Audience Gets Into the Circus Act : Theater: San Francisco troupe’s presentation of workshops, music and plays is full of fun--and messages, too.

Comic theater, acrobatics and clowning, a chance for the audience to get into the act and a sweet little jazz band--those elements that have made San Francisco’s Make-A-Circus theater troupe a summer treat for 19 years.

The one-ring circus will be in Orange County tonight, at the Pearson Park Amphitheatre in Anaheim, and Sunday at Chapparosa Park in Laguna Niguel.

Make-A-Circus is presented in three parts: a one-hour play filled with acrobatics and clowning, a half-hour circus skills workshop, open to all, and a second scripted play of varying length, using workshop participants.

This year, the show’s theme is literacy, says Make-A-Circus artistic director Peggy Ford. “Basically, we thought what was important to get across was that knowledge is freedom.”

The opening play, “Check It Out,” centers on a tough, defensive kid who can’t read. When her “Watchalot”--which Ford describes as a “hybrid of Nintendo-type video games, television and boom boxes”--is stolen, she blames it on a boy who loves to read.

The boy and some of his favorite literary characters help track down the real thief in production numbers packed with circus skills.

“Sherlock Holmes does phenomenal things over the vault box,” Ford says. “There’s a double trapeze act when Pippi Longstocking is getting information from a falcon. And the Void (the villain who wants kids to use the Watchalots so they’ll waste time) is a towering character on stilts. We have juggling throughout and a lot of acrobatics.”

Ford says the point “is not that the evil is television, or video games or blasting boom boxes. It’s in only doing that with your life, and not looking any further.”

After the show, the cast will conduct workshops in “juggling, stilt-walking, acrobatics, clowning, and a special workshop for children who are 5 or under,” Ford continues. “We invite parents to participate, too. It’s great for the kids to see the adults being seals or monkeys or walking on stilts, having fun.”

The post-workshop show, “Look It Up,” is about a child and his grandpa who get in trouble at the zoo because neither can read. The audience plays different kinds of animals.

Make-A-Circus is funded through corporations, individual donors, the San Francisco Parks and Recreation Department, the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. In Southern California, Arco also is a sponsor, and some local parks and recreations departments come up with money for the show.

In addition to its summer performances, Make-A-Circus conducts a “clown therapy program” in hospitals, rehabilitation and recreational centers.

* “Make-A-Circus” starts tonight at 6:30 at the Pearson Park Amphitheatre, Lemon and Sycamore streets, Anaheim. $1 to $2. (714) 254-5191. Sunday at 1 p.m., the troupe will be at Chapparosa Park in Laguna Niguel. Free. (714) 362-4350.