Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster

Experience a performance unlike any other as everything that’s usually behind the scenes is brought on stage for the audience to enjoy. Leonardo is a terrible monster. He tries hard to be scary, but he just isn’t. One day, Leonardo meets Sam, who is the most scaredy-cat kid in the whole world. Will Leonardo finally get to scare the tuna salad out of someone? Or will it be the start of an unlikely friendship? But wait! The plot thickens when Leonardo and Sam meet Kerry—an even scaredier-cat—and her monster friend, Frankenthaler. Kerry and Sam need to make a big decision: will they just be scaredy cats, or can they become friends?

Leonardo! A Wonderful Show About a Terrible Monster uses hundreds of illustrated paper puppets, book pages, two-dimensional props, furry monster puppets, and songs to bring Mo Willems’ books to life. Manual Cinema aims to re-create the experience of holding one of Mo’s book pages, which are big, bold, colorful, full of visual rhythm, with a playful use of scale. Like all Manual Cinema productions, there is no wrong way to watch the show: either on the big screen like a traditional movie or on the stage below, where the artists create the story in real time. Inspired by the Mo Willems’ books Leonardo, The Terrible Monster and Sam, The Most Scaredy-Cat Kid in the Whole World