Masked Singer National Tour to include mystery celebrity guest, audience participation
"Masked Singer" blends music, a surprise celeb and hijinks in show
Part gaudy musical and visual spectacle, part pop concert and part guessing game, the Masked Singer National Tour draws on elements from the popular television show and adds some quirky touches of its own.
Fans of the TV show will recognize many of the elaborately costumed characters from the past six seasons: Pepper, Queen of Hearts, Taco, Alien, Robot, Baby and Monster. Season 7's new Thingamabob will also be on hand.
New to the touring show will be a character called Big Mike, a giant microphone, who will perform along with his Microphone Marauders.
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One of the twists of the live show is that each of the 50 shows on the tour, which started on May 28 in St. Louis, will have its own celebrity guest for audience members to guess, and to be revealed at the end of the show.
“We have an original tour character called Boom Boom Box, and that will have a celebrity inside it, which the audience can try to guess along the way,” said Mark Swanhart, the show's producer and director, speaking by phone from Indiana, where the troupe was putting the final touches on the show before the start of the tour.
Those celebrity guests are designed to keep the audience guessing.
“Some of them are local celebs from the area, and some places it's just a complete surprise guest straight from LA,” Swanhart said.
Audience members can register their guesses on Instagram, or make their thoughts known live and in-person.
“They can also yell them out,” Swanhart said.
Some of the audience members will have an even more interactive experience: they will be brought up on stage to dance with the characters.
Rather than strictly being a music competition, the touring show has a storyline running through it.
Without giving away too much of the plot, Swanhart hinted that the it revolves around two of the characters having fallen in love with each other.
“It's a cross between a pop concert and theater. The show gives you some gorgeous moments, and some moments where you're laughing hysterically,” he said.
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One of the latter involves Big Baby singing “Bad to the Bone.”
Hosting the shenanigans will be British pop singer-songwriter Natasha Bedingfield, who performed as Pepper in Season 6 of “The Masked Singer.”
Besides hosting, she will sing some of her biggest hits, including “Pocket Full of Sunshine,” “Unwritten” and “These Words,” as well as covers of Prince's “Purple Rain” and The Weeknd's “Blinding Lights.”
“So you're getting Natasha Bedingfield at a pop concert, and then you're getting Masked Singer right alongside it,” Swanhart said.
“It's just fun. That's the thing. We've approached the show like 'Toy Story,' so it's both for adults and for kids. My grandmother could come see the show, and my little niece could come see the show. And you don't need to be a Masked Singer fan to come see the show and enjoy it. You could know nothing about Masked Singer and come out having had a great time.”
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At a glance
The Masked Singer National Tour will stop in Columbus at 7:30 p.m. June 8 at the Palace Theatre, 34 W. Broad St. Tickets start at $39.75. (614-469-0939, www.capa.com)
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Masked Singer National Tour coming to Columbus' Palace Theatre
