Released in 1986, Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth” didn’t perform well at the U.S. box office despite featuring fantastical imagery from Henson, original songs from David Bowie, and a funny and heartfelt script from Monty Python’s Terry Jones.
But the then-burgeoning home video market saw the picture find firm footing in the living rooms of homes across the country, sparking interest from viewers young and old that has endured well into present day.
One of those young viewers was John Kinsner, who today is CEO, co-owner and founder of Black Ink Presents, which is responsible for a current tour of live-to-film performances of Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth,” during which live musicians perform in sync with the film. In this case, Bowie’s singular vocals remain intact with the performances.
Kinsner and Black Ink launched the current tour in 2024 in collaboration with the Jim Henson Company, initially visiting 30 cities across North America before adding another 35 performances in 2025.
The Cotillion Ballroom will host a performance on Sunday, April 13. The all-ages event begins at 7 p.m.
Kinsner recently spoke with KMUW about his own journey with “Labyrinth” and the story’s continued appeal.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
I read that “Labyrinth” has been a longtime fascination for you.
In 1989 or 1990, I was probably 7 or 8 years old, and my mom bought it in probably a Blockbuster Video bargain bin on VHS. She was a big Bowie fan, but I don’t think she had seen the movie in the theaters. But she knew that we loved “Fraggle Rock,” my brother and I, and “The Muppet Movie.” She saw that it was Bowie and that it was a Jim Henson thing, so she just picked it up for us not even knowing fully what it was. It was on repeat in our house for years. She bought me a copy of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” when I was around 9 or 10 and let me watch that. To this day, “Rocky Horror” is an inspiration.
Your point about your mom finding the movie in a bargain bin box is familiar. I grew up in a really small town and one day “Labyrinth” was in among the 15 or so movies they had at the convenience store on the highway. I took it home, and it was all over for me. I loved it. Later, when I got to college, I realized that there were a whole bunch of people who loved the movie as much as I did, some of them my age, some of them younger. It had this broad appeal.
I was always fascinated with the story. Even when I was young, I thought that the sets were beautifully designed and created. The music is phenomenal. It’s just fantastic. I always remember turning it up for the music moments. I would fast forward [through the parts] when Toby was crying because I didn’t like the sound of a baby crying when I was young. It’s just [a movie] that stuck with me. The songs are ear worms. Bowie’s presence in that film is everything a glam rocker could ever want.
It's interesting that you were inspired by “Rocky Horror” to do this project because “Labyrinth” has a similar participatory quality.
It’s true. From the very first downbeat of the music, right after the TriStar logo, you can just feel electricity in the audience. After Sarah runs home and her dog, Merlin, is all wet and the stepmother says, “Go to the garage,” the whole audience starts booing. A few minutes later, when Bowie makes his entrance, which is a phenomenal entrance, the place erupts. As every character starts to enter into the story -- Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus -- they all get enormous applause. It’s phenomenal to be in the audience, participating in that and being around that energy.
Those kinds of viewings are really special. When I was maybe 15, the theater in my hometown hosted a Halloween screening of Ghostbusters. There was no reason for it other than it being Halloween, and the place was packed. We’d all been told, all our lives, “Be quiet during the movie,” but for that showing it was the best kind of pandemonium. People sang along with the theme song, repeated the lines with the characters. I wouldn’t want that for every film I see, but I will never forget that night.
It's about creating these special moments and bringing something fresh to something that you already enjoy. You can definitely tell that that is really resonating with people.
This film has also always reminded me of the magic of Jim Henson’s work. As cliché as this sounds, he really did make stuff that held an appeal to children but also the child inside the adult.
I absolutely agree with that. Everything he did just embraced imagination and creativity. I think you can see that from the first year of “Saturday Night Live” when he wanted to bring puppets onto the show. He always intended to speak out to this broader audience, just delivering imagination and creativity and encouraging everybody to live in these fantastical worlds and universes.
How did you go from being a fan of this movie to mounting this production of it and taking it all over the country?
About 15 years ago, I was working as a rock ‘n’ roll production manager, and I was in the business a little bit. I started in working in this emerging space around that time of helping producers create film concerts. One of the first film concerts I worked on was a Tim Burton and Danny Elfman project that spanned 13 of Tim’s films and 13 of Danny’s suites as kind of a clip show. Then I did “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Those same producers worked with Alan Menken, and I worked on an Alan Menken show, which was phenomenal.
Eventually, I started Black Ink Presents. We started working with other agencies and other studios and other creators, like Justin Hurwitz, who did the score for “La La Land.” We created a “La La Land” in concert show with him. As I went along, I moved from being a production manager to being a production designer to having aspirations of wanting to produce and create some of my own shows and concerts. I’d always had my own creative visions and my own artistic ideas in this space.
But where a lot of people were focusing on the Harry Potter films or the Star Wars series -- John Williams, Hans Zimmer and Alan Silvestri scores, which are all fantastic -- I always came back to those things like “Rocky Horror” and “Labyrinth.” I always wanted to create something that was a little more fan servicing in some of these spaces that I personally was a huge fan of. “Labyrinth” was one of the very first ones I thought of because of how much I adored the music and how much hadn’t happened in the Labyrinth universe over 35 years.
There’s some fan fiction and there’s some comic books out there. I felt very strongly that there was an opportunity there to create something that was a little bit different, a little bit more niche but a ton of fun.
I find these kinds of events an interesting study because if you would have told me about them 15 or 20 years ago, I might have raised an eyebrow and said, “I’m not sure I understand.” But they’re growing in popularity and people really seem to love them. What do you think is behind their popularity?
I think that deep down cinema fans are actually very accepting of this type of format. It’s almost a tip of the cap back to the original format in cinema during the silent film era, when you had an organ player or a pit band providing the music during a silent film. I think really ingrained in the cinema fan DNA is the idea that a live band with a film could always work. Just partnering it in this fashion, where we use some wonderful technology to make sure that the band stays in sync and is going note-for-note where they should be with the film, I think it brings a lot of curiosity to people. And one of the most amazing things is, when you’re sitting there, and listening to the music and listening to it on this beautiful, large PA system, there are moments when you forget the band is even there.
This is something you may not know the answer to. Do you know what drew David Bowie to this film?
I really don’t. I’ve watched a lot of the behind-the-scenes [materials] and a lot of the interviews that he did. I think it was something he wanted to do …. You hear so much about artists wanting to do something to leave behind for their kids. Robin Williams took the genie role in “Aladin” specifically to leave something behind for his kids. I think Bowie was probably in that same mentality at the time. As an artist, he was constantly reinventing himself, and he had been acting in some films. I believe that [he not only wanted to do] this artistically and partner with Jim Henson, and it matched his kind of androgynous sensibilities at the time, [he also wanted to do] this as some sort of legacy thing for kids.
