About 20 years ago, Vincent E. Egan, then out of work, literally bet the farm on his new career. As it turned out it was a pretty safe bet, especially when you have Jim Henson on your side. Egan took a second mortgage on his 100-acre Minnesota farm, raised $500,000 and started VEE Corporation, a company destined to become in short time among the leading children and family entertainment companies in the world.
And how could he miss. The initial project, Sesame Street Live, after a rocky beginning has become possibly the most popular family stage show in recent decades, consistently playing to large crowds nationally and internationally.
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It was based upon the creativity of Jim Henson, who died several years ago.
“When he got behind something his enthusiasm and his energy were boundless,” Egan said. “He is one man that I miss today very much.”
Now Egan has taken another successful television program, The Bear in the Big Blue House, a Disney channel favorite also tied to the Jim Henson Co., and brought it to larger stages, with The Bear in the Big Blue House Live’s Surprise Party. It opens at the Providence Performing Arts Center Thursday and plays through Sunday.
The man behind this newest venture and Sesame Street Live is Egan, who found himself “out of a job” in 1980 after working as a marketing executive for the Ice Follies and later Holiday on Ice. He was 35 years old, lived on a Minnesota farm, and “was looking for work.”
“I had an idea that there was a need for more family entertainment within the United States, but there was really a need, at least in my opinion, to do something that would bring families together in the arenas and theaters,” Ernst said.
That belief and a friendship with Henson, whose Sesame Street television program had been running for 13 years, resulted in the development of Sesame Street Live. It was an instant hit when it opened Sept. 17, 1980 in Minnesota and played well for a week, Egan said, before facing 10 tough weeks on the road, playing to small audiences who had yet to grasp the concept of taking small television sized puppets and making them life size, putting them in a stage production at a cost, Egan said, of upwards of $1 million.
But after 10-weeks the show played New York City’s Felt Forum, and Egan said it drew 100,000 and was on its way to becoming one of the most successful children’s productions ever.
Sesame Street Live is now in its 21st season, and those children who first came to the shows are now bringing their children to see the production.
And Egan believes, Henson would be “absolutely thrilled where” we are today. “Jim was an extremely talented, creative, quiet person. He had a vision – I’m not sure I can explain that visionThe influence he had on me, there has to be a reason for being and for what we’re doing. He was a man who was full of a lot of love and who wanted people to be happy.”
And there’s no question Egan is happy. He says he has “the greatest job in the world,” and he still has his farm.
It’s all paid off now, but with the busy schedule he has, he rents out the fields so someone else can raise the corn, the soy beans.
