing up I was like, ‘Wow, they...' performing kind of came natural to me in a weird way. And, and so I think children's television was very much…you know I mean, now it's completely different with the internet. You know, you wanna learn something; there’s like seventy people who have up uploaded some kind of tutorial online. But back then it was like the place that you got your information was from these shows. And you could watch kids doing things that to expand your idea of what's possible.

STEPHEN: Did you feel inspired to pursue theatre from watching like Zoom or other TV shows?

KEVIN: You know, it's weird. It's such a strange thing. Somebody asked me that recently, and I was thinking back and I thought there was partially that, I mean, I grew up enjoying entertainment, you know, TV shows. I read a lot of Mad Magazine, [Laughter.] you know comedy was something that I was kind of interested in. And I had a friend in first grade, Nick Poani [spelling], who is an actor actually now, or maybe I think he's running a theatre company actually now. And his father was a district attorney, but he would do community theatre. And he was in a production of Cabaret. And, and my friend said, ’Let's go see my father in Cabaret.’ And we went to go see it. And I was kind of fascinated with it. I was like, oh my gosh, there's my friend's dad up there in makeup dancing around, and, you know my friend was like, ‘There's a gorilla in the second act. My dad's gonna dance with a gorilla.’ I was like, oh my gosh, this is the most exciting thing I've ever, ever heard. And watching his dad dance within their gorilla, I mean, it was like this weird gateway into sort of like, wow this is…they’re playing in front of me. I know what playing is. Like, I'm a kid, you know, [Laughter.] this is my bread and butter, and I'm watching adults do it. So there was something in that that kind of put things together for me, you know, in this idea of like, ‘Oh, this is play.’ And play is something that I enjoy doing. I feel like I'm good at doing it. I remember being on a playground thinking like, ‘I'm really good at this.’ I'm good at this playing thing. Some of these kids, they don't know what to do out here in the playground. I've got it all figured out, you know? So I think it was always kind of inherent in me. And you know, I didn't really grow up with in any kind of drama program or anything. Even when I went to high school, there was no drama club in my high school. But I wanted to do it. I knew I wanted to do something. I was interested in it. My mom said, ‘Oh, there's this…you know maybe you can have a class at the community college nearby after school.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, if they have anything, sure.’ And they were like, ‘Well, the only thing they have is at night, and it's like an improv class,’ and like blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, okay, sure. And so my mom would drive me, a high school kid to this community college where I would take this improv class with these college kids. And it turned out to be the greatest experience and introduction to acting that you could have, because, you know, acting is all about listening. Improv was a perfect way to get into that and learn that. And so and I was surrounded by these people who were really talented. Actually, I was very lucky to be in this class with these really talented people. And so I just, you know, being around that, I felt like this is my tribe. These are the people that I get along with. And when they started to respond to things that I was doing, I thought, huh, I'm on the right track. They're they're taking me in. I have something to offer, basically. And I kind of have always felt that I, as I've gone on, I went to college for acting and again found a little group of people and, and the shows that I was in, and the teachers that I had, they all started to respond to what I was offering. And I thought, wow, I guess I really do have something to contribute. So just sort of like a natural kind of thing.

STEPHEN: So we both went to Temple in Philadelphia. [Laughter.] So I, I'm wondering how you ended up in the Philadelphia theatre scene; in a place so close to New York, if that was just a natural transition from you to bounce from Philadelphia to New York as a young actor, writer, director.

KEVIN: Yeah. Well, I'm from California, so I mean, I went to undergrad college in Santa Barbara, California, which is like beach, sun, sand, all of that stuff. And then boom, I went to graduate school at Temple University, which is North Philly concrete buildings. It was like: culture shock. But when I was in California, people were always like, 'Are you from the East Coast?’ And I was like, ‘No, I was born here in California,’ [Laughter.] but everyone kept saying like, ‘You seem like you're from the East Coast.’ So I was like, well, maybe I should check out the East Coast. And so yes, going to Temple University of Philadelphia was definitely an attempt to kind of check out the East Coast and say like, is this where I belong? And Temple was interesting because I got to perform a lot of shows. I got my Equity card there at the Walnut Street Theatre, and worked at the Wilma Theatre, and it was right next to New York. So after school was done you know, away we went and we moved to New York and boom, we were in the middle of it. So it was a quite a, quite a shock, but this was where theatre was happening, and theatre seemed to be the thing that I was adept at and that I understood. And so I thought, well, this is the place where it's happening, so this is where I'm gonna go.

STEPHEN: There’s a rising presence of theatre for young audiences happening in Philadelphia. Like Walnut has a series, and then now there are companies just dedicated to it at this point that are based in Philadelphia or in the surrounding areas. Did you dip your toe into performing in or writing TYA while you were in Philadelphia?

KEVIN: No, never. Never, never at all. In fact, the thing is like I got to New York to be an actor, and I would go and audition for these places, and these people would look at me and they'd say, ‘Hey, you're a young character actor, you're gonna have a great career in twenty years.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ They were like, ‘Yeah, nobody needs a young character actor, old character actors, sure, we need them for everything, but no in twenty years you're gonna have a career, but nothing until then.’ And I was like, well, what the hell am I supposed to do for twenty years? [Laughter.] And the answer was, children's theatre. Children's theatre. They're the ones who need character actors. They need someone to play a goat, they need someone to play an alien, they need someone to play like all of these things, someone to do a million accents, be the person who can change costumes and come in as someone completely new. So my first job in New York was with TheaterWorksUSA, this children's theatre company in New York. And they they cast me into this show Around the World in 80 Days where I basically played everyone they meet, going around the world. And and it was great. And it was, it was really fun. And that was, that was my introduction to children's theatre. I'd never really been in anything like that before. And they would keep calling me in to do kind of workshops of shows, and they did little free months of theatre for kids here in the city. And I would be in a lot of those shows as well. I've worked with them ever since. They have hired me as an actor, as a writer, as a director, and they really became my kind of playground, my training ground for learning how to write and direct and write lyrics, all of these things. They were so trusting and, and they believed so much in what I had to offer. And I'm really indebted to them for them giving me the place to learn how to do these things. And I still do it for them. Dog Man and and Cat Kid are the latest shows that they've commissioned me to write. And they're just a terrific company, and I'm so grateful that they, they believed in my talent for so long.

STEPHEN: Was your first experience as a writer with TheaterWorks, or were you writing plays, adapting things prior to that?

[The title song from Dog Man begins to play in the background.]

KEVIN: No, I had always, you know, during school I'd been writing little little sketches, little one act plays, you know, stupid little, little, you know, song parodies and stuff. I was always sort of writing things here and there. And, you know, when I came to New York, me and my unemployed actor friends would sit around and they'd say, ‘Hey, let's just put up some of the stuff you've written, like we've got nothing better to do.’ And so we would put up a bunch of one act plays that I had written or little sketches and things, and I would direct them, and sometimes I'd be in them and artistic directors from some theatres that I had worked at regional theatres would come to see it and say, ‘Hey, Kevin, you can write, why don't you write something for us?’ So little by little, that's how my, my writing career kind of started out. And I wrote this this show called 6 Story Building, which was a bunch of one act plays that all took place on ascending floors of the same apartment building. And it was a very fun show. Like every play was like a different genre. So like, there was a cat and dog stuck in an apartment, and it was kind of like Waiting for Godot. And there was like…the top floor was a musical. It was very fun and very interesting. And it was really the first thing that I had done that got produced at a theatre. And that was really the first time that I had written something that was like produced and given a, a production and, and a proper production and, and was really my foray into writing. And it became the thing that was seen, we did it in the Fringe Festival here in New York, and it was seen by a producer wanting to move it Off-Broadway. That never happened. But he said, 'You know, I've got this other thing that I'm working on called Altar Boyz which is this, you know, musical about this religious boy band. We can't get it to work. I think you may have the right sensibility, you know, take a look at it.’ So eventually I wound up writing Altar Boyz, and that was an Off-Broadway hit that ran for like five years, almost five years, and really put me on the map. So even though I'd been writing things here and there, and self-producing things and trying to find my way as a writer and as an actor in the city, that was the thing. That was my first real glimpse of like, oh, now we have a point of reference. This guy wrote Altar Boyz. And that was the thing that really kind of gave me a little bit of cache, a little foothold in the show business. But yeah, throughout all of that, I mean, ironically, even though Altar Boyz was not for kids, I still started getting a lot of work for children. Like, I was commissioned by TheaterWorks to write this adaptation of Click, Clack, Moo to write the lyrics for this adaptation, Click, Clack, Moo with Brad Alexander writing music, and this guy Billy Aronson. And Billy was gonna write the book for it. And Billy Aronson was like a huge name in children's television, like he had written for everything. And so as we were working together, he was like, ‘You should come and write for, for children's TV.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I've never done that. I don't know what to do.’ He was like, ‘Look, if you could do children's theatre, you've got it made. I think you can do it.’ So he brought me on to write for a Wonder Pets! episode, and I learned very quickly that if you're have some sort of, you know, if you're even the slightest been adept with children's television, your name gets thrown around a lot. So I started writing a bunch of different children's television episodes, and eventually Billy and Jennifer Oxley came up with this show called Peg + Cat, which was a show that I wrote on a lot and wound up winning some Emmys for and stuff. And suddenly I was like a children's television ride, [Laughter.] and dunno how this happened, but here I am.

STEPHEN: I’m curious about the difference in process between writing for television versus writing for theatre just because, I mean, I know timelines vary project to project, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, I feel like that was written very, very quickly for its first go around and then there are certain shows where I imagine it's months of development and a like a big thick binder of rules about what the characters can and cannot do. Do you have any insight on the differences between all those things that you've worked on?

KEVIN: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah. First of all, I was very lucky because TheaterWorks was very much of the mind, ‘We’re not really writing kiddy shows,’ you know what I mean? ‘We're writing a good show, let's write a good show. And if it's a good show, everyone will wanna see it. It doesn't have to just be written for kids. We don't wanna talk down to kids. We don't wanna spoonfeed the kids. Let's write a good show that everybody can enjoy. It just happens to be an audience of kids.’ [Laughter.] And if you write a good show, then any kind of lesson, any kind of moral, any kind of thing that, that you wanna teach will inherently be given to them. Get them interested in the show first. Well, TV was different. They were suddenly like, ‘Education first, bring in the educational consultants, let's make sure that the parents who are sitting their kid in front of a TV, they wanna know that their kid is gonna get something out of this.’ You know, not just entertainment. They gotta learn something, you know? So there was very much the, the idea of like education first, entertainment second, which was like, that's crazy to me. Like, that seems like completely backwards. It's coming from a theatre background where it was like, no, no, no, you, you give 'em the sugar and the, and the medicine will be, you know, inside this [Laughter.] you know make them watch it. They have to watch it and, and be interested. And then in TV they don't know how the audience is responding because they can't see it. So they have focus groups, they have all of these kids watching episodes, watching different things, engaging their response. Whereas in the theatre, if kids are squirming they're not listening, you know, they're not watching right away. So coming from the theatre, I was like, I have an inherent idea about how kids are gonna respond to this, because I've seen them do it in a theatre. And in, in television they don't have that. So they've got all these other people whose job it is to scrutinize every little thing. ‘Kids don't know that word, get rid of it. Kids won't get that joke, get rid of it. Kids were weren't looking at the TV screen during this park, get rid of it.' So there's a lot of people there to tell you what you can't do, as opposed to, you know, what are we trying to do, you know? [Laughter.] And I would always feel like this is a backwards situation, this is not…they’re kind of like cutting off their nose to spite their face. They, they all say they don't wanna talk down to kids, but then they wind up talking down to kids, you know? And the good ones, and I'm not saying all children's television was like this, because a lot of them understood you want the kids to really enjoy this, and like Peg + Cat was great in that way, in that you could get actual jokes through. [Laughter.] Like, they didn't cut the jokes for time or anything. And because it was math-based, they were kind of playing with this like, ‘Geez, we, you know, I don't know if this is over the kid's head. We gotta find creative ways to teach this and fun ways to teach this.’ So they were really more focused on the entertainment value to get the math through. And I feel like there’s the ones who understood that, that like entertainment, make them watch first and then the curriculum will follow. Those are the ones that seem to get it, but I could never understand, they're like, ‘Kids don't get this word,’ or ‘They don't understand this word, so cut it.’ And I was like, well, when are they gonna hear that word? When are they gonna learn that word? I mean, kids hear words they don't understand all day. They're new, they just got here, they're not gonna turn off the TV because they heard a word they don't know. They hear words they don't know all the time. Give them some kind of context, give them some kind of, you know, ability to learn it. And anyway, I always was so confused about that. But theatre and, you know, working for TheaterWorks was interesting because I would work for TheaterWorks on one hand, and then I did have my foray into the arena shows. Like, I wrote like two PAW Patrol, Live! shows. I wrote a Nickelodeon live show, which were, you know, a totally different animal too, when you've got like, just like a giant, giant group of kids and they're selling merch and people are waving stuff around, and like, people are barely paying attention to what's happening on stage. But you've gotta make sure that they're paying attention and that you're making all their dreams come true from these TV characters that are, you know, coming to life in front of 'em. So that was a completely different animal as well. So between all of these things, it was very much like, wow, everybody plays by their own rules when it comes to these mediums. [Laughter,.]

STEPHEN: I have to ask, which PAW Patrol, Live! did you work on?

KEVIN: I worked on two of them. I worked on one called “Race to the Rescue,” and one called the Pirate Adventure, the “Great Pirate Adventure” or something. I don't know. Both of those were the ones, ones that I wrote. 

STEPHEN: I was Rubble and “Race to the Rescue,” so I had to know. 

KEVIN: Yeah. Are you kidding me? [Laughter.] 

STEPHEN: Yeah! [Not kidding.]

KEVIN: Well, there you go. So you get it. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

STEPHEN: It is, and performing those shows is a completely different animal than doing anything else else. You know, it's like thousands of people in the audience and like, yeah, they are just as loud as you are for most of it.

KEVIN: Oh, yeah.

STEPHEN: And so doing it with puppetry, it's so, so different. But I really loved the, the story of “Race to the Rescue.” I was like, this is good. I like this in performing it for kids it's felt, I'm like, this is solid. 

KEVIN: Yeah. And those things are really interesting where there's like a big IP, you know, and you've got like all of these people like, ‘Well, Rubble wouldn't say that Rubble wouldn't do that.’ You know, there's a lot of like rules about what would and wouldn't be done. And I always find that kind of fun to, even though it sounds like constrictive and sometimes it is too constricting, it is fun to figure out how to be…it makes you more creative and figure out how to kind of tell some kind of interesting story in this, you know, crazy world of puppets and a million kids.

STEPHEN: Yeah, I, I felt like in working with them, the brand was all about fun. And so it's, in having those rules, there was still a lot of room to play. And it was just finding the like, who is this character? And PAW Patrol's on TV all the time, so I'd be in hotel gyms working out watching PAW Patrol. I'm like, okay, I get it. I get what this is.

KEVIN: Exactly. Yeah. You can't escape it. It's everywhere.

STEPHEN: Yeah. And it's funny that you mentioned, as far as vocabulary in shows, the kid's not getting words, because the New York Times review of Cat Kid Comic Club, the writer [Laurel Graeber] mentioned how a kid at one point leaned over to their mom and said, “What's ‘perspective?’” 'cause they didn't know. And it's such a great learning opportunity where like, they're watching something happen, they're like, what's that? And they have a parent there who can answer it for them. So they're walking out of the theater knowing a new word, and perspective's a very important word to learn.

KEVIN: Yeah. I mean, yeah, that whole show is about perspective. So that was kind of a big thing. And we sort of not just define it, but like the whole show is about showing an example of perspective, not just in drawing, but also in seeing things from another point of view. But Dav Pilkey, the writer of the Dog Man books, Captain Underpants books, Cat Kid Comic Club books, he is a really interesting guy because he kinda like Jeff Kinney, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid writer, they have these huge IPs, these huge books. And they were very different in their treatment of them. I mean, both of them shared the idea that teachers kind of hate those books because they're kind of a little, like, edgy for elementary school kids, you know? And they say the words “jerk," you know, and like, [Laughter.] the teachers are just like, ‘Oh, why do they have to read these books?’ But they're reading, so they can't tell them not to read them because the kids love the books and they're getting them to read, and they're turning them into humans who love to read. So the teachers have to put up with these books. But but they don't like them because they're modeling rude behavior and they're doing this, and they're doing that. And it was really interesting adapting these things because you start to realize the edgy quality of them. Like you could never do it on TV. They wouldn't allow you to do it. The educational consultants would be like, ‘No way. You can't do this.’ But in theatre, they were like, 'Well, these are the books, and we're gonna…this is the sensibility of the books. This is the feel of the books, so we're going to translate that to the stage.’ So they let me do it. They let me adapt them in that way. And you feel the kids going, ‘Oh, this is for me, this hasn't been sanitized, this isn't a teacher.’ Like, you know, saying, open your mouth, here comes the nutrition. Like this is for me. And you really feel the kids have that ownership because it's just a little dangerous, you know what I mean? And they feel like, ah, this speaks my language. This is my, this is my my thing. And that was really interesting to see because it, you know, you can say things that are over their head, but you can also say things that are right in their wheelhouse. And as long as you've got an nice blend of both of those things they're with you. They're gonna go and maybe they're gonna come away with something new. You know, I remember watching Warner Brothers cartoons. I mean, that was something I grew up with as well. All the, all the Looney Tunes/Bugs Bunny cartoons, and they were constant references to things that I would never get. But you or you were always like, ‘I sense that something funny is happening. So I may not be laughing, but I'm looking, I'm watching, I'm curious.’ And I think, you know, getting that curiosity going is the, the key, if you have that, then kids are watching and they're paying attention.

STEPHEN: I love that. And I think that also contributes to creating like a, not brand, but kind of like a brand that is lasting because like Looney Tunes is still on. It's something that, as an adult, I can go back and watch and be like, ‘Oh, I get that now.’ But it wasn't any less funny than when I was watching as a kid. And SpongeBob is like that, where like, I was watching when it first came out, and then as a teaching artist I'm going in to work with kids and they're like telling me about SpongeBob. I'm like, ‘Oh, I know about SpongeBob,’ and I'll still watch it and I'll pick up on things, and I'm like, that's hilarious. And there's a huge meme trend now of using a SpongeBob clips. And it's such relatable content for adults. And I think it's so important for us to be creating books and shows that are, the kids feel it's for them, but like an adult is sitting there like, ha!

KEVIN: Yeah.

STEPHEN: And then the kids will grow up having that. And then Dog Man is their new Looney Tunes.

KEVIN: Yeah. I mean, I constantly say that I'm really grateful that TheaterWorks allowed me to kind of write things that weren't basically…just write things that were funny for all, you know? And there could be some references that only adults will get, but there's also references that kids will get. But the real moments that I'm so proud of are when you look in the audience and you see like a parent sitting next to a child and they're both laughing at the same thing on stage. Like, if you can do that, when that happens, you're just like, ah, that's gold. That is gold. They're both laughing at the same joke on stage. You know, it's like telling a clean joke, like a really good clean joke is very hard to find if it's legitimately funny and clean. It's legitimately funny to all, there's no question. [Laughter.]

STEPHEN: When you're adapting a piece, whether it's for TheaterWorks or it's like Madagascar or you know, whatever, what kind of research are you doing to get the essence of that piece and know, like, this is an iconic thing that has to go in your pre-production, I guess, as a writer?

KEVIN: I basically just like immersed myself in the, in the property. I've been lucky that I had a kid growing up when I was adapting a lot of things. Like I adapted the Skippyjon Jones books, 

[Promotional music from Skippyjon Jones Snow What plays.]

so we would read them at bedtime, and I would just kind of like, you know, soak them in and go like, oh, that character, he is pretty important. I gotta make sure I, you know, oh, he says that all the time. I gotta make sure that makes it into the dialogue, you know? And just kind of immerse yourself in those things. And when Dog Man came around, I wasn't aware of it. I didn't know what it was, but my son was like, reading this book giggling, and I was like, ‘Hey, that's Dog Man. Tell me everything you know about Dog Man.’ He was like, okay, well this is the character and this is a thing, this is that. And you know, you start to realize, oh my gosh, everybody in his class knows these books, you know? And, and so I think just immersing yourself in it reacting to it, trying to pick up on the sensibility of it. I always feel like, as an actor, you try to kind of like…you wanna get the tone, you wanna get the feel, you want to get the, you know everything about it so that you can kind of, not just copy it, you know, in a certain way, but like, give the spirit of it so that you can play in that sandbox. It doesn't have to be just like word for word everything. But like, if it's all in the same kind of world, then you can feel free to play within that world. You just have to know what the rules of that, that world are. So figuring that all out, feeling, getting the sensibility and the voices of the characters and the tone of everything, I think is the key.

STEPHEN: Did you bring your son into the workshops or anything for Dog Man?

KEVIN: Oh, absolutely. It was like, you know, him and not just him. I mean, there were other…some of the actors had kids who were there and they're all holding their Dog Man books and you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, I hope they're gonna tell us exactly what they think when we're done. I hope we didn't, didn't ruin this.’ [Laughter.] And you know, they don't hold back. They're like, ‘Oh yeah, no, you did him right. That's good that, you know, you did that character, but I would like to see this and this and this.’ And I'm like, oh, okay. Alright, great. [Laughter.]

STEPHEN: How do you balance all of this? I mean, this summer you're working with TheaterWorks during…like, I’m looking at your Instagram and I'm like, ‘I'm watching you on stage tonight. How are you here doing this right now?’

KEVIN: I know, it is a lot.

STEPHEN: Yeah. On top of having a family, what kind of routines do you have that that ground you as these different projects come up and then they close and something new is in the works over here?

KEVIN: Writing is...because the schedule is always a little malleable. That's doable. Like, you can wake up early and start pumping out pages. You can find time while you're eating lunch to write. Writing is okay, performing is the trick because there's rehearsal, there's a block of rehearsal and you have to be there physically, you have to be present. You can't be running off writing in the corner, you know? So that's the time that really takes it up when you're, when you're performing 'cause you're physically there. So it's just a balance of like, here's the time I have to be physically there. Here are the other times when I can write here, write there, you know work on this, writing wise, in little pockets, and then drop my son off at school and pick him up later. [Laughter] It is definitely a balancing act, and it doesn't always work. There have been several times when I've looked at my calendar and thought I have to be in three different places at the same time today. Well, two people are gonna be disappointed in me. [Laughter.] Yeah, it's difficult. It's a balance. But it's also, for the longest time I was like, just say yes to everything, 'cause you never know if something's gonna fall through after the pandemic. I mean, who knows? You can't count on anything. So just like say yes to everything and figure it out later. And sometimes that has worked out and other times it's been like, I gotta say no more often. 

[Laughter.]

STEPHEN: I do wanna know…you frequently collaborate with Brad Alexander.

KEVIN: Yes.

STEPHEN: Is Brad also based in New York, and do you do a lot of your work in person together?

KEVIN: Yes. This is a great question. Brad is in New York. He's married to an actress named Jill Abramovitz, who I worked with as an actor long ago before I met Brad. And they met at TheaterWorksUSA, he had composed the music for I think like a Just So Stories adaptation, and she was in it. And and that's how they met. So children's theatre brought them together, and yes, I've collaborated with him. I think the first thing is we, I think all we've really written together were have been TheaterWorksUSA productions. We originally wrote a short musical version of Lilly's Big Day. Those that, those, you know, Lilly’s Plastic Purse books and by Kevin Henkes. And then we all wrote a Martha Speaks adaptation at one point, and I wrote Click, Clack, Moo with him and Duck for President. Like, we've written a million things together for TheaterWorks and Dog Man and Cat Kid have been the latest things. And usually we were in the same room for Dog Man and Cat Kid, weirdly, probably because of schedule and pandemicness and family life. We weren't always in the same room. It was a lot of me throwing him a bunch of lyrics saying, ‘Hey, this is what I'm thinking. This is how I'm hearing it sound. This is what I…here's the scan I hear.’ And him sending back something that he had kind of put together. And then we're like, yes, okay, that's a go. Let’s do it. [Laughter.] Or him sending me a musical idea, and I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, no, no, that's the right sound. Okay, I'll figure out some lyrics for that.’ So a little more back and forth than us sitting in the same room hashing it out together. And that's basically how we did Dog Man and Cat Kid. There wasn't a lot of both of us in the room just because of time and schedules.

STEPHEN: Are we gonna get a Cat Kid album?

KEVIN: Fingers crossed. Okay, I hope so. [Laughter.] I hope so. Now, I was so grateful that, that we got the, the Dog Man album because it was…they’re such a good company of actors and theatre is great, but when it disappears, you're just like, oh, we have nothing to hold onto, so just having some kind of literally a record of those songs and what they did, I'm just so grateful for that. So I hope they do the same with Cat Kid. 

STEPHEN: Me too. I worked for TheaterWorks at one point when they were working on the tour for Skippyjon Jones Snow What and I would hear like bits and pieces of it through the door, across the hall, but there's no album of it, so I don't know how that show really sounds anymore. I’m such an advocate for more TYA albums. Get, get those students out there. There's some bops!

KEVIN: Yeah, they really should, the music and Brad's music, our score to Click Clack Moo was so much fun and so exciting. I had forgotten about it for the longest time. And then at a TheaterWorks gala, I saw the writers of Click Clack Moo; the writer and illustrator were there, and they had come to the opening night like way back when, and they were like, ‘We still think about that show. And we still think like, I can't believe that they took our little book and made this giant musical out of it.’ And I listened to some of the songs again. I was like, oh my gosh, I had forgot. These are pretty good. And yeah, it's one of those things where you're like, you need to get it out there because they're, they're great like little companions that kids could listen to in relation to the books or in this new world of streaming and, and all of that stuff. I feel like that's where kids entertainment is kind of living and bridging that gap between theatre and having the cast album that kids…I grew up with. Like, I think that would be great.

STEPHEN: Yeah, they all have iPads in their hands, so they can just go put on an album themselves. Like, ‘Oh my God, this is my favorite musical. And they're like, six. You know, whereas way back when, we were like, ‘Mom, can I go buy the CD?’ [Laughter.]

KEVIN: Right. 

STEPHEN: As a director, you had the opportunity to direct your own adaptation of the Velveteen Rabbit.

KEVIN: Yes.

STEPHEN: So when you're writing something, and also you are the one who gets to stage it with the group, did you find during that process that you were reworking your script based on who was in the room and what you saw in each of the performers? Or like, how was the script or the story changing for you from a writer's perspective as someone in the directors seat?

KEVIN: I love this question because my little adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit and the production that I directed with three actors was one of the most artistically satisfying experiences of my life. And I feel so proud of that production, even though it was tiny. Like, what I was given was TheaterWorks said that this was…at the time when there was like a big recession and gas prices were going through the roof, and so their touring model, of touring things in a van with actors, was going kaput. It was like down the tubes. And so somebody had the idea, look, if we can get a really small thing that can be done like in the corner of a library or like a classroom or like just some small, malleable area, we just need some small production that we can bring to people. Three actors, minimal set. ‘Kevin, can you do it [Laughter.] based on, you know, something in public domain, Velveteen Rabbit?’ And I was like, Velveteen Rabbit? That sounds like the most, you know, I mean, that's that old, like, it's that little precious like Hallmarky kind of nauseating little book. So I was like, ‘Well, of course it sounds like a great challenge.’ And I was in a, a show called Peter the Starcatcher, which I don't know if you ever saw, but it, it was a very DIY kind of aesthetic, you know, people would pick up a bucket and then it would suddenly be, I don't know, a hat or whatever it is. So they were like, ‘Starcatcher this thing up,’ so that it's a very, like, you know, do it yourself kind of thing. And I read the book, the Velveteen Rabbit book. I kind of plotted out how it would sort of happen. I gave it this kind of convention where it's like these three performers coming out to tell the tale. And then they basically put on a bunch of things, use whatever's in this nursery, this kid's nursery to tell the tail. And along with that you can't just like write like, ‘And then they do this, and then they did that, then they did that.’ You need the actors there, and you need a bunch of props to figure out, like, okay, if you put that pillow around your head, will that look like a lion's mane? Okay, if you take that rug and you hold it up and then like, do this behind it, will that look like, you know, you're in bed, you know like a sheet for your bed. I mean, you need all of the stuff and the actors put on them to look at it, to figure out how to do it. And so yes, me and these three actors had a little workshop with just like, I was like, ‘Give us every prop, every every piece of furniture you have, TheaterWorks, and we'll figure out how to tell his story.’ And it was great because, you know, he'd be in the garden and we're like, ‘Okay, garden, well, hey, how about, you know, we put these little pinwheels in the pots and they'll look like plants. And then when the wind blows, the pinwheels will start to turn.' And then when your mind just starts to kind of like…the limits that you have make you more creative, and suddenly you’re looking around at these props and you're putting them on actors, and actors are coming up with bits, and you're like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ The creativity starts bubbling up. And so what we came up with was just so theatrical, so creative, so beautiful, and so kind of ingenious in its own little way that it took this story about toys coming to life, and it was literally like taking inanimate objects and putting them on an actor and a breathing light, and that convention, and just watching that take place was magic. And it was just great. I loved everything about it, and it was done in this little tiny, you know, Off-Broadway theatre and then toured around in a van for a while and then disappeared. But I always was so proud of it.

STEPHEN: Kids love that. It's so funny just thinking about the spectacle that is, like within the realm of TYA, because as a kid I was putting a skirt on my head and I was like, ‘This is my wig now.’ Like, that's how kids play. And so, yeah, you have that element of it, and then you also have like PAW Patrol, and there's fireworks and confetti and whatever happening, and kids still eat both of those things up because it’s…they love to see other people play. And so it is so cool to hear that like, out of necessity of like, there's no budget, there's no big car, there’s…you know, we can't put like a whole bunch of new stuff into this. What exists and what can we do that something amazing came out of it?

KEVIN: No, it was, it was very fun. And the, and the fun thing is that all the designers around it, you know, they get inspired too. They're like, ‘Oh, okay, we don't have a lot to work with and we've gotta figure out how to make this character look like this or this character do that.’ And ideas just start to pop. It was really exciting, very exciting. I mean, when we did the first workshop of it you just sort of like get so into it, and then when you actually like, put it in front of people, you know, when the Velveteen Rabbit gets thrown in the fire, these people were weeping, and I was like, oh my gosh, you guys, they're actors wearing a bunch of like inanimate objects on their heads and like one of them has got socks for ears and stuff. But it works. It's that magic that you're always kind of searching for and you don't know that you have it until it's actually in the room with you.

STEPHEN: Up next. You have more, I don't know how much you can say about upcoming projects, but you still have Some Like it Hot going on and then Diary of a Wimpy Kid is moving over to First Stage and gonna have another full cast of kids playing kids, which is so cool to have kids watching people their age, telling stories about them. When you're writing something for kids rather than adults, do you keep in mind how much material you have to give to each kid when you're creating something like that, as far as like…they can only have so much stage time because of legal reasons or whatever? Has that posed a challenge or other great opportunities for you as a writer?

KEVIN: Yeah, I mean, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is, is being licensed now. So like, hopefully it'll start popping up in theatres all over the world [Laughter.] But that was the first time that I had written really for children, for kids who were in middle school and high school. And I have to say it wasn't that different. I mean, at least we didn't treat it that different. I mean, we were writing in the vein of these Jeff Kinney books, these Diary of a Wimpy Kid books writing in the voices of these characters. And then hearing kids interpret it only juiced what you had kind of set out on the page. I mean and in fact, in the casting, we got really lucky, the first production of it we found because CTC had had this this training program for kids there. And so we had a lot of really, really talented kids, great singers, great actors, great performers and super quirky and their quirks just brought these things to life. Like, you know, the kid who had the little lis—perfect. The kid who did that weird little dance—perfect. I mean, everything that they brought to it was just enhanced it. So I don't think we did anything special for them. I mean, we did, I think…we wanted everyone to have a little moment to shine or at least, you know have a moment where everyone could kind of feel like they're contributing in a way. But they all loved the material so much and they were so excited to to be in it, to contribute to it, to unleash it on the public you know, and they were huge fans of the books. [Laughter.] I mean, that was the other thing is that they all…these books that kids fall in love with and then they get to live out the fantasy of being one of these characters and the kids who come to see it, who love the books and they see these characters come to life in front of them. It’s all like, it all works to kind of juice itself into this exciting experience. So, yeah, I don't think we approached it any differently. In fact I think, if anything, we had to explain some of the things the kids were saying to them because we were like, ‘Well, this is a joke about this,’ or’Tthis is a reference to this,’ or, ‘If you say it this way, then that's how you'll get to laugh.’ And they're like, ‘Oh, oh, I get it. Oh, I get it. I get it!’ [Laughter.] I think I keep saying I've never approached it any differently than a show for grownups or for adults. I find there to be very little difference other than kids are much more vocal and honest about how they feel about it, you know I've said it before, I'll say it again. There is no critic as bad as a bunch of squirming kids. [Laughter.] Like, they will let you know right away what they think about, you know, what's on the stage, what's on the TV. And they're not shy about it. So I just feel like they're honest, they're smart. I feel like a lot of people don't don't give them the benefit of the doubt that they're intelligent and that they can figure things out on their own. But I always found kids audiences to be super smart, super intelligent, and super fun. And they respond to fun. They respond to creativity and play because that's, that's what they know.

STEPHEN: Kevin, thank you for speaking with me today. How can our listeners find out what you're up to and what your next projects are?

KEVIN: They can follow me on Instagram. I'm at Kevin of the Eagle which is translation of my last name, Del Aguila, or they can go to kevindelaguila.com and see what I'm doing now.

STEPHEN: Kevin’s information is linked in the notes for this episode, and you can see his work in Some Like It Hot at the Shubert Theatre through December 30th, 2023 and TheaterworksUSA’s Dog Man and Cat Kid Comic Club in a city near you this fall. In this episode we heard music from Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander’s Cat Kid Comic Club featuring the voices of Mark Nicole Smith, Brian Owen, L.R. Davidson, Dan Rosales, and Jamie LaVerdiere; Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s “Hygge” from the Original Broadway Cast recording of Frozen; Del Aguila and Alexander’s title song from the original cast recording of Dog Man; music from Kevin Del Aguila and Eli Bolin’s Skippyjon Jones Snow What featuring the voices of L.R. Davidson, Alexander Ferguson, Junior Mendez, Christian Perry and Lexi Rhoades; and Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s “Baby, Let’s Get Good” from the Original Broadway Cast Album of Some Like It Hot. This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music is “Robo-Dance Party” from the original cast recording of Dog Man: The Musical, Book and Lyrics by Kevin Del Aguila, Music by Brad Alexander, Adapted from the Dog Man series of books by Dav Pilkey.

[Pipe and Drape theme plays.]

Are you interested in sharing your pipe and drape story? You can join the conversation by emailing PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com or messaging @PipeAndDrapeStories Instagram. And everyone, please be sure to rate and review Pipe and Drape wherever you listen to podcasts! Each star given or review submitted helps future listeners find the show. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to hear theatre for young audiences creatives share their pipe and drape stories. Pipe and Drape is created and hosted by Stephen Fala and distributed by Anchor. The Pipe and Drape logo was created by Stephen Gordon and music was composed by Stephen Fala. Thank you for listening with me today. 

[The end of "Baby, Let's Get Good" from Some Like It Hot plays.]

Find Kevin Del Aguila:
WEBSITE: ⁠kevindelaguila.com⁠
INSTAGRAM: @kevinoftheeagle

See Some Like It Hot on Broadway through December 30, 2023: https://somelikeithotmusical.com/
See Kevin's work on the road via TheaterWorksUSA: https://twusa.org/shows-artists/on-tour-2/ 

This week’s Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party music: "Robo-Dance Party" from Dog Man: The Musical
Listen to the Tuesday Afternoon Dance Party playlist here!

Connect with Pipe and Drape:
INSTAGRAM: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@PipeAndDrapeStories⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
EMAIL: PipeAndDrapeStories@gmail.com
Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Fala⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
Artwork: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stephen Gordon

Read the NYT Review!