‘Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever!’ Adults will love Doofenshmirtz

October 23, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

When James Shea was a youngster, he was fascinated by interactive children’s television shows.

Today, the Boston native is making a career creating such fantasies for youthful audiences as the performance director of the widely popular “Disney’s Phineas and Ferb: The Best LIVE Tour Ever!,” which returns to Covelli Centre on Saturday for two shows.

“My job is to oversee production when it comes to every city,” said Shea, calling from a tour stop in Moline, Ill. “I’m here to ensure the quality of performance is maintained every day.”

Formerly a touring actor in “Disney Playhouse Live!,” Shea now gets to spend his time making sure this Disney Channel show-turned-theatrical experience lives up to the kids’ expectations. After all, this is easily one of the most popular shows, currently in its third season, for the elementary-school-age demographic.

“I think the best thing with ‘Phineas and Ferb,’ even the cartoon series, is it leaves itself open to sort of reference the pop culture things that are occurring in everyday life,” Shea said. “It’s not a story set in a different time. It’s something right here and right now. And it’s very relatable to both adults and kids. Every kid always looks forward to summer vacation and that’s when the show takes place.”

The live action show, which revolves around the last day of summer for Phineas, Ferb, Candace, Isabella, Baljeet, Buford, the Fireside Girls, Agent P and Dr. Doofenshmirtz, features 15 production numbers, including brand-new track “Gonna Put on a Show” and “S.I.M.P (Squirrels in My Pants).”

While the kids may gravitate towards many of the youthful characters, parents that ever watched the show with their kids may have found themselves laughing at the doofus-like Dr. Doofenshmirtz. More so, it appears as though his character is written more for the adults than children.

“Even in the writing of the live show, Dr. Doofenshmirtz uses big words that are over the heads of kids,” Shea said. “But yet they’re going to think it’s hilarious while the parents will know what he’s saying and will think it’s funny, too. Like in our second act, Dr. Doofenshmirtz’s evil plan is to take over the control of the audience. He eventually fails but then he says to them, ‘Well, at least you got your own volition back.’ The kids are like, ‘Sure, that’s great,’ but the parents are laughing.”

Considering Shea is so close to the production, which of the “Phineas and Ferb” characters does he consider himself closest to?

“I would say I have a little bit of everyone in me,” Shea laughed. “I appreciate the creativity of Phineas and Ferb, but deep down inside I love Agent P. I think everyone deep down inside wanted to be a secret agent or super hero when they were younger, so I think I sort of live vicariously through Agent P.”