More like My Puppet Totoro. Per Deadline, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop — which makes The Muppets and Sesame Street characters — is building life-size puppets for a stage adaptation of My Neighbor Totoro. (Well, it’s a British adaptation, so it’s My Neighbour Totoro now.) The original 1988 Hayao Miyazaki hit follows Satsuki and Mei, a pair of sisters who move to the Japanese countryside and encounter various spirits. Playwright Tom Morton-Smith’s take on the animated Studio Ghibli classic, staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, will include puppet versions of two giant, fluffy creatures: Totoro and the Catbus. But it seems as though these are no ordinary puppets: Director Phelim McDermott told Deadline that the Catbus will actually fly, though he chalked it up to “theater magic” and would not explain the mechanics of brining a 12-legged feline that doubles as air transport to life. The Creature Shop is following designs from the famed puppeteer Basil Twist, while Mervyn Millar from the British puppet studio Significant Object will create additional puppets for the production. Featuring Joe Hisaishi’s original movie score and additional music, My Neighbour Totoro is set to premiere — with full-size forest friends — at London’s Barbican on October 8.
