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Spider-Man received the theater treatment courtesy of Bono and co., and the Ninja Turtles once headlined an extra-’90s bizarro rock concert/fight-play in which they came “out of their shells”; so it was only a matter of time before everyone’s favorite hero, Batman, got his own shot at the stage.

“Batman Live” focuses on the Robin coming of age arc, mixing various facets of live performance with timeless DC characters doing what they do best. Perhaps the biggest challenge—made more difficult coming off the heels of the last Batman movie—was distinguishing the live show from the Bat’s appearances in other media.

Middle Western spoke with the cast and crew about this struggle, the abilities of live performance, and the experience of portraying such iconic characters.

MIDDLE WESTERN: It’s every kid’s dream to be Batman, so first and foremost what is it like to play such an iconic set of characters?

JACK WALKER (BATMAN): It’s exactly that. You get this vicarious childhood thing going on, both as Bruce Wayne and as Batman, because you get to be this playboy billionaire, which is just as much a childhood fantasy. You’re doing a job, as well. But it’s a lot of fun.

EMMA CLIFFORD (CATWOMAN): It’s such a dream come true for me. It can sometimes feel daunting, because people who’ve played it before have been fantastic. And also you want to serve the character to the best of your ability, you want to please all the comic fans out there.

MW: Batman has such a long, rich history in all forms of media: comics, movies, cartoons, video games. How do you take that history and pay homage to it, but still make the performances your own?

WALKER: Because of the wealth of source material, we can pick things from all the various permutations and then put together the framework that gives us a platform to do our own things on top of it. I think that’s one of the things this show manages to do. There’s a danger sometimes of trying to please everybody and then pleasing nobody, but I think this finds the balance of hitting all the marks and then on top of that there’s such a good cast and so many good physical performers, as well.

CHRISTOPHER D. HUNT (TWO-FACE/FIGHT CAPTAIN): I love the movies and I locked them away because I didn’t want to copy that. We all have our different ways. Two-Face is portrayed a little differently here. I call it an internal marriage that’s not going well, so I’m often arguing with myself more than the other characters.

MARK FROST (THE JOKER): Obviously, most recently, Heath Ledger was so extraordinary in the role of the Joker, and took it in such a unique direction. What we’ve done—this is very much a family show—is take it back to the original comic book; he’s very much the crown prince of crime again; he’s very much the master of ceremony. We looked at the comics, we looked at Mark Hamill’s Joker in the cartoon series, and a bit of all the others thrown in with hopefully something of my own. It’s a family show so you can’t go quite as dark as people have come to expect from the Nolan films, and in fact on a live stage its very difficult to get that dark. But you know, I hope there’s still a bit of a menace. You’ve still got to love to hate him; he’s still got to be unpredictable. I think the main thing is not knowing what he’s going to do next and hopefully that’s the case. And sometimes I don’t even know what I’m going to do next.

MW: This is a family show, but the Batman story is, by nature, very dark at times. Of course, it has been played as such in the Nolan movies, but it’s also been played in more lighthearted ways, most notably on the old TV show. How does the overall story function; is it difficult balancing the light and the dark?

CLIFFORD: I think what’s interesting about Batman is that every incarnation of it is different. Gotham is different wherever it’s set up, so if you’re watching the recent films it’s very dark; if you go to watch the Burton films its very different. With each illustrator Gotham has a different fell. Our show is a family-orientated show, so it has a lot of color. You play it truthfully as possible, which is what you would hope for with everything, but in terms of the look of the show, it’s not about being dark and depressing. This show is jam-packed, full of life; it’s vibrant, while sticking to the truth of each character.

WALKER:I think whichever note we’re hitting regarding that, we go for it. There are dark moments in the show that we really go for, but the show moves at such a tight pace that we’re onto the next thing, so we don’t dwell too much on any of it, and I think it’s richer for it, if you bear in mind that it’s a family show.

MW: What does a live version of Batman offer that other media depictions do not? What separates “Batman Live” from other depictions?

CLIFFORD: There’s nothing like a live show. It just has an immediacy, and I think it can afford for the characters to be big, because it’s got to fill an arena. To do something in a cerebral, tiny way is not going to carry, but I think that’s a good thing; it keeps the energy up and it moves the piece forward.

WALKER: I think the way that it’s set up and the way the audience is placed in the space, it’s a force. You feel more power at the show then if you would see a film. You feel more a part of it, which makes a huge difference. You’re kind of at a remove when you’re watching a film, no matter how engaging it is, but when it’s live and in front of you, it just takes on a completely different aspect that is thrilling. It’s the difference between seeing something of YouTube and seeing someone in front of you actually do something incredible with their body, and there’s lots of people doing incredible things and there’s so much to look at, and you don’t have the director’s eye pointing your gaze to whatever he wants to see. There’s just a heap of things going on. It’s focused but you can always be looking at so many different things. I don’t know if that’s really an adequate answer, because I feel like it’s the same thing with live theater in general, you just get something else out of it, and you know that one performance won’t happen again, it will be a bit different next time, and you just feel a part of it all, it’s more involving for the audience.

HUNT: It’s completely different. It’s sensory. You’re really in the thick of it. There are special effects, fighting, the joy of different styles of martial arts. And we only get one take to get it right.