"DOG MAN! Part dog, part man, ALL HERO!" Dog Man is one of the best selling series written by Dav Pilkey. The book is so good that it's already a musical and soon it will be a full length feature film. “Dog Man: The Musical” will be traveling all over the U.S., to 18 states and Canada over the course of eight months—including a stop in Tucson.
Pilkey wrote Dog Man as a comic creation of George and Harold, fictional characters from Captain Underpants. So, the Dog Man book is actually a book within a book. In Dog Man, the story begins with a police dog and a police officer trying to stop a bomb from exploding, but they mess up, so they both blow up! The only way to save them is to put them together: the head of a dog, body of a man, to make...Dog Man! Dog Man spends the rest of the story saving the city from a fish and cat. The musical will share the same plot as the book but includes dance parties and musical numbers.
I interviewed Sadie Jayne Kennedy, who portrays Li'L Petey in the musical. Kennedy started acting when she was 6 years old at a theater camp in her hometown of Gardner, Massachusetts. Her mom was an actress. Kennedy says, "I was always inspired by hearing her sing around the house when I was little." Kennedy’s first show was with her mom. Her favorite books growing up were the Junie B. Jones books by Barbara Pack. "I thought she was the funniest person to exist," Kennedy recalls. Her dream is to play Spongebob Squarepants. Arizona is one of the few states that Kennedy has never been to. She's excited to visit because she has family that lives here. She shared that the best part about being on the road is "being able to see so many cool interesting places that I never would have gone to otherwise." The most challenging part is being away from family and taking care of herself.
Kennedy is a very big sandwich enthusiast and craves footlongs fromSubway. Her go-to sandwich is the turkey and provolone cheese with a mound of veggies and extra banana peppers with buffalo sauce, because she likes it spicy. I asked Kennedy how she keeps her composure when she's doing a funny scene. She says that she just gives herself away because her dimples are so large. "I just try and take a deep breath and instead of looking right at the person, I kind of just look away to the right a little bit." This is good advice for aspiring young actors.
The show is for ages 5 to 11, but even grown-ups say they loved it more than their kids. “Dog Man: The Musical” is coming here to the Fox Theatre on Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m. and Dec. 8 at 2 p.m. So head downtown, because it's crime time at the Fox Theater. Don't forget to grab your favorite Subway sandwich for dinner.
PHOTO: Jeremy Daniel
