SURREY — Though kids entertainment mogul Patti Caplette has put her roots down in Winnipeg, where she runs her production company Koba Entertainment, the ex-Surreyite still has fond memories of the southbank.
"I'm a Surrey girl, through and through," Caplette told the Now over the phone from Manitoba.
Caplette, who started her dance and choreography career at her mother's Cloverdale-based Betty Cross School of Dance in the late 1960s, went on to join the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and stayed — even through a couple career changes.
Koba Entertainment, run by Caplette and her husband, is responsible for turning kids TV shows into touring theatrical productions. Their latest touring show, "Mike The Knight in the Great Scavenger Hunt," hits Surrey's Bell Performing Arts Centre this Saturday, Feb. 14 (for details, visit Ticketmaster.ca or phone 1-855-985-5000).
"These are family entertainment shows so they're musical-theatre based," Caplette said.
"I love collaborating with composers and writers. We have fun. We all become little kids and we sit in a room and shout out ideas and laugh a lot, and I think that's the best part," she explained, noting that Koba takes over licenced characters from kids TV shows and creates new stories to produce live-theatre productions, keeping true to the characters' personalities.
"Kids are very specific, and we go to great lengths to ensure the costumes are exact to what it is they're used to seeing on television," Caplette revealed.
"They'd like to know that they're coming to see Dora or Mike or Pablo. I find that that's a really good attraction for them as a first theatrical concept, and from there I hope to ignite their own love of the theatre."
For "Mike The Knight in the Great Scavenger Hunt," Caplette and company took pains to make sure that Mike, a child-age medieval knight, rang true to the TV character its viewers know.
"In this one, I took the elements that were endearing — the whole show is endearing — and Mike is... he's not perfect, he's like every kid and he's still learning and he has to fall down and get up again," Caplette said. "You learn to roll with the punches with (Mike)."
According to Caplette, helping choreograph the show came with its own inspirations.
"What attracted me was the quirkiness of the dragons, for one. They're silly, so let's really take that as an idea to put in some silly songs," she said excitedly.