A Fairy-Tale Beginning : Show continues pair’s efforts to introduce children to theater.

Barbara Mallory Schwartz is wearing a lot of hats these days.

“I’m the producer and director, sometime actress, sometime usher,”says Schwartz, whose staging of the children’s musical “Jack and the Beanstalk” opens Saturday at Theatre West. The four-actor piece, which debuted in 1991, has book and lyrics by Lloyd J. Schwartz and music by Ben Lanzarone. “It’s an original ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ ” assures Barbara, who founded Storybook Theatre with husband Lloyd nine years ago. “All of our scripts--and this is our 11th--are original.”

The Minnesota-born actress, who got her start in the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre Company, says her impetus for starting Storybook was her now 13-year-old son Andrew. “When he was 4, I said to my husband, ‘Let’s take him to some theater.’ But there really wasn’t anything for him. So I said, ‘Lloyd, write me a show.’ We put our friends in it and rented a park.” Since then, the couple (who also have a 5-year-old son, Elliot) have staged all of their children’s pieces at Theatre West, where both are members.

Participation by the audience--ranging in age from 3 to 9--is a constant in Storybook shows.

“In this one, the narrator has a child come up onstage and hold the magic beans,” Barbara explains. “And two children in the audience become the cow Jack has to sell. We also take a lot of votes: ‘What should we do with the wolf?’ ”

Theatergoers, she says, are eager to get into the act. “If they’ve seen us before, they know what we do and anticipate it. Sometimes we get 30 of them onstage. Once people come to our theater, they trust us. They know it’ll be appropriate. If there’s a giant, it’s a funny giant.”

The Schwartzes’ shows have included musical treatments of “Hansel and Gretel,” “Mother Goose,” “The Princess and the Frog” and “Aladdin and His Magic Lamp.” The productions are almost always a cross-section of family and friends: The couple choose their actors from Theatre West’s membership, and Barbara’s friend Rosie Gitlin always does choreography. Additionally, she says, “Lloyd’s sister, Hope Juber, has written a couple of shows, and her husband, Lawrence, has written music for a couple of them.”

The immersion in children’s the ater is a pleasant respite for Lloyd, whose long career in show business has encompassed being a network executive at ABC, writing for such TV shows as “Love Boat,” “Baywatch” and “Alice,” producing and directing episodes of the original “Brady Bunch” series--as well as producing the current box-office hit “The Brady Bunch Movie.” He’s also taught at UCLA Extension, and in addition to his children’s plays, has written eight other stage works, including “An Evening With John Wilkes Booth.”

“We try to be everybody’s first play,” says Lloyd, who keeps the kid-show running length down to an hour. “We want to introduce them to the whole experience: coming to the theater, getting a ticket, sitting down, watching a play.” Because there’s a large return rate (the Schwartzes’ shows run almost all year, except for three months in the summer when they head off to teach at an arts festival in Iowa), the couple is able to use audience feedback to get a sense of what works and tailor their material to fit.

“There’s nothing more rewarding than a kid audience,” Lloyd says. “It’s very pure.”

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Location: Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles.

Hours: 1 p.m. Saturday. Ends July 15.

Price: $7.

Call: (818) 761-2203.