Obviously, I’m a huge fan of the Muppets, but I’m also a huge fan of LEGO. I was thrilled back in 2020 when the LEGO Sesame Street was released. At the time, I helped Joe Hennes make content showing off how great and detailed the display was. I still love adjusting my little 123 Sesame Street from time to time, and it greets me every morning atop my dresser.
Last year, LEGO released ten minifigs of the Muppet Show gang. These are so gorgeous, and we here at ToughPigs all loved them. As great as they are, they were a little less exciting than the Sesame ones for one key reason: they didn’t come with a playset to display them in.
As of this writing, there’s an impressive Muppet Theatre set as one of the many LEGO Ideas pitches, which is gorgeous and robust. However, there are no guarantees that this set will be approved or produced, so we’re left to our own imagination-based devices for now.
Using some extra bricks, I built a simple setup, but I wasn’t satisfied. So this year, I sought out solutions. Enter an unexpected hero: The LEGO Friends Andrea’s Theater School set.
Released last year, this LEGO set has the pieces you need to build The Assembly Theatre, a fairly detailed drama school. Most importantly, it isn’t even that far from a Muppet Theatre! It’s got balconies, and red curtains, and silly props. That was enough to make me curious how this would work as a Muppet Theatre stand-in to help my display.
Folks, it worked wonderfully. Check out my display, which is 99% the original Theater School with some slight adjustments:
I can’t recommend this set enough. I could end the review here. Yes, it’s lacking some of the key things a good Muppet Theatre should have, like an orchestra pit. But it offers so many things a good display needs. The set also allows you to change out backdrops, and includes a bunch of props (including that piano Rowlf is playing up there).
Here’s some other photos I took. I’ll highlight what I like about the set, plus some suggestions if you’re going to pick it up too.
THE BALCONIES:
Like I said, the balconies are great. They sit two LEGO figures nicely, although it helps if you can switch out the included seat cushions for more traditional flat LEGO bricks and remove the hearts from the front of the railing.
THE STAGE:
One of the nice things about LEGO Friends sets is that they’re designed to be played with. That means that the curtains on the stage can be opened or closed. The stage also has a trap door, perfect for some crazy stunts.
You’ll notice the backdrop here has Muppet arches. Sadly, those did not come with this set. They’re from some kind of old castle set; I picked them up on eBay.
BACKSTAGE:
I don’t have a ton to say about this part, just that there’s a lot of fun props if you want to use them. Also, look, it’s time to put on makeup, and finally Piggy has a place to do so.
SPECIAL GUEST STARS
Because we’re working with LEGOs here, you can have basically any character ever be the Muppets’ special guest star. You knew this, but it’s just a reminder that yes, your traditional minifigs are in-scale with the LEGO Friends sets.
AND NOW, A WORD ABOUT CUSTOMIZATION:
You may have noticed in some of these photos that my theater has some Muppet-themed imagery on it. Namely, the sign on top reads “MUPPET THEATRE,” there’s a custom marquee, and custom posters advertising upcoming shows. I also made custom street signs for outside the stage doors.
Here’s some better images of some of them:
Replacing these helps sell that this is The Muppet Theatre, and not Andrea’s Theater School. I kept the designs very simplistic to make sure they’d read well even at this very small scale, and they definitely do. If you wind up taking my advice and buying Andrea’s Theater School, you’ll probably want to do the same. Here’s a PDF of these decals at the proper size. The spacing is weird on the page to make it easier to print on regular mailing label paper.
Other than the stickers and the aforementioned arches, the only change I made was removing some of the decorative teal blocks and hearts from the exterior of the theater to make it look more like a regular building.
That’s it! No major modifications necessary. Just a perfect LEGO display.
If you’ve been meaning to expand your Muppet LEGO collection, I cannot recommend Andrea’s Theater School enough. It’s $100, which is actually fairly cheap for a LEGO set of this size and scope. However, I get that’s a lot for certain people, especially given today’s economy. Still, if you can afford to, it’s definitely a great addition to a Muppet display.
And of course, print out those decals!
Let us know if you get it and what you do with yours!
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by Becca Petunia
