Last weekend, we gave the kids their first taste of the theater.

Well, OK. Let’s not over-state things.  It wasn’t Hamlet.  It was Sesame Street Live. We went with a friend and her daughter, and I’m happy to report that it was a hit.

It had several good things working in its favor, of course.  It was Sesame Street. The characters were already familiar and beloved.  The show was clearly going to be on their level.  Also, the show we went to was at 10:30 in the morning – a perfect outing time for the afternoon-nap set.

I honestly wasn’t sure how to explain this idea to the kids as I tried to prep them for the experience.  “It’s a show. It’s Sesame Street. But not on TV. On a stage. (Oh, wait, you don’t know what a stage is.) Well, whatever. Elmo and Big Bird will be there.”  That was good enough.

They did a great job staying (more or less) in their seats, and in an auditorium full of young children, there isn’t much of a premium placed on keeping too quiet.

The show started with some pretty flashy lights and upbeat music, which was enough to send Rebecca into M’s lap.  There was some initial crying, followed by (her current favorite) hiding behind her hands, but eventually she peeked out. By the second half of the show, she was excitedly sitting in her own seat and watching intently.

Daniel, on the other hand, was enthralled from the get-go. True to his technical-director/set-builder/light-designer daddy, he was particularly interested in how the colors and shapes of the lights on the curtains kept changing.

Intermission was a good break to run around in the hallways, but all three kids were excited for it to start up again.  As the second act neared its end, the din in the auditorium went up as several hundred preschoolers hit the limits of their attention span.  And when Daniel had a meltdown on the way to the car, I can’t say I was entirely surprised.

As an adult, of course, it was a little weird and trippy to see Cookie Monster doing a cartwheel and Elmo shaking his groove thing, as well as a strange use of a Vanessa Carleton song.  But, hey, the kids had a blast. So if you find the Sesame Street gang is headed to a venue near you, I highly recommend checking it out.