Creating a show for children gives designers a unique responsibility on top of the usual demands: presenting the physical requirements of the narrative, interpreting the director's vision, and supporting the needs of the performers. A designer also has to introduce a new generation to the theatre and hopefully convert them to become regular theatregoers. And in addition to creating a world that younger audiences will enjoy and continue to support as they grow up, they have to engage the parents who, after all, are paying for the tickets.

Some animals in Go, Diego! Go!are portrayed by actors, while others were created by Martin P. Robinson Productions

Go, Diego, Go Live! The Great Jaguar Rescue, currently out on tour, gave the design team even more of a challenge — to translate the world of Diego's successful Nick Jr. cartoon series into a live show featuring characters instantly recognizable to the pre-school set.

Scenic designer David Gallo, whose recent Broadway credits include The Drowsy Chaperone and Company, had no problem getting in touch with his inner child for Go, Diego, Go Live! Gallo was the production designer for previous Nick Jr. tours including Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer, and created Dora's giant pirate ship on her Pirate Adventure tour before taking on Diego. Rather than try to reproduce the cartoon exactly, he evoked the colorful, two-dimensional look of it, while almost inviting the audience to see behind the scenes. He says, “We decided early on that, if the puppeteers were seen, it wouldn't be the worst thing; we're not trying to present the illusion that the puppets are real.” And because kids love puppets, why would they? The action takes Diego, his sister Alicia, and cousin Dora on a quest to find Baby Jaguar's growl through the rain forest, on a river raft, and into an ancient Aztec pyramid.

Gallo describes his approach as, “exploiting all the old-school methods” to create his version of South America, using net drops painted by Joe Forbes at Scenic Art Studios, travelers, and a large, raked platform on wheels built by Virginia Scenic. Four cut portholes are painted to represent the jungle and seven other drops are added as the action demands. Gallo calls the show, “an environmental cautionary tale,” as Diego meets various animals and learns about them, and he threw in a dash of Indiana Jones at the end. Gallo dressed the raked platform as a river with strips of fabric for creatures to peek out of the slits. Diego's raft, courtesy of his Rescue Pack, rides on top of it. The rake gives the audience a big enough angle to see the creatures, and the fabric representing water adds movement. When Diego searches through the pyramid, two drops iris out to reveal a large head, flanked by painted torches lit with blacklight. In an example of art imitating art, the painted torches don't give the illusion of real fire, but are pretty close to the animated fire of the cartoon. Children in the audience will instantly recognize the hang glider that Diego flies — courtesy of ZFX Flying Effects — at the beginning of the show, and the raft, as Diego's Rescue Pack because the props, also created by Virginia Scenic, are orange with Rescue Pack's face on them. The raked platform is re-dressed at the end of the show for a party at the Aztec pyramid with yet more animals.

Some animals, like Diego's sidekick Baby Jaguar and the mischievous Bobo Brothers, are portrayed by actors. Others were created by Martin P. Robinson Productions. Robinson, a puppet designer and the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Aloysius Snuffleupagus, created 20 puppets for this production and taught the cast how to operate and interact with them. Robinson's production company built most of the puppets with help from Monkey Boys Productions, but the largest puppet, Senor Arbol — a talking tree that is a staple of the animated TV series — Robinson built from scratch. Senor Arbol was created by carving the façade of a tree out of a block of rigid foam, first with a chainsaw and then with an electric turkey knife. Two puppeteers operate Senor Arbol from behind: one animating his eyes which can blink and move, and one opening and closing his soft-foam mouth as he talks and sings. Operators working smaller puppets are harder to hide, Robinson explains. “Puppeteers hide between set pieces and behind trees, and are wearing jungle-colored outfits to blend in, but puppets demand attention from the audience so the humans are not intrusive.”