When it comes to puppeteering and animation, Jim Henson is an absolute icon. Everyone knows him as the creator of “The Muppets” featuring the likes of Kermit the Frog, Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and many others. He’s also been involved in numerous films with one of his most acclaimed flicks being the 1986 film he directed, “Labyrinth,” that starred David Bowie as Jareth, the Goblin King, and Jennifer Connelly as the 16-year-old Sarah Williams. On Oct. 4 at the newly reopened Park Theatre & Event Center located on 848 Park Ave. in Cranston, the film is going to be screened, but in a different kind of way. There’s going to be a band live scoring the scenes starting at 8 p.m.

The catalyst for this was initially conceived when John Kinsner, the CEO, founder and co-owner of the production company Black Ink, was working with Danny Elfman, Tim Burton and their representatives on a concert. The show spanned through 13 of Burton’s films with suites being performed by Elfman and eventually an idea sparked in Kinsner’s mind.

“The band was a large orchestra and Danny and Tim were both involved while I worked with their representatives,” Kinsner says. “They hired me to do production and help figure out how to stitch the show together. We went out, did the show, it was really successful and from that show, the final number was Danny coming out performing the numbers from ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas.’ We did it in Tokyo and then Danny had the idea to do the film in its entirety as a screening concert. It was a no-brainer and everyone was like ‘Yeah, of course! Let’s do that!’ so we then did it and that also became really successful.”

“Then that spawned an entire resurgence of film concerts into the space and as I started Black Ink, we started putting our heads together for what would be different, what would be cool and what’s not really happening that we would like to see happen,” he adds. “‘Labyrinth’ was one of my favorite movies as a child, it continues to be one of my favorite movies and as an ‘80s kid I grew up with it. I always thought that it would be cool to see David Bowie do these songs live, so the nugget of the idea got into my head in 2015 and I just couldn’t let it go. As we went along while doing all of these orchestra concerts with films and as also a punk rocker, I wanted to see a film concert in almost like a Rocky Horror kind of way with a straightforward rock and pop band and I think ‘Labyrinth’ is that.”

After he fine-tuned his idea, Kinsner approached Sony about it in 2018 to get the ball rolling. While COVID-19 halted things, the delay was beneficial because it brought Black Ink under the Sony umbrella.

“The guy there, Richard Ashton, was super cool and super accommodating and he had me come in to chat about it,” he describes how it happened. “I went in, pitched the idea and he thought it was great, but I had to get The Jim Henson Company on board. He introduced me, I pitched my idea to them and they thought it was great, they loved it, but then I had to get David Bowie’s team on board. They introduced me to them and it was the same thing, they thought it was great and they wanted to figure out how to make it happen. We were in the works of making it a reality, but then obviously 2020 happened and it wasn’t just that project, but all projects in the live space got derailed for a couple of years. One of the things that happened during that time, which was kind of like a stroke of luck and very fortuitous for us, was that our company Black Ink made a deal with Sony, Sony Masterworks and Terrapin Station Entertainment.”

“They all made an investment into Black Ink and we became part of the Sony infrastructure and part of the Sony family, so we’re now a Sony company,” Kinsner adds. “When we finished that deal in January of last year, I became based off of the lot in Culver City, California where the motion picture studio is and I walked right across back into Richard’s office to talk ‘Labyrinth.’ We got the deal struck up and everyone still loved the idea, so we were able to make it happen pretty quickly. That’s the story of how it all came about and how we got it up and out and into the universe.”

Along with “Labyrinth” and the concert with Elfman and Burton, Kinsner has been involved in similar productions for the films “Rocketman,” “Love Actually” and “Ghostbusters” among many others. Compared to those, he thinks “Labyrinth” sets itself apart due to the style of music that encompasses the screening.

“We’re kind of known for doing these styles of shows and bringing these productions to market,” he mentions. “What’s been really unique and really interesting about ‘Labyrinth’ is this is the only show out there that is really focused on doing it in a rock & roll ‘80s synth style. On all of these other shows, the people that made the music or made the film are still with us, and on ‘Labyrinth,’ Jim Henson and David Bowie have both passed on, so in a way it’s an homage and we’re doing what we feel Jim and David would have wanted done if they were still alive. It’s been an interesting journey because this film is almost 40 years old and when we got into putting the film together, in a lot of instances there’s a lot of elements of the film that are in really good shape and the studio can just hand them off to you with the stems and the music.”

“We got to kind of go in with Sony and almost reconstruct a lot of these elements to even make this happen,” Kinsner adds. “The historical curation of the film wasn’t in the greatest shape, not to say that it was bad or anything, but as it relates to today’s standards with state of the art audio and video. Sony has done a really amazing job of getting this film and the assets into concert shape while getting them over to us in a usable format. We’re really, really excited to be bringing that to people so they can enjoy this in a super fresh way.”

For the show next month, Kinsner emphasizes the shared experience that will occur with everyone who attends. He also views it as a way of honoring Henson and Bowie’s work in “Labyrinth.”

“I’ve been equating this to the millennial version of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the sense that people are coming in costume, they’re going to be singing along with the tracks and it’s going to be a complete celebration of all things [Jim] Henson and [David] Bowie. The moment you step into the lobby you’re going to know that you’re at this very special screening and you’re among a bunch of other people. There’s something really, really fantastic about shared experiences and I think that’s what keeps bringing people to the theaters and what keeps bringing people to concerts. The idea that you are aligned as fans and everyone is going to walk out of this as friends while knowing that they’ve had this shared experience of something that I think all ‘Labyrinth’ fans have been waiting a long time for.”