'All Systems Are Go': Montreal production company brings Charlie Brown to life for NASA spectacle

Charlie Brown is brought to life in a live puppet show All Systems Are Go, produced by Montreal-based entertainment agency Monlove. (Submitted photo)

It's official: a Canadian astronaut is going into orbit around the moon in 2024 and now a Montreal company is behind a new production to promote the work of NASA's historic Artemis program.

Montreal entertainment agency Monlove, known for mixing its larger-than-life puppets with high-end video technology to create unique cartoon worlds, is behind the new interactive show, All Systems Are Go.

Now playing at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, the live theatrical show weaves the history of the American space agency into the story of the Artemis missions to the moon. It brings some familiar faces to life, including space-loving characters Snoopy and Charlie Brown.

 

 

 

 

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Ella Louise Allaire, Monlove's founder and CEO, said the project took off after NASA officials came to see one of her previous productions in Florida, Scooby-Doo! And the Lost City of Gold, more than a year ago.

"They really loved the show," said Allaire. "So they could see the quality of our work, how we work, and after that, they wanted to have something like that, too."

All Systems Are Go premiered Friday, March 24, 2023, at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. (Submitted photo)

Their latest production premiered at the Kennedy Space Center to a packed auditorium on March 24 and will be playing two to three times per day over the next few years.

All Systems Are Go tells the story of Snoopy and Woodstock, who are called upon by the launch director to assist with the Artemis program. With the help of four-foot puppets and props, the audience is taken on a 20-minute "edutainment" adventure that explains the various iterations of the Artemis program, including the upcoming Artemis II.

Monlove head creative Martin Lord Ferguson and the company's founder and CEO, Ella Louise Allaire, in their Montreal studio. The pair are masterminds behind the new live puppet show, All Systems Are Go. (Submitted photo)

The end goal of NASA's mission is to have the moon be a launching pad for a future crewed mission to Mars. Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA's first female launch director who led the Artemis I team to space last year, was also part of the cast in All Systems Are Go when it premiered last month.

Snoopy is one of the life-size puppets in Monlove's production of All Systems Are Go. (Submitted photo)

Allaire said she and Monlove's head creative, Martin Lord Ferguson, tried to combine the grandeur of the NASA program with comical Peanuts characters to make the show appealing to all ages.

"The idea also it was to make this whole thing in an approachable and acceptable way with humour so that people would have a good time while learning about scientific facts," she said.

On Monday, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be the only Canadian among the four-person crew leading the Artemis II mission to the moon.

Slated to launch as early as November 2024, it will be the first crewed mission to the moon since the final Apollo mission in 1972.