Storybook’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ Keeping Audiences Awake

When the King and Queen in Storybook Theatre’s musical “Sleeping Beauty” at a recent performance asked for “a couple” of volunteers to awaken Princess Aurora, almost 40 3-to-6-year-olds swarmed the stage. Undaunted, the actors had them stand around Aurora’s bed and sing “Old MacDonald,” make loud, scary noises and finally, tickle Tracy Carter, the actress playing the part.

Nothing worked. Aurora still slept. (Carter’s powers of concentration must be mighty indeed.) Then the bad fairy Morbid (Sheila Shaw) told them about the “Handsome Prince escape clause” . . .

Storybook’s shows at Theatre West are aimed at the very young, with almost nonstop audience participation and tame silliness. It’s not riveting theater, but it is a combination undeniably popular with its noisy preschool and young elementary school audiences.

Written by Lloyd J. Schwartz, directed by Barbara Mallory Schwartz, with Chris Wallace’s tongue-in-cheek songs frequently adding a jaunty bounce, “Beauty” follows Storybook’s usual pattern. Audience members teach the King (James Reeder) and Queen (Erin Donovan) how to say thank you, some are called on stage to give the Queen some baby shower gifts, they name the baby princess (a doll) and one volunteer helps change her diaper.

When the Prince (Frank Sharp) didn’t seem to know who he was at a recent performance, the knowledgeable young theatergoers impatiently informed him that he was “the Handsome Prince!” When he didn’t know how to wake Aurora up, the theater rang with shouts of “Kiss her! Kiss her!”

While adults will find most of their laughs in the children’s responses, a few pointed comic moments are just for parents.

Highlights included Donovan as the very pregnant-appearing Queen, donning a straw hat, grabbing a stick and doing a high-stepping Broadway strut in chorus with her doting husband, the King (James Reeder). As they dance, they sing “A Baby’s a Wonderful Thing,” an ode to parenthood with a few zingers thrown in: “Now I look like this and it’s all because of you.” (Rosetta Gitlin did the choreography.)

Donovan also warbles “We’re Changing the Baby,” her apparent delight belied by telling grimaces. Later, Morbid points out to the audience that because Princess Aurora broke the rules and talked to her, a stranger, she would prick her finger and fall asleep for 100 years. “You can all learn from this,” she intones with mock-severity.

Sleeping Beauty. Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Saturdays at 1 p.m. through Jan. 16, $6; (818) 761-2203.

Curtain Up: A new, four-part “Performance Series for Children,” presented by the Music Center, will kick off Jan. 9 at 1 p.m. with “The Magic of the Opera” performed by the Los Angeles Music Center Opera. The Mark Taper Forum Improvisational Theatre Project’s “Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home” follows on Feb. 13. “Music in Nature,” presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Symphonies for Youth on March 13 and “Music From Around the World” on April 10, complete the series. The cost for all four performances is $75 per person, with a $10 optional donation to sponsor school groups from underserved areas. (Tickets to single performances are not available.) Information: (213) 972-7567.