Call him “the reindeer whisperer.”
That pretty much sums up Jimmy Smagula’s work on the Theater at Madison Square Garden’s “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Based on the 1964 animated TV classic, the show’s aimed at kids, but hopes to please the people buying their tickets.
“I didn’t want to disappoint the adults who grew up with that TV special,” says director Dana Solimando, a child of the ’70s. “I felt, if we could just nail those famous lines, we can hook them!”
Enter Smagula, her vocal coach. His mission: Getting a nasally challenged reindeer and his pals to sound like the cartoon originals.
“Rudolph is a very scrappy, headstrong character,” says Smagula. “He has gravel in his voice, and you have to figure out not just the how, but the why!”
Luckily, the 40-year-old who saw the original cartoon “about 40 times” knows what makes this reindeer fly.
“He’s been bullied and shunned and made to feel less than,” says Smagula, who took tap-dancing and piano lessons growing up in football-loving Lyndhurst, NJ. “You see him overcome these things, becoming the celebrated reindeer who leads the sleigh!”
But first there’s that scene with Rudolph’s dad, who paints his son’s red nose black, making poor Rudolph sound as if he has a head cold.
To get that plugged-up quality, Smagula had his star literally hold her nose, to figure out what that voice felt and sounded like. “She’s one of the most committed actors I’ve ever worked with, so I didn’t have to do much,” he says of his Rudolph, Sarah Errington. “She was already bringing the magic.”
(Those who doubt a 30-year-old woman’s ability to channel her inner buck, please note: The original Rudolph was voiced by a 43-year-old Canadian named Billie Mae Richards, billed as Billy.)
“Jimmy was really helpful in helping me stick with the cadence and rhythm [of the cartoon],” says Errington, who prepped for the part by watching old Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke shows. “There was definitely a rhythm to their speech in the ’60s that there isn’t now.” She lets out a Rudolphian “in-dee-pen-dent,” a word the reindeer picks up from Hermey, the misfit elf.
Her favorite phrase is the one Rudolph utters when his childhood crush, Clarice, tells him he’s cute. “I’m cute! I’m cute!” he echoes, and flies away.
“I’ve got two guys backstage lifting me in the air and making sure I land where I’m supposed to,” Errington says. “That’s the hard part. But seeing the kids react makes it worth it!”
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” through Dec. 18 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden; $39 to $129, TheaterAtMSG.com or 866-858-0008.