University of Central Arkansas theater alum and Bentonville native Sara Sharos is currently the production manager for Jim Henson’s Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock LIVE touring across the U.S.. Sharos previously volunteered and worked at Walton Arts Center in a variety of backstage roles and is excited to bring the show to her hometown roots on Sunday, Nov. 1 at 3 pm.
“I think that Walton Arts Center did a lot to get me ready for tour in general,” Sharos said, “I really loved working on props, but there weren’t always enough people that could do wardrobe or be a dresser, so it was nice to be able to get another perspective of behind the scenes.”
With a heavy theater background, Sharos has multiple skills that come in handy when working on a tour. “I technically did my final senior paper in theater history on puppets, so when they asked me to come on for Fraggle Rock, I was ecstatic,” she said, “I had built puppets before for Trike Theater in Bentonville, so it felt familiar to me.”
Sharos’s career took off after she was working as a local stagehand here at Walton Arts Center when Les Misérables was touring, “I remember I was folding Jean Valjean’s socks,” she says, “next thing I know, I’m being asked to be a props assistant for another tour by the stage manager.”
One thing many people do not know about touring is that a lot of the times when positions need to be filled, tours will ask certain crew to hop on the tour with them for the duration of the show’s run. “Work at Walton Arts Center or work at another venue because that’s the best way to get picked up,” she advised, “I’ve picked up a handful of people from places; if a spot is needing to be filled and a local crewmember is doing well, we just ask them to hop on the tour.”
Her first official tour was Summer: The Donna Summers Musical in 2019. It was only a few months into touring before COVID hit, and everything closed. She returned to the U.S. just mere days before they closed the Canadian border, as the show was in Toronto at the time.
During the pandemic, Sharos returned to Rogers, worked at a health food store and lived with her mom. Once things loosened back up post-COVID, she was approached for her first and biggest tour yet, Fiddler on the Roof to work as head of props. Following that tour, she also worked on Hairspray, Funny Girl and Once Upon a Mattress. She was then approached by her current company, Catalyst Theatricals, to work on The Hungry Caterpillar, which led to her being asked to be the production manager for Fraggle Rock.
In Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock LIVE, Gobo, Red, Monkey, Wembley and Boober Fraggle embark on a quest to find the lost Celebration Stone – an ancient treasure with the power to unite everyone for the ultimate party. Along the way, they discover magic, adventure and something more memorable and heartfelt than they ever imagined.
“Jim Henson is iconic and ‘Fraggle Rock’ has its own following, so it’s super exciting to step into that,” Sharos said, “The music is really catchy and it has that nostalgia factor that makes it for kids, yes ... but it’s really for the inner kid in everyone.”
So grab your radish hat and hold on to your baloobious, because it is time to Fraggle Rock! Standard all-in ticket prices are $28.75-$63.25.