Arenas, and Vikings, and Dragons – Oh My!

It started as a young child’s dream on a small island in Scotland, as 9 year-old Cressida Cowell wrote down some of the stories her father shared, about Vikings, Dragons, and the adventures that ensued when they met. In 2002, she translated her memories into “How to Train Your Dragon”, the first of eight (soon to be nine) books about a brave young Viking and the dragon he befriended. From this small beginning, it’s grown to become a world-wide franchise, including 3 feature films (two in production), three short films, a television series, video games, an ice show, and the current area show.

In 2010, DreamWorks Animation chose “How to Train Your Dragon” as the basis for their 3D computerized animated film. Since it’s critically acclaimed release, it’s earned nearly $500 million, worldwide.

In 2012, DreamWorks partnered with Global Creatures, the company behind “Walking with Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular”, to create “How to Train Your Dragon – Live Spectacular”. The huge production premiered on March 3, 2012, in Melbourne, Australia, under the original title, “How to Train Your Dragon Arena Spectacular”. From there, it leapfrogged to New Zealand, and since June 2012, has been touring the United States and Canada.

Bill Register, the production’s Media Manager revealed much during our behind the scenes tour. Much of the setting is “generated” by an innovative set projection system, using a 85 foot wide stage wall, 45 foot tall, as well as using the entire arena floor, totaling over 20,000 square feet of projected surface. It’s the equivalent of 9 movie screens on the wall and 9 movie screens on the floor. The actual light projection design came from Romanian-born Dan Portia, who’s been responsible for over 120 productions on 5 continents. Portia also was the creative force behind the Viking costumes worn by the cast members.

Equally amazing is the overhead rigging system that brings flight to the dragons. There are over 200 rigging points to the system, crossed braced so none of the Sleep Train Arena beams need to support any part of the preassembled structure alone.

30 53-foot diesel trucks transport the rigging, lighting, sound, and robotic dragons from show to show. With an additional of 160 local workers, the show can be torn down and ready to move to the next site in only 8 hours. For setting up the Sacramento shows, the trucks rolled in Monday, when prerigging was done. The crews worked all day Tuesday and Wednesday, in preparation for the first show on Thursday night.

The 23 amazing robotic dragons were created by Global Creatures, and include fantastic creations that walk, jump, breathe fire, run, and fly around the arena. With up to a 40-foot wingspan, some of the creatures are as long as 50 feet, as tall as 20 feet, and weigh up to 2.6 tons. The lifelike dragons display facial expressions extremely life-like movements. Sonny Tilders took the Creature Design lead, and created such well-loved dragons as Toothless (Night Fury), Gronkle, Nadder, the Monsterous Nightmare, and the huge Red Death Dragon. Tilders used his considerable experience from such films as Peter Pan, Ghostrider, The Chronicles of Narnia and Star Wars -The Revenge of the Sith as the key animatronics engineer. All together, over 50 model makers, digital designers, scenic artists, design and mechanical engineers, skin fabricators and control technicians have brought these fantasy creatures to life.

With all the innovative special effects that are part of every performance, there is no room for error. Every opening day, there is a full technical rehearsal, where the full show is run. It’s after a cue-to-cue run, so technical aspects have been run and the safety is carefully checked. A full tech rehearsal is run every night before the performance.

The 19 cast members, some from Australia, some from France, some from the United States. This includes double casting the lead roles with Americans, Riley Miner (Los Angeles) and Gemma Nguyen (Los Angeles) sharing the roles of Hiccup and Astrid with Australians, Rarmian Newton (Melbourne) and Sarah McCreanor (Brisbane).

A year ago, the production was at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia for six weeks, putting it all together, rehearsing it and teching it. After that, it opened in Melbourne, moving to Brisbane, and to Aukland, New Zealand for a week. After that, it crossed the Pacific, landing originally on the East Coast of the United States in June, and is now traveling across the rest of the US and Canada. As of now, there were no announced plans for Europe.

During an interview with Rarmian Newton, the Australian-born Hiccup, he shared how much fun the cast has, “The weapons are all made of foam, so we hit each other with them all the time!” He also revealed that a foley artist was hired to dub in all the metallic clanks and crashes during the many battle sequences.

When asked if he’d ever been injured during all the “swordplay”, he revealed that he’d once loaned his sword to a young audience member during a VIP meet-n-greet, who accidently hit him in the face! But there was no harm and he laughed the accident off, much to the relief of the embarrassed visitor.

And finally, when asked, “How DO you train a dragon?”, Newton smiled.
“Tickling under the chin – you can walk towards him. He’s just like a dog, so he gets scared at first. You really have to be tentative and slowly scratch him under his chin. Once you’ve done that, you’ll know that he’ll be YOUR dragon.”

After having met some of the dragons in person, I’ll leave the training to the more experienced Vikings in the show.

The “How to Train Your Dragon – Live Spectacular” will be at the Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento from Thursday, Jan. 3rd to Sunday, Jan. 6th. Tickets run from $25 to $69, plus special Meet the Dragon VIP, A Hero’s Welcome VIP, Dragon Trainer Enhanced Experience VIP, and Dragon Hot Seat options.
To learn more about Cressida Cowell and the “How to Train Your Dragon” books, go to http://www.howtotrainyourdragonbooks.com

You can discover more about the “How to Train Your Dragon” film at http://www.dreamworksdragons.com

More information about the “How to Train Your Dragon – Live Spectacular” can be found at http://dreamworksdragonslive.com.

Tickets for the shows at Sleep Train Arena are available from http://www.ticketmaster.com/venueartist/229391/1659167&majorcatid=1659167&minorcatid=22

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