This weekend, my husband and I took our 20-month old daughter into New York City to see The New Victory Theater’s HANDA’S SURPRISE. The production, adapted from the children’s book of the same name by Eileen Browne, was staged by Little Angel Theatre of London, England, and performed in the New 42nd Street Studios.
I was a little worried—and not because New Victory shows aren’t amazing. They are. We took the little one there when she was 9-months old to see BABBLE and had a fantastic experience, which I documented on this blog last year. I’ve seen many, many productions at The New Victory, mostly in my role as a high school drama teacher. Their programming is beautiful, educational and developmentally appropriate for children. We have also been reading HANDA’S SURPRISE by Eileen Browne for the past two months, and my daughter can name all the animals, and most of the fruits.
But last week she had a somewhat traumatizing experience I thought might put her off theater for a while. We made the mistake of taking her to see SESAME STREET LIVE at the theater at Madison Square Garden. We don’t watch much television in our household, but I will confess I do let my daughter watch ELMO’S WORLD on occasion. (Is there a child that age not obsessed with Elmo?) We have read a bunch of Sesame Street themed books and she loves pointing out all of the characters on her diapers. When I saw discount tickets available on TDF I thought, why not? We bought tickets for a 10:30am show—the perfect time for her schedule. She was rested, well fed, and in good spirits before the show started. And yet she lasted exactly three minute before growing hysterical and repeatedly crying, “Home, home, home.” Later she told me it hurt her ears. All last week she kept saying, “Bert, noisy.” When I would mention that we were going to be seeing another show, she would say, “Noisy. Cry.” And no wonder. SESAME STREET LIVE began with bright flashing lights, and extraordinarily loud techno-style music. Really? I can’t actually comment on the quality of the rest of the production, but from the three minutes I did see, I am not surprised it terrified my daughter. I was disappointed. I expected something with the Sesame Street name to be more child-friendly.
Although I knew HANDA’S SURPRISE would be very different, I was afraid that my little one would have some sort of theatrical PTSD. Plus, I had planned poorly. I had bought the tickets for a 1pm show back in October when she was still on a two nap schedule. The show would fall smack in the middle of nap time. She’d also been fairly cranky for the past couple of days—a new tooth coming in, I think—so I was keeping my fingers crossed she wouldn’t freak out again.
I had nothing to worry about. First of all, we weren’t entering a giant over-stimulating theater. The New 42nd Street Studios are an intimate theater space. Prior to the show, there were several different activities available for children including playing with balloon animals, coloring pictures of fruit and putting toy fruit into baskets. My daughter loves playing with crayons, so she did that for a little while before the show began.
The actual production was incredibly enjoyable. Seating was on the floor in the round, so all the children could be right up close. The performers Krystle Hylton (Handa) and Michal Keyemo (Akeyo) immediately engaged all of the children with their rhythmic singing, and by handing out fruit for the children to examine, adding a nice tactile dimension to the production. Two women, creative puppets, a capella singing—the exact opposite of the over-stimulation we experienced last weekend. My daughter was engaged for the entire 30 minutes, the perfect length show for a toddler. She told me later, the giraffe puppet was her favorite, with the monkey coming in a close second.
I am sure there is a place in this world for children’s entertainment like SESAME STREET LIVE. Maybe my daughter was just too young. Or maybe we should have brought ear plugs. But what I really wish is that more people knew about and had access to the type of work being done at The New Victory Theater. It always surprises me when I meet parets of young children in the New York City area who aren’t aware of the shows put on there. And if you are wondering about cost, even with the discount we received for SESAME STREET LIVE, the tickets for HANDA’S SURPRISE were still cheaper ($20 vs. $29.)
I look forward to seeing many more productions at the New Vic in years to come. And I am wondering, seriously wondering, how productions like HANDA’S SURPRISE could be made available to more children. Last year, BABBLE lead to my daughter’s first babbles. I have yet to see what surprises my daughter has in store for me after HANDA’S SURPRISE.
