Puppeteers Bring Aesop’s Fables to Life

About 100 days out of the year, Michael and Valerie Nelson become their creations.

Dressed in black, the traveling puppeteers from the Magical Moonshine Theatre fade into the background as their foam and fabric puppets come to life, entertaining kids around the world.

Their latest stop: the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza where last week 400 awe-struck kids and their parents watched as the husband-and-wife duo made a fox dance, a crow fly and a tortoise slowly waddle its way across the set.

“It’s a great program,” said Cherie Bean, who brought her 4-year-old daughter, Ashley Ford, to see the one-hour show.

Ashley sat bright-eyed as the Nelsons performed stories based on Aesop’s Fables, using their handmade creations.

But that kind of magic doesn’t come easy, the Nelsons said. Most of the year, when they’re not touring, they’re at home in Napa, coming up with new ways to make children laugh and clap--from writing shows to fashioning puppets.

Kelly Garcia said her 4-year-old daughter, Keilani, loved the puppets. More so, she enjoyed how the Nelsons used ideas from Aesop’s Fables to teach kids lessons such as how slow and sure wins the race from “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

Bean, however, said the show taught normally rambunctious children something even more important.

“I think it was good they learned to sit in a seat for an hour,” she said.