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Once upon a time in Montgomery County...

Children’s theater comes alive with fairy tales, puppet shows and real-life heroes for inspiration

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Bruce Douglas Royal treatment: Princess Aurora (Margo Seibert) and the King (Peter Boyer) in ‘‘Sleeping Beauty” at Imagination Stage. Scott Suchman Click here to enlarge this photo Wicked ways: Judson (Kyle Schleifer), Alice (Kara Quick) and Dorothy (Molly Bennett) find the nerve to stand up to the Wicked Witch of the West (Carol McCaffrey) in Adventure Theatre’s ‘‘Dorothy Meets Alice.”

Unless you happen to believe in fairytales.

In which case you’re in good company. Even before Olney Theatre Center rolls out ‘‘Cinderella” in mid-November, even before Round House mounts an adaptation of Saint-Exupery’s ‘‘The Little Prince” around the same time, before the ‘‘Nutcrackers” start their post-Thanksgiving parade of snowflakes and sugarplums, there are fairytales to celebrate right now on the stages of Montgomery County.

‘‘I think this goes along with our mission to do things that are traditional, but in a new way,” says Kathryn Chase Bryer, director of ‘‘Sleeping Beauty: The Time Traveler” at Imagination Stage in Bethesda. ‘‘It’s traditionally a ‘girls’ story, but we wanted to appeal to a contemporary audience.

‘‘We’re going to see ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ but there’s a boy in it,” she says. ‘‘And he’s really cool and he plays Nintendo.”

To do that, Bryer and the show’s creators, Imagination Stage artistic director Janet Stanford and lyricist Andrea Dodds, in addition to adding contemporary touches like video games, were able to enhance musical director Deborah Wicks La Puma’s score with a live orchestra, partially hidden by a scrim onstage.

‘‘Every single song should move the story along,” says Bryer. ‘‘But they’re short, almost like poetry.”

The addition of a keyboard player, a cellist, a reedist and a drummer, means that another dimension of learning enhances an experience most kids see as pure fun.

‘‘It’s a whole other part of educating kids in the arts,” Bryer says happily. ‘‘This is a play with music, not a musical, but the live music makes it particularly interesting.”

Also interesting: The lesson contained in ‘‘Sleeping Beauty: The Time Traveler” is for parents as well as kids.

‘‘The main theme of the story is growing up,” says Bryer, who notes that the children in the audience tend to be younger than the characters on stage. ‘‘It’s about adolescence, and how teenagers need to be free, to break from their parents.

‘‘And the parents need to let them go!”

Literary dramas

Parents can let their little ones go to Adventure Theatre for a selection of three plays, each tailored to different age groups and situations.

If you go Adventure Theatre n‘‘Clara Barton: The Courage Within” — Adventure Theatre and Clara Barton House, 11 a.m. Tuesdays, to Nov. 28, Adventure Theatre, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., $8, 301-320-5331. ‘‘Dorothy Meets Alice” — Scrambled stories, Oct. 28-Dec. 3, 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Sun., ASL interpretation 1:30 p.m. Dec. 3, Adventure Theatre, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., $8, 301-320-5331. ‘‘Radish Rabbit & the Dangerous Mugwump (& Chicken Little Too!)” — Tales combine in feel-good musical comedy for pre-K through second grade, 10 a.m. Thursdays, to Dec. 14, Adventure Theatre, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., $5, 301-320-5331. Imagination Stage ‘‘Sleeping Beauty: The Time Traveler” — Musical twist on the classic tale, to Nov. 5, 12:30, 3:30 and 7 p.m. Saturday, 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Imagination Stage, 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda, $10-$20, 301-280-1660. The Puppet Co. ‘Hansel & Gretel’ — Marionette adaptation of Humperdink’s children’s opera, to Nov. 17, 10 and 11:30 a.m. Wednesday through Friday; 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, ASL interpretation 1 p.m. Nov. 5, Puppet Co. Playhouse, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., $8, 301-320-6668.

For the preschool set, there’s ‘‘Radish Rabbit and the Dangerous Mugwump (and Chicken Little Too!).” Groups of schoolchildren can combine history and literature with ‘‘Clara Barton: The Courage Within.” And the 5-and-olders can get some scrambled story action with ‘‘Dorothy Meets Alice,” a dreamy play that cobbles together two beloved ‘‘Was it a dream?” children’s books: ‘‘The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum and Lewis Carroll’s ‘‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”

‘‘Our season this year is literary-based,” explains Adventure Theatre artistic director Carol Leahy. ‘‘We actually have this book club. We never expected this surge of interest, but last time we checked, there were 89 members!”

Impressive when you consider that book club members sign on to attend at least four of the season’s performances and promise to read each accompanying book. There’s a ‘‘Book Club Talk About” session, too, where participating youngsters can gather to discuss what they liked about the book and the play.

‘‘I’m amazed at the enthusiasm,” says Leahy.

Leahy says that parents tend to be as enthusiastic as the children, especially when they discover humor built into the plays just for them.

As for ‘‘Radish Rabbit,” written by Adventure Theatre playwright Marilyn Shockey, Leahy says, ‘‘The whole show is really fun. There’s a ‘Dr. Bill’ segment (parodying Dr. Phil McGraw of ‘Oprah’ fame). We don’t know how much the kids will ‘get,’ but the parents will love it.”

And when it comes to ‘‘Dorothy Meets Alice,” the kids should be able to identify with the procrastinating protagonist Judson. In this dream-tale by Joseph Robinette, a young man puts off his book report until the last minute — and the characters come alive in a mixed-up adventure.

‘‘They have a journey together,” says Leahy. ‘‘Their adventure through the Tolgi Wood.”

Safe space

Most children today can’t have their own adventure in the woods. They’re scheduled and supervised and kept as safe as possibly in our sometimes scary 21st century world. But a visit to the theater, to a children’s theater where everything is designed for kids can be a satisfying place to learn, grow and explore.

Imagination Stage has settled in to its Bethesda headquarters after years in a local shopping mall. Bryer says the thought of having a space big enough to accommodate a live orchestra is a long-held dream come true.

And, she says, ‘‘The set is amazing. Set designer Joe Musumeci filled up the set like it’s never been filled before, with stone work carved out of Styrofoam.”

As for Adventure Theatre, the company is in temporary digs next to Glen Echo’s Spanish Ballroom while their old theater space is being refurbished. Leahy expects a late-spring ribbon cutting ceremony.

Still, Glen Echo Park provides a fairytale setting — as well as a playground for the kids if the weather is nice. It’s also home to the Puppet Co.’s recently renovated marionette theater, where, coincidentally, another fairytale ‘‘Hansel and Gretel” is playing.

There are plenty of sweet simple stories for children living in a complicated world.

‘‘I think kids today are much more sophisticated at an earlier age,” says Leahy. But in a fairytale, she adds, ‘‘There’s a moral: Whether they know it on a conscious level or not, it does say something to them.”

Something positive and hopeful, a little change of pace that might make a big difference.