On this edition of SNAPSHOTS, Charm City is going to have a close encounter with some dinosaurs with the brand-new family fun adventure – Jurassic World Live Tour – premiering for the first time at Baltimore’s own CFG Bank Arena starting tomorrow March 15-17

With unrivaled arena production quality, Jurassic World comes to life against a backdrop of captivating scenery where dinosaurs from the iconic franchise, including fan-favorite Velociraptor Blue and the Tyrannosaurus rex take the stage. The production features more than 24 film-accurate, life-sized dinosaurs, with scale, speed and ferocity, operated by animatronics and performers. Fans of the popular Netflix animated series Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous will also recognize Bumpy, the friendly and food motivated dinosaur, as she goes from baby to adult fairly quickly. With pulse-pounding stunts and an original, authentic storyline, Jurassic World Live Tour is guaranteed to make memories that will last another 65 million years.

Let’s welcome one of the soldiers in the show to SNAPSHOTS, Stephan J. Monfort

Tell us more about Jurassic World Live Tour coming to Baltimore.

Jurassic World Live Tour is a family friendly live stunt show which brings the world of Jurassic from the movie screen straight to the stage. It’s an original story that follows a group of heroes as they work closely together with a new dinosaur named Jeanie. 

What do you do in the Live show?

I am one of the soldiers apart of the ACU unit (Asset Containment Unit) one of the people who are trained to handle dinosaurs. So you can say I’m one of the bad guys haha.

What is the trick of making the dinosaurs look real?

The trick that helps us make our dinosaurs look real is our passion for dinosaurs, I feel that everyone who works on this show had loved dinosaurs as a child and is finally letting their inner child run free while actually being a dinosaur. 

Do you go through a dino boot camp to perfect the movements before taking this on tour?

Yes, there’s a training process that we went through. It was a summer long process that focused on our movements and to help us get in the proper shape to be able to bring this show to life. 

How did you get involve with puppetry in the first place? 

I first got involved with puppetry with Jurassic. I started as an actor who knew how to do stunts and while working for Jurassic World live tour I was able to further my skill set with puppetry and learned how to bring things to life.

Did you watch the original Jurassic Park or the Jurassic World movies growing up? If so, what were you favorite scenes?

I definitely did watch Jurassic Park and  Jurassic World. I think the scene that stands out to me  between the two films is in Jurassic World when Blue and the T-Rex work together to take down the Indominus Rex it was so cool seeing two dinosaurs work so well together it was something that I never seen before. 

If you had to choose your favorite dinosaur, which one?

If I had to choose my favorite dinosaur it would definitely be a raptor. I loved them as a kid and I still love them now as an adult, they have always been so smart and calculated. 

What do you hope families will enjoy about Jurassic World Live Tour?

I hope that when families come to see the show old or young, that they’re able to enter the world of Jurassic, like they’ve always wanted. That they’re able to see how real the dinosaurs are and enjoy every bit of the performance that we put on. So that when they go home, they’re talking about it for the next three weeks.

See Stephan in Jurassic World Live Tour this weekend in Charm City and its coming to Fairfax VA next week – March 23-31st. To see if its coming to your town, go to https://www.jurassicworldlivetour.com/

Family friendly ticket pricing available – tickets can be purchased online at Ticketmaster.com or visit the venue box office during open hours on event days.

About The Author

Dean Rogers

Editor-in-Chief/Entertainment Reporter

I knew early on that I wanted to take my place among the stars. One day, my mother saw me reading The Washington Post at a very young age. Who would have known that it would be the building blocks of my journey? Since that day, I dedicated my life to learn all that is learnable. I read everything from encyclopedias, to books, to dictionaries, to magazines. I’m also an avid consumer of television, with my favorite genre being game shows. If you’ve seen me on Who Wants to be a Millionaire or Wheel of Fortune, then you know that this interest has served me well!

My unique style of reporting began back in junior high school, when I started to chronicle the events that shaped my life. Whether it was the annual family vacation or the local science fiction convention, I shot numerous pictures and recorded my thoughts so I could truly appreciate the history. During my senior year at Friendly High, I wrote what was to be my first masterpiece, “Advanced Space Academy – A One Week Journey.” I sent the eleven-page article back to the U.S. Space Camp staff. The article was highly praised for being “one of the best written articles in the history of U.S. Space Camp.” From then on, I knew what I wanted to do for rest of my life — to be a reporter.

Since then, I have trained in Broadcast Journalism at Bowie State University (2008) in Bowie, MD earning a B.S. in Communications. I gained experience in news production and editing through field experiences with Bowie Community Media Corporation, Prince George’s Community Television, and Bowie State University Television. I also wrote scripts for a variety of quiz shows for over five years.

As a lifelong movie buff, I now see close to 100 films every year. I took this love of movies to the next step when I became a co-host for Eclipse Magazine TV in the fall of 2005. While at EMTV, I interviewed celebrities, worked red carpets, and attended a wide variety of movie screenings. In January 2009, I took a leap of faith and started my own entertainment news magazine, The Rogers Revue. Shortly afterward, my life-long journey of studying the silver screen and writing about what I learned finally earned me a place in the Washington Area Film Critics Association.

All of this has led me here, giving you the latest entertainment news for the DMV and the entire nation, and I am truly excited for whatever will come next.

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