My 5 year old daughter and I took a drive to the Biograph Theater in Lincoln Park to see the Chicago Children’s Theatre presentation of A Brown Bear, A Moon and A Caterpillar: Treasured Stories by Eric Carle. It was a great production and not like anything I’ve seen before. 
The group puts on the stories of three Eric Carle popular children’s books.... The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See; Papa Please Get the Moon for Me. This is not a play with live actors but rather beautiful and very vivid puppets. I really didn’t read much about the play before we went to see it, and honestly if I had found out it was puppets, we may not have gone. When I hear puppets, I think of felt and googly eyes. Boy, would that have been a mistake! These puppets are not like anything I have ever seen. The puppets are huge and created with very bright, fluorescent paints. The stage is totally black and there is special lighting to make the puppets seem to almost glow. If you’ve ever taken your kids to play laser tag, the black lighting is similar to that, where white seems to glow the most. Some of the puppets are so dramatic. You feel as if you are part of a 3D show, like you are jumping right into the books. Pictures were not allowed during the show, but I so wanted to snap a few shots. Luckily the Chicago Children’s Theatre website includes some good shots, which you can see from the Kidwinks site. 
The stories follow the books exactly, which is great for the younger crowd. My daughter was excited that she knew what to expect next. She was able to tell me the stories along with the puppets, which she loved. The movements of the caterpillar in The Very Hungry Caterpillar were amazing. Our favorite part of the story was when the HUGE and beautifully painted butterfly comes out and flies just over the edge of the stage. In Brown Bear we loved all the animals but the blue horse was spectacular. He was so bright that he appeared to glow. In Papa Please Get the Moon for Me, the moon is so bright and the ladder that Papa uses seems to go on forever. There are so many great scenes from each of the stories, the one hour that the production took seemed to just fly by. 
The puppeteers wear all black clothing, including masks and gloves, so they are not visible to the crowd. I kept wondering throughout the production how they were able to do certain movements with the puppets. We were completely blown away at the end of the show to find out that there are only TWO puppeteers that put on the whole show and one additional person behind the scenes. They turned the lights on and showed the audience how they were able to do some of the movements with the caterpillar. Then they turned the black lights around to shine on the audience, which produced lots of giggles and screams. The very talented puppeteers are from the Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia. 
We attended a weekday morning show and found metered parking right in front of the show. The theater is a great size and I don’t think there was a bad seat there. Because the audience was filled with kids (mostly field trips), there was lots of laughing, loudly reciting lines from the books, and an overall fun time, all of which was encouraged. My 5 year old daughter was the perfect age, but I think any child from age 3 up through even 2nd grade would enjoy it. An older child would enjoy trying to figure out the technical aspects of the show (which really, are amazing!!)
The show runs through May 27 and is definitely a must-see! You can find out all the information you need on Kidwinks. Take a look at the kidwinks.com Chicago Kids Theatre Guide for more information.
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