How Disney Cruise Line is Bringing HERCULES Villains to Life with Cutting-Edge Puppets

When a person hears the word "puppet", the first image that pops into their head is likely one of the traditional hand-and-rod variety. They might visualize someone like Kermit the Frog, operated by a performer just out of sight. This is a wonderful thing, of course, but it is not what Disney Cruise Line is doing for their new Broadway-style adaptation of Hercules. 

For this show, Disney is taking the art of puppetry several steps further. As they do with their films and theme parks, the entertainment company continues to innovate and break impressive ground in its storytelling, from championing new technology to inventing it themselves. With Hercules, the team at Disney Cruise Line is bringing several of their biggest and most monstrous creatures to the stage on the upcoming new ship, the Disney Destiny.

During a behind-the-scenes tour at the Toronto studio, BroadwayWorld got a sneak peek at some of the designs coming to the ship later this year. The show revamps the familiar story told in the 1997 animated film, now complete with towering Titans and intimidating Hydra. The main attraction is the latter, the multi-headed creature that Hercules must defeat to gain immortality.

The monster is depicted by CGI in the film, but comes to life on stage through a variety of mediums, led by enormous puppets. The puppets themselves have been built by Michael Curry, whose work includes The Lion King on Broadway and Disney Cruise Line's recent Moana show for the Disney Treasure. 

For one style of puppet, the performer, clad all in black, maneuvers and operates the creature from inside its mouth. The puppet itself isn't heavy, so the puppeteers demonstrate the appearance of weight using their bodies, slithering the head this way and that, and opening and closing its jaw. Though we saw a rehearsal version, the final product will be complete with glowing eyes and a slimy finish.  

In another version, the performer gets into a kind of retractable tent and wears the Hydra head like a backpack. During the show, these are stored underneath the stage itself, waiting to be unleashed. "These had to be designed to fit within a very small footprint of a lift on stage," explained Creative Director Jeff Conover of the puppet, pictured above on the right. "Just when you think Hercules has defeated the Hydra, more Hydras come up." Conover also teased that this variety features a "trick mechanism," which is utilized when Hercules begins slicing off the Hydra's villainous heads. There are a total of 5 physical Hydras on stage, the rest being represented through the magic of projections and fog, which are sure to create a spectacularly thrilling effect. 

In addition to the threatening Hydra, Hercules has to battle three more equally intimidating creatures. Two of them are the rock and ice Titans, standing at 9 and 13 feet, respectively. For these designs, Conover originally intended for the performers to wear traditional stilts, but aboard a moving ship, this would have proved difficult. Instead, the designers utilized new exoskeleton technology, originally used by Walt Disney Imagineering for the Hulk. When inside, the performers step into a full-body harness that serves as an extension of their bodies, offering full control over the towering creature's arms and legs.

Like singing, acting, and dancing, the creatives at Disney Cruise Line view puppetry as an important performance ability to be learned. "We have performers who come here as triple threats. I like to think that, by the time they leave us, they become a quadruple threat," explained Puppet Specialist James R. Duncan. "It's really just this extra skill that enhances storytelling, but it all comes from what we know already as ourself in the human form. It translates to all the puppets: all the same rules, all the same things that we would do when we perform as ourselves. We almost have to just relearn how to access those again. And once you do, it just opens up a whole new world."

Though puppets portray many of the creatures, the designers found a creative and different way to depict the character of Pegasus, Hercules' flying horse. "When we did a workshop in New York, the concept of Pegasus was that he would be in a puppet-type form in some way, shape, or form," recalled producer Arin Dale. "Through that workshop, we had some fun discoveries [with] a dancer who really brought him to life. It was the choices of that dancer that made everybody kind of rethink what Pegasus would be essentially." With the character of Pegasus removed from the current West End musical, this marks the first time he has been depicted in a major stage adaptation of the film.

Adding to the staggering visuals of the puppets are the original costume designs. Though little has been released in the way of renderings, the creative vision features designs inspired by high fashion, a new take that is promised to be nothing short of fabulous. "The costumes are really some of the most beautiful I've seen that's put on the stage anywhere," shared Executive Creative Director Michael Serna. With inspiration taken from the Runway New York and Paris fashion scenes, the costumes further reimagine the film for the stage in a whole new way.

From grand puppets to ornate costumes, there is an undeniably rich visual world on display in this version of Disney's Hercules. Paired with the newly orchestrated songs and score, fans of the film will be in for a dazzling experience when the Disney Destiny sets sail on its Maiden Voyage on November 20, 2025. Take a look at rehearsal footage below, and learn more about the making of this new production in another deep dive. here.

Photos courtesy of Disney