Imagination, fun for more than just kids

Creativity flourishes as audience and actors interact

Watching the kids' reactions to Imagination was as exciting as the show itself.

Imagination ran April 12-14 in Tappan Square and in the Little Theatre on Sunday due to the weather. It was a show written and staged for children, but every age group seemed to enjoy it just as much.

Senior Abigail Cotler wrote and directed the play, where the characters were played by college students. The play followed a day in the life of an eight-year old, with all the usual trials and tribulations that someone of that age has to deal with at school and afterwards.

College senior Libby Grubb and first-years Bradley Bowers and Simone Perrin played three siblings who go to the same school. Bowers was hilarious as he bullied the other kids, twisted his body into contortions that made the audience hysterical, and tried to be the boy who never had to sleep. All the acting was creative and emphasized to the audience that the imagination can help any boring situation become interesting, and that anything can be overcome if you try.

Perrin was enchanting as she tried to make dinner for her family "all by herself" and created smashed potatoes with chocolate chips, cat litter stew, toothpaste asparagus tips and other delicacies, while she destroys the kitchen, much to the dismay of her parents. It wasn't presented as disgusting or bad, either, just another whim of an eight-year-old, and they happen, and that's why being eight is great.

Josh Thelin, college junior, is a young rebel who defies his teacher and announces to the class that dinosaurs aren't really dead. He dances around and sings about how it wasn't meteorites or a virus that killed the dinosaurs off, but that they still exist. The kids in the audience loved this number and one kid walked around the perimeter of the stage with wide eyes, clapping his hands to his face like Macauly Culkin did in Home Alone. They also liked Thelin's number about the greatness of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and they watched and then imitated Thelin's enormous mouth movements as he pretended peanut butter was stuck to the roof.

It was a good show because the audience and actors interacted; the actors went up and sang to the audience and asked a few kids to help remove Bowers off the stage, after he had finally fallen asleep. Some kids were too shy, but a couple ran over and grabbed elbows and knees of Bowers as they slid him to the side of the stage. The kids scampered back to their seats and giggled to one another.

It was pretty inspirational, even to an 18-year-old, to see this reminder that the simple pleasures of life bring more satisfaction than other things that you get wrapped up in. Although this was a show written for children, it was perfect for all ages and mentalities, because it showed how creativity and thought has a place in someone's life no matter how old, busy or important that person is.

There's a fungus among us:Some of the creative cast from Imagination prove that dinosaurs still exist, peanut butter and jelly is the best food, and anything is possible, all in one hour. (photo by Matt Yarrow)