Harold and the Purple Crayon - Seattle Children's Theatre

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ROB: Musically, song-wise, Auston and I tried to figure out if the music or the lyrics should bewritten first.AUSTON: I had already written two songs before we even started with the script.ROB: And I sent Auston three sets of dry lyrics, or lyrics without music - which Rocket In The Skycame out of.DON: Oooh, this is exciting!ROB: The melody to the hero song Great To Be Me actually started off as the melody to the CitySong but we both agreed the song sounded more like the hero song.AUSTON: I had a bunch of tunes and melodies. I was just trying to find a spot to put them. And soRob came over and I played a bunch of little tidbits I had for him and thought, “could we use anyof these?”ROB: We discovered that melody first was a great way to write our songs because, you know, it’ssimpler to adjust lyrics than to adjust a composition.AUSTON: Because I write from a music side, it was hard for me to write from a dry lyric. And Robwas fast writing that way, too - like bam (he snaps his fingers)! I made sure that the music alwayshelps us understand Harold and opens up a bigger world, too. It sets the structure for the story,something to build on.DON: Especially since there’s no dialogue, except the singing. Should we talk about thedifferences between the books and our show?ROB: WOW, THAT’S MASSIVE!AUSTON: Well, the book, I mean - you imagine so many things about that little character andwith our play, we’ve shown what we see in him.ROB: For me it’s like an apple pie recipe. Everyone knows apple pie, everyone knows Harold andthe Purple Crayon - this is our recipe for Harold. We took our three ingredients and put togetherthis...dessert.DON: We filled it with moments of play and moments of wonder - it was like Harold and thePurple Crayon was a coloring book for us and we filled it in how we wanted to.ROB: Basically, we wrote a show that we wanted to see.AUSTON & DON & ROB: Or be in!ROB: What are some of the other things we want audiences to look for in the show?DON: They should listen very carefully for the fun little lines between lyrics in the songs.AUSTON: And how Harold solves the problems he creates. Like Star Trek.(They all laugh!)8
A CHAT WITH STEFAN GRUBER, ANIMATORPlease tell us a little bit about your working process.Well, I make about 15 drawings for every second of animation. The firstfilm I made had a stack of drawings that went from the floor to the ceiling!I like to make animation as art, kind of like what you’d find in a museum. Ilook around the world and find things that interest me and I translate thosethings into short cartoons. It takes a ton of patience to make animation, andwhat’s cool is that the more animation you make the more patient you get.My animation is made sometimes using paper and ink on a light-table, andsometimes with a computer and a mouse that looks like a pen. You can makeanimation on one of those little yellow note pads by just starting a drawing on the bottom page,and tracing it a little bit on the second to bottom page, and then continuing that until you fillup the whole pad. My first animations were done like that, and starred a slime-mold creaturenamed Smushy.What is a particularly interesting or unusual challenge on this project, and how are yousetting out to solve it?One thing we’re making is animation of a dancing tree. Our director, Rita, invited in a dancer toshow us exactly how a tree might dance while it’s growing up, and we videotaped that. I put thevideo on my computer screen and copied the dance movements until we had a fully animatedtree, growing up and flowing in the wind. It’s really fun working with a big team of talentedpeople. Everyone gets to inspire each other, and we’re all encouraged to be as creative as can be.What in your childhood got you to where you are today?In 1st grade, I wanted to grow up and be a magician. Themost fun famous magician at the time was Doug Henning,who I’d seen do magic tricks on The Muppet Show. Mymom and I saw him live at the Moore, and I was so lucky - heinvited us backstage after the show, where he taught me howto make a little foam ball disappear.This is a picture from Stefan’s animatedmovie LeashlessnessAt age 10 I saw some animation being projected outdoors at the Seattle Art Walk, and it was sobeautiful and simple. It was just a running greyhound dog drawn in pencil, running and running,and slowly it was erased a little bit at a time until the dog was gone. This was the first time I sawanimation and understood how it was made. It was like the filmmaker had taught me how toanimate, showing me how to do it through his film. My focus on magic shifted to animation, and Itook lots of classes on how to make it. When I grew up and got to animation college, I wasgreeted by my new professor Jules Engel - a 90-year-old wise man, and the maker of that verysame dog film I saw as a kid! The film is called Accident. You used to be able to see it on YouTube,but it looks best on a 16mm projector outdoors at an art walk when you’re 10.Stefan Gruber is a Seattle animator and performance artist. He creates a short hand-drawn, digitally-finished filmevery year. He hosts animation classes at Nova Alternative High School, the Frye Art Museum, and the NorthwestFilm Forum, and does a yearly screening of kid-made animation shorts.9
Page 1 and 2: EDUCATOR RESOURCE GUIDEHarold and t
Page 3 and 4: SYNOPSISHarold is a creative little
Page 5 and 6: ReadingScienceCommunicationState St
Page 7: WHERE IT ALL BEGANWe asked Auston J
Page 11 and 12: Shadow puppet -A shadow puppet is n
Page 14 and 15: HOW ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT?When H
Page 16 and 17: BOOKSLots of books tell stories by
Page 19 and 20: BOOKLISTFor Children & Young Adults

Harold and the Purple Crayon - Seattle Children's Theatre

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