{"id":205763,"date":"2026-03-15T16:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T16:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/205763\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T16:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T16:39:13","slug":"utsas-little-shop-of-horrors-teaches-puppetry-artistry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/205763\/","title":{"rendered":"UTSA\u2019s \u2018Little Shop of Horrors\u2019 teaches puppetry, artistry"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bradley Freeman Jr. envisioned the first theatrical production of the Dramatic Arts Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he tapped back into his senior year in high school.<\/p>\n

About a decade ago, his senior class cemented the Brownsville, Texas school\u2019s first theater program, which remains alive a decade later.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin four weeks, from November to December, we put on a very illegal version of Aladdin,\u201d Freeman recalled, laughing. \u201cWe only did three showings of it. But our first one we had a line [of people] that wrapped around the theater. So, we had to add an extra show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though their understanding of copyright was limited, that show not only was student-led and successful, but Freeman credits it with having shown his community that the theater program at Veterans Memorial Early College High School was to be taken seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Freeman, 27, turned his love for arts, theater and television into a successful career as a puppeteer. He is the man behind some of the fuzzy characters entertaining children through the TV, including Rizzo the Rat in \u201cThe Muppet Show,\u201d and Tamir in \u201cSesame Street.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today he is splitting his time between the classroom as an Assistant Professor of Practice in UT San Antonio\u2019s Film and Media Department teaching Children\u2019s Media, and helping establish the university\u2019s first Dramatic Arts Program<\/a>, which launched last fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Bradley Freeman Jr. speaks with his cast and crew before a full run through rehearsal of Little Shop of Horrors at UT San Antonio\u2019s downtown campus on March 6, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

It is this \u201cAladdin effect\u201d that kept him coming back to the classic musical \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d as an option for the new program\u2019s theater premiere, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle Shop kept standing out as a really great first show to meet the criteria that we were looking for, which was a show with a name that people will recognize, a show that doesn\u2019t have a massive cast, \u2026 and then has a spectacle aspect that makes people remember the show and talk about the show to their friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musical tells the story of a struggling flower shop on New York City\u2019s Skid Row and a shy florist\u2019s discovery of an unusual plant that could help save it. The plant, Audrey II, is an iconic \u2014 and quickly growing \u2014 puppet that the cast at UT San Antonio is learning to master. <\/p>\n

\u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d premieres<\/a> on April 10 and runs until April 26 at the Buena Vista Theater located at the UT San Antonio Downtown Campus at 501 W Cesar E Chavez Blvd. <\/p>\n

We talked to Freeman about his unique background and experience directing a college production. His answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tell us a little bit about where you grew up and how you found your way into puppeteering.<\/p>\n

I grew up in Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley, and I sort of go back to when I was like 5 years old. Honestly I feel like it\u2019s when I made the decision in my head that I wanted to be a puppeteer. I was raised on shows like \u201cSesame Street,\u201d \u201cThe Muppet Show,\u201d \u201cBarney,\u201d \u201cBetween the Lions\u201d and \u201cBear in the Big Blue House.\u201d And one of the things that I really loved about those shows was that the characters were real and you could really reach out and touch them. There\u2019s something special about watching them interact with each other because I knew that it was really happening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s like such a magic to these things coming to life. It\u2019s in my nature to just have this love, this just absolute sort of tractor-beam attraction toward that specific thing and I\u2019ve had it since I was young. There\u2019s not a time that I can remember when I didn\u2019t want to be a part of something like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Bradley Freeman Jr. speaks with his cast and crew before a full run through rehearsal of Little Shop of Horrors at UT San Antonio\u2019s downtown campus on March 6, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Knowing exactly what you want to be at such a young age is pretty unique. Tell us how you went about pursuing and achieving this childhood dream?<\/p>\n

Everything that I would do was in an effort to build the skills that I felt I might need once I actually got to my destination.<\/p>\n

So, doing a lot of theater and building up acting skills, learning how to play a crowd, how to get the emotions out, how to tell the story efficiently, how to build a strong character.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I was in band, all those musical skills really weirdly came in handy. I\u2019m a drummer, for example, so when Animal from the Muppets needs to play the drums, they call me so that I can match exactly what\u2019s actually happening, or when Dr. Teeth or Ralph are playing the piano, I\u2019m doing the fingers because I know where the chords are and I can play it accurately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everything that I did along that path, I pulled an element of that, and it\u2019s things that I still use very, very, very consistently today.<\/p>\n

How does that translate to what you are teaching and directing today?<\/p>\n

Folks who are passionate about what they do really like to share their passion because the more the merrier. Truthfully it\u2019s like, \u201cCome play in my sandbox. Let\u2019s do this. Let me share this. It\u2019s so much fun.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The whole thing is making sure that the students leave with more skills and knowledge than they came in with. What I\u2019m able to provide is the teamwork aspect, the idea that like this isn\u2019t happening because you are in the show, you are part of this ensemble and if we\u2019re all working together to make the best show then we\u2019ll have the best show.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so lucky that we have such an amazing cast who are so supportive of each other. So wonderful, so funny and they\u2019re not afraid to pitch ideas and they\u2019re not pitching ideas that will only benefit themselves, they\u2019re pitching ideas that might help this other person.<\/p>\n

Tell us more about how you fell into the director role and how is that going so far?<\/p>\n

I was telling Paul Ardoin [UT San Antonio Dramatic Arts director] about the whole story of my high school theater program and just nerding out about it. And he was like, \u201cWell, do you want to direct our first show? Why don\u2019t you do it again?\u201d And I said I would love to, but there\u2019s a couple things; I\u2019ve never directed a theater show before, like a musical theater show before, not on my own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I was afraid of the time commitment considering I do have a fairly active career in puppetry that takes me to a bunch of different places. And he said, \u201cWell, maybe we can figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The work truck for transporting the puppets for UT San Antonio\u2019s production of Little Shop of Horrors is parked near the Buena Vista Theater on March 6, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

And so when Little Shop came up, I was like, \u201cHere\u2019s how we can make something that feels great. \u2026 I\u2019m friends with people over at at Monkey Boys Productions<\/a> who build the plants for the off-Broadway production right now in New York and they can send the plants over. And I\u2019m friends with Marty [Robinson], who was the original Audrey II<\/a>, and I\u2019m friends with the current cast.\u201d I felt like we could really have some really great synergistic moments where we have so many more resources.<\/p>\n

And so far, so good. We created contingency plans for when I\u2019m not available here. We have our assistant director, Vic Travenio, who is also an amazing actor that\u2019s been in a ton of films and TV shows including Pee-Wee\u2019s Playhouse, which makes me lose my mind every time I think about it. And he comes in and really delves deep into the acting and the character of the show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This being the Dramatic Arts Program\u2019s official first theatrical production, tell us how you went about casting the actors?<\/p>\n

We started talking about this a year ago and there was no Dramatic Arts Program. So doing a musical theater show without a formal program was like, \u201cDo we have anybody?\u201d We could have everybody we need, or we can have three people.<\/p>\n

So we were very cautious about it and I said this [Little Shop of Horrors] alleviates a lot of that because it\u2019s only about 12 people in the cast.<\/p>\n

When we started auditioning for the show we had three days of auditions; the first for the UT San Antonio dramatic arts kids, then we opened it up to all UT San Antonio students from any major, then all college students within San Antonio.<\/p>\n

And our plan from the beginning was to add a fourth day open to anybody in San Antonio who wanted to audition if we didn\u2019t have the full cast. But then it turned out that by the second day we had almost everybody that we needed here and more. We kept just finding that everybody who was best suited for the show were already UT San Antonio students, with the exception of one student who is an Alamo Colleges student who will be attending UT San Antonio next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Little Shop of Horrors cast members warm up with a dance exercise before a full run through rehearsal of the UT San Antonio production at its downtown campus on March 6, 2026. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

How do you hope this first production informs what you can do in the future?<\/p>\n

I think it shows that there\u2019s so much more possible than we might want to believe for several reasons; One is the passion of the students that are here is palpable, it is there in everything that they do. They\u2019re not discouraged at any turn. They\u2019re excited when their understudy goes on. They\u2019re excited to get notes.They\u2019re excited to try it again and run it again and again and again and again. They\u2019re happy to be there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a great start, internally at the very least. To have the students who are willing to do it no matter the cost is very telling about the future of this program because they will then infect the next group. And if the next group coming in follows in their footsteps then we can establish a program of passion and professionalism that just continues through the years.<\/p>\n

And externally, it\u2019s hard to say. I think I\u2019ll know more after the premiere on how the community receives it and once we see the interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But one thing that I do forget sometimes is how ingrained UT San Antonio is in the community. It\u2019s something that I wanted to take advantage of for sure when we started, because I wanted for this program to not only be really good for the students, but to be good for the community as well.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Bradley Freeman Jr. envisioned the first theatrical production of the Dramatic Arts Program at the University of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46559,71556,71558,80920,17582,82,84,83,12436,80921,34204,75621,92,3028,3438,3439],"class_list":["post-205763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-bradley-freeman-jr","tag-dramatic-arts-program","tag-little-shop-of-horrors","tag-marty-robinson","tag-puppets","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-sesame-street","tag-the-muppet-show","tag-the-muppets","tag-the-university-of-texas-at-san-antonio","tag-top-story","tag-typedaily","tag-ut-san-antonio","tag-utsa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}