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It's Alive!

Read about the guy who communicates with Noah–The Musical's animatronic creatures to make them go.

Photo Edward Biamonte

Shawn Grobe with one of his programmed elephants at Noah-the Musical.

Who knew that playing with remote-controlled cars and airplanes was job training? Those childhood skills help Shawn Grobe, electronic animation designer at the Sight & Sound Theatres in Branson, communicate with his animals.

Everyone knows about Noah’s ark imagery: All the animals of the world, two-by-two. And if you’ve been to see Noah–The Musical, you know that when the curtains are pulled back during the second act, spectators are literally sitting in the ark with animals surrounding them. (Both live animals and animatronics, that is. Not the other people in the theater.) Aren’t you curious about how they work? It’s Grobe’s job to make them all go, and he tells us the ins and outs of animatronics at one of Branson’s newest shows.

417 Magazine: How did you land a job like this? Can anyone do it?

Shawn Grobe: Well, I have a degree from the Institute of Electronic Technology in Paducah, Kentucky.

417: Did they teach you how to work with animatronics?

S.G. I learned most of it from on-the-job training with Drew Kibler in Pennsylvania. He created the animals at the Sight & Sound Theaters.

417: How do the animals move?

S.G. There is a control board for each animal. Each movement has a computerized address that tells the animal how to move.

417: How many animals are there?

S.G. There are 107 animatronic animals.

417: How many of the animals on the ark actually move?

S.G. All of them move. It might be a small move—just the mouth or ears. The birds have a few small moves. Most are head up or head down, right or left.

417: Which animal moves the most?

S.G. The elephant. The male has 10 moves and the female has nine. The trunk alone has five separate moves.

417: What’s the most difficult thing about your job?

S.G. Trying to make the animals look real. Making the movements seem real. They probably move more than a real animal, just so they appear as alive as possible.

417: You said that it was like driving remote-controlled cars. How?

S.G. Programming uses the same kind of controls. The animals have cylinders, actuators and servos like
the cars.