Dinosaurs will once again roam the Earth in the spectacular theatrical arena show “Walking With Dinosaurs,” a show based on the award-winning BBC Television Series. The show will be performed at Thompson Boling Arena April 30, May 1-2, 2010.

Among the crew for the show is puppeteer Ed May. SevierCountyNews.com spoke with May by telephone recently in anticipation of the Walking With Dinosaurs show in Knoxville.

Puppeteer Ed May said he began his career at 5 years old, performing for family with his Ernie puppet.

“My first professional show, I was paid $5, a comic book, and a hamburger,” May said. “It was a nice comic book, though. One of those 70 to 100-page Marvel comics; not one of those dinky Richie Rich comics.”

He has since performed on projects for The Jim Henson Company, NBC, and Gaylord Entertainment.  In addition to performing in feature films, television series, commercials, and videos, Ed toured nationally with a live puppet theatre company as lead puppeteer, director, and road manager.

He now works with The Walking With Dinosaurs show as a “voodoo puppeteer,” making the gigantic monsters move by remote control. The dinosaurs for the production are life-size, making the show so immense, it could only fit in arenas. May says it’s a $20 million arena spectacle which captivates young and old alike.

“When I can hear and see audience reactions to the show, it is very gratifying for me,” May said. “Kids wave to the dinosaurs, call to them, and always applaud when one of them makes an entrance. This has to be one of the few shows where you cannot have a bad seat. No matter where you are in the arena, it is still a great view.”

Ten species are represented from the entire 200 million year reign of the dinosaurs.  The show includes the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Plateosaurus and Liliensternus from the Triassic period, the Stegosaurus and Allosaurus from the Jurassic period and Torosaurus and Utahraptor from the awesome Cretaceous.  The largest of them, the Brachiosaurus is 36 feet tall, and 56 feet from nose to tail.  It took a team of 50 ­ including engineers, fabricators, skin makers, artists and painters, and animatronic experts ­ a year to build the original production.

May said the computer software and hardware for the show is based on the systems used to control animatronic creatures in feature films. A system made from stretch mesh fabric and filled with polystyrene balls, contract and stretch in the same manner that muscles do on real animals.

The puppeteers use “voodoo rigs” to make many of the dinosaurs move.  They are miniature versions of the dinosaurs with the same joints and range of movement as their life-sized counterparts.  The puppeteer manipulates the voodoo rig and these actions are interpreted by computer and transmitted by radio waves to make the hydraulic cylinders in the actual dinosaur replicate the action, with a driver hidden below the animal, helping to maneuver it around the arena.  Suited puppeteer specialists, who are inside the creatures, operate five of the smaller dinosaurs.

“It’s a challenge to make these creatures move gracefully and make it dramatic as well as safe,” May said. “We have to be careful not to damage the creature even during segments where the dinosaurs interact with each other. It’s very well choreographed and is exciting for us as well as for the audience.” 

Walking With Dinosaurs is educational as well as entertaining. An actor appears in the arena with the dinosaurs to provide size comparison and to explain the history and characteristics of each dinosaur. The show has been featured on “The Today Show,” Good Morning America,” “Live with Regis and Kelly,” and has been written about in Newsweek, The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal.

Tickets are on sale now by calling 865-656-4444, all Tickets Unlimited outlets, www.knoxvilletickets.com