The last time my sister and I went to the  Children’s Theater’s with her sons, we discovered that the show, Treasure Island, was perhaps a little bit too long and too slow for her three antsy boys under ten. However, Dino World was just the ticket to keep these guys engrossed. Part one woman show aided by puppetry, part mock Disney World performance, the host, Miranda (played by Lizzie Burder), was the daughter of paleontologists and she had grown up stranded on an island studying – what else—dinosaurs. The show allows her to showcase her dino family to the audience and incorporate the young volunteers into the show. The interactive pieces were great for keeping the boys intrigued.

These interactive pieces included an egg that Miranda was waiting on to hatch as it incubated. The breed being hatched latched instantly to whomever they first laid eyes on, so Miranda was equipped with her own puppet of a fake mother of the breed for the instant the baby dino emerged. The kids were supposed to alert Miranda by yelling her name whenever the egg began to shake, indicating hatching.  For those with short attention spans, it was a marvelous trick to give them something else to focus on while still being invested in the show. Miranda also invited four different audience members up to the stage to help her feed the dinosaurs. It was delightful for me, as an adult, to see the joy on the kids’ faces – even if they weren’t my nephews—to be a part of the story.

And for those willing participants who were not brought up on the stage—including me – at the end of the show all members of the audience were given the opportunity to come up to the stage and pet one of the dinosaurs. The constant repetition of rules was necessary, but for my very black and white nephew I think it detracted from his experience because he was so worried about not moving along quickly enough.

The concept of the whole show is the true meaning of  Children’s Theater’s– to incorporate the youth into the concept of being an audience member and also inspire the desire to be a part of storytelling in my favorite way of telling stories – live on stage.