P. Nokio, written and directed by hip hop performing artist Psalmayene 24, hits a fun and groovy downbeat.  Playing the main character, Psalmayene 24 takes on the stiff mannerisms of an artificial image plucked from an electronic game and given a body by the graffiti fairy, the irresistible Paige Hernandez, who makes dreams come true.  [Read more...]

Imagination Stage’s new musical production of Dr. Dolittle combines two stories, the traditional Dr. Dolittle tale and the story of its origins in letters written home by Hugh Lofting while away at war.  While the approach may initially puzzle the youngest children, the two stories cleverly blend to support common themes about the importance of communication and the value of cooperation over fighting.  This Dr. Dolittle is both entertaining and deeply meaningful, a cut above many children’s offerings. [Read more...]

Overlooked by the powerful, and eager for a chance to prove himself, Aladdin hungers for some sign of magic to pick him up out of life’s daily routine. The same can be said of the target audience for Aladdin’s Luck: children, ages four and up, some of whom are seeing live theatre for the first time. So the show kicks off Imagination Stage’s new season on the right foot, with a spirited hero from a rich canon of stories. [Read more...]

Roll the clock back to Britain’s glorious Gilded Age of 1908 when Kenneth Grahame dreamed up this rambling adventure for his little son about animals with human traits and the importance of friendship. After seven motorcars wrecks, three hospitalizations and a sentencing to 20-years in prison for speeding and car theft, wacky Mr. Toad, who is mad about motorcars, discovers who his real friends are. Sounds like a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.

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Even in this age of iPads, mobile apps and handheld computer games, show-and-tell still holds an irresistible allure for grade-schoolers. The Day John Henry Came to School, a world-premiere play by Eric Pfeffinger debuting at Imagination Stage, affirms the triumph of man over machine. [Read more...]

The holidays have descended upon first-grade Room One and Junie B. Jones (Casie Platt) is of two minds.

On the one hand, she is giddier than Scrooge on Christmas morning with the prospect of the school’s holiday gift shop, which contains such delights as unsullied crayons and the ultimate embodiment of the true meaning of Christmas, the Squeeze-A-Burp toy. [Read more...]

It was a dark and stormy night.  Suddenly the Monroe family returns home from the movies with an abandoned rabbit.  Yet this is no ordinary rabbit — it’s Bunnicula! Will this fanged creature pose a danger to vegetables and mammals alike?  [Read more...]

“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!”  Arrr–what kid hasn’t wanted to be a pirate?  Well, kids are going to love Imagination Stage’s latest family production, How I Became a Pirate.  Walt Disney understood the attraction of pirates when he created the Disneyland ride Pirates of the Caribbean nearly 50 years ago [Read more...]

The delicate rhythms of grief are explored in Imagination Stage’s affecting The Dancing Princesses, featuring a winsome score by Christopher Youstra and a compassionate book by Allyson Currin. [Read more...]