Litchfield kicks off its 66th annual Watercade celebration with Tricia and the Toonies at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Central Park. This event is part of the Litchfield Downtown Council’s Thriving Thursdays summer promotion.
Darlene Kotelnicki, a member of the Litchfield Downtown Council, first heard about the children’s puppeteer program when another community advertised Tricia and the Toonies on its website.
A group met with the Watercade board last fall and presented the idea of a puppetry show. They liked the idea of a special entertainment event, so from there, a grant request was submitted to the Litchfield Area Community Foundation with additional funding from West Central Sanitation.
The Downtown Council started its 2022 Thriving Thursdays summer season June 2. So far, Kotelnicki said attendance has ranged from about 120 to 180 people.
“For our economic impact survey, we are asking ZIP codes,” Kotelnicki said. “Then we ask if this is their first time attending our summer music. We are asking an open-ended question: What would you like to see downtown? Businesses or amenities? We have had wonderful suggestions. We have three or four board members wandering around with clipboards getting ideas. The suggestions will also be used in our strategic plan. We had previously done a three-year plan and we need a more wide-focused strategic plan.”
MEET TRICIA HAYNES
Tricia Haynes, creator and co-star of Tricia and the Toonies, described the program planned for Thursday as a “family fun show.”
“It’s always different because there’s improv with kids on stage with us, so it’s never the same,” she said. “We follow a format of songs, dialogue with puppets, children on stage, me in the audience. It’s never the same. It’s a high-energy combination of those things.”
Haynes was born in Toronto, Canada, the youngest of four children. She moved with her family when her dad took a job in Manhattan. Home became Long Island, New York, where she grew up and did her schooling. She came from a musical family, so she remembers as a child peeking downstairs and listening to her older brothers’ rock band.
“My mom always played piano and we would be in front of a mirror lip-syncing Broadway songs,” Haynes remembered. “I started guitar at 11. I took it seriously around 16. I was on stage by age 19. That’s how I’ve made my living ever since. I’m 66 and I’m still in demand. I thank my lucky stars.”
As much as she enjoyed performing, it didn’t feel like she was making a difference since most of her gigs were in bars.
“So I went back to school and studied music and songwriting,” Haynes said. “I moved to Minneapolis in 1990 and did some research and found there was quite a market for family entertainment here, which is not the same in many states.”
Haynes dug in and wrote children’s songs and created a puppet troupe. The goal was to make a difference by sharing love and family values to the community. It worked because her new show took off.
“It seemed to be something people really liked,” she said. “My first show was solo. My vision was too big for just me. I interviewed some folks, found a fellow — Pete Cappello — (who relocated from Los Angeles in the 1990s to join Tricia. They have worked together for more than 30 years.) He joined me. We did three years of libraries to get started and get the word out. The libraries loved us. We found we had something special. From there, the word just got out. We did a whole lot of festivals and Music in the Parks, county fairs.”
Haynes went on to create a new show based on the environment for the Mall of America. It was to star Elmo, the “Sesame Street” character, who was going to be in Minneapolis for a promotion.
“I love a challenge, so I said, ‘OK, I can do that,’” she said.
It turned out to be a good career move because the show was a big hit. From there, she modified the environment show without Elmo. Funding for the project came from city and county waste management services.
Haynes estimated she and Cappello perform 80 to 100 shows a year with 95% of them in the Midwest. They have also taken the show on the road to such far-flung places as the Carolinas, Hawaii and Mexico.
“I’ve never been able to have a (stage) set up that didn’t take 1 1/2 hours to set up,” she said. “So no more than two shows a day.”
The stage is made of PVC pipes wrapped with an artist-painted canvas backdrop. In the early days, she found her puppets at Goodwill.
“I did what I could,” she said. “At first I didn’t have the funds to produce great puppets. Later, I was able to have some built by puppet makers.”
That came about when a producer found an investor to do a TV pilot for a children’s show Haynes had written. As co-producer, she was able to have some professional puppets made.
“Although the pilot sold well in Canada, it wasn’t picked up in the U.S.,” she said. “I ended up with the beautiful puppets. Skip, the Squirrel, is the star of the environmental show. He has an appearance in the family fun show. Kids really like him. He’s a friendly squirrel.”
For Haynes, work has been steady or at least it was until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down life as we knew it.
“I was brought up, ‘Be a good squirrel and put your nuts away.’” she said. “I had no debt. I dug into my savings to get through. It was hard because we weren’t working. During that time, I was writing the environmental scripts and rewriting. I would have gone crazy without that.”
Overall, Haynes said the show hasn’t changed much for the past 10 years.
“We’re doing something right because we get asked back,” she said.
When she isn’t on stage entertaining families, she can be found on the pickleball court. Haynes described herself as “a fanatic” about the sport.
When most folks are thinking of retirement, Haynes said it’s not in the cards for her at this point. In fact, she’s in a growth mode, expanding her business with the addition of a two-woman comedy act starring her and a friend.
“We tour with corporate parties, which is interactive and really fun,” she said. “It’s a whole different thing but still lots of belly laughs.”