Noel MacNeal performance, May 5, 2025

I saw Noel MacNeal at 54 Below on May 5, 2025. I'd never heard of him but my friends Joshua and Abby invited me to join their group for this show. I had no plans, I love 54 Below, why the hell not.

MacNeal is primarily known as a puppeteer. He played the title character on Bear in the Big Blue House, was also on The Puzzle Place and Eureeka's Castle. I'd never heard of any of these shows but it felt like the audience was made of his fans. Bear in the Big Blue House was on from 1997 to 2007 so I guess those little kids are now old enough to be buying tickets to shows, right?

MacNeal has lots of verve, personality, and charm. What he does not have is a firm sense of pitch. His singing was often sharp or flat and since 54 Below is heavily amplified it was impossible to miss. It grates on my nerves after a while (after about a minute and a half, to be precise). He was more successful in ballads - the pitch problems were still there but let's say they were less pronounced.

The stories he told between songs were more engaging (and pleasurable) than the songs. And the songs often seemed to have a little shoe horn situation - - like he told a story about traveling with his mother which led to him singing "Come Fly With Me." I was tempted to say "naturally led to him singing 'Come Fly With Me' " but that wasn't the case.

He did a song called "It's So Great To Be a Dragon" from Eureeka's Castle. He used a dragon hand puppet while performing the song and I was amazed that I spent the whole song watching the puppet rather than watching him. What the hell.

He did an Irving Berlin-style two-song-overlap duet with his teenage son, that was sweet. He said his son was a student at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens and he had played leading roles in their productions of Rent and Carrie, the Musical. I FROZE. A local high school did a production of the notorious Carrie, the Musical and NO ONE TOLD ME?!?!? They're doing Dürrenmatt's The Visit in early June - - do I need to make the trek to Astoria to see this show? I'm going to ponder that.

Anyway, MacNeal's son didn't have a stellar voice but he sang in tune! This is the song they did, as performed by Bert and Ernie:

I know I'm far from the first to say this but Bert and Ernie are so gay.

The show ended with MacNeal, his son, and the two backup singers doing the goodbye song from one of his shows, all of them using puppets. I got all teary even though I had no familiarity with the song, the show, or the puppets. Insert eyeroll with a side dish of dimpled smile.