The other side of children's theater

When I was small, my cousins and I went to the Emmy Gifford Children's Theater all the time. There was James and the Giant Peach, for which my aunt Kathy got us peach Jolly Ranchers to suck while we watched the beautiful giant bug costumes--I expect there was a James, but I have no memory of him--and there was Cinderella, for which one of the stepsisters wore tennis shoes under her ball gown and chewed gum and was hilarious. Who knows if I would find her funny now.

But there was, oh, there was Where the Wild Things Are. And they put up a miniature stage in the middle of the seating, and the Wild Things. The Wild Things came out and danced. Right there where we were sitting. In the aisles and on the little platform down the middle of the seats.

My world changed.

I could not have been as old as my godson was now, but I was old enough to have the two levels of it, the immediate ooooh and the hey can you do that? I wonder what else you can do that I didn't think about.

Thank you, Maurice Sendak, for the wild rumpus that sparked so many other wild rumpuses in our hearts and minds.