All this and Charo too

It’s summer. School’s out. Why not grab the kids, the sunscreen, the shades and head for ... the theater?

Week in and week out, from now until September and beyond, an unprecedented bonanza of professional arts series with a family spin is filling the bill on outdoor and indoor stages around the Southland.

Singers and dancers from around the globe, trickster tales and fairy tales, comedies, clowns, mimes, popular recording artists, jazz tap, marimba bands, classical music and Charo (yes, the Charo) -- the opportunities for children to see the real deal, live onstage, have never been so varied and abundant. And the price is right: mostly free to low.

The venerable 36th annual festival of the arts, “Open House at the Hollywood Bowl” for ages 3 to 10, has been around the longest. This year’s “Summer Sounds” outdoor fest, hosted by David Prather, features arts workshops and weeklong runs of shows highlighting different areas of the world -- India, Hawaii, Spain, Korea, Cuba -- and outer space.

“We’ve had an enormous number of parents come with their kids over the years,” said Patricia Mitchell, the Bowl’s chief operating officer. “And now that it’s been generations, we’re getting grandparents too. We hope that they will have a wonderful musical experience and get an idea of the breadth of music and of the world.”

A bonus: Most days after the shows, which take place in a patio area, all are welcome to enter the Bowl proper and listen to the orchestra rehearse.

Indoors, and out

For a quieter, cooler outing, try the “TattleTalers: Family Storytelling Festival,” for ages 5 and older, at the Beverly Hills Library Auditorium. The impressive lineup of tale-spinning pros using their unique voices to bring comical, multicultural worlds to life includes Kathleen Zundell and Alan “SPO” Schwartz, Ruth Halpern, Cynthia Restivo and B.Z. Smith, and Angela Lloyd and Friends.

The Valley Cultural Center’s “Monday Morning Children’s Concerts,” at the 450-seat Madrid Theatre in Canoga Park, offers an eclectic slate of shows for ages 5 to 11. A sampling: veteran folk singer Glen Yarbrough, Dixieland jazz, Indian dance and Charo, she of the enduring Latin firecracker, naughtily English-mangling persona.

“Yes, Charo is doing a show for kids,” said Don Sweeney, the center’s director of operations. “For adults it’s ‘Cuchi, cuchi’ -- for children it’s ‘Cuchi-cuchi-coo.’ ”

Parson’s Nose provides another summer smile. This troupe of classically trained theater artists is presenting its comic version of “Classic Fairytales,” a triple bill of adaptations of “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” and “Hansel and Gretel” this Saturday and July 10 at the Geffen Playhouse’s new digs at the Brentwood Theatre.

Miss a favorite artist or group at one venue and you may be able to catch it somewhere else. With so many performance slots to fill, there’s some overlap. Creative PlayGround, for instance, can be found at the Powerhouse Theatre in Santa Monica during July and at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum as part of that Topanga venue’s “Family Fundays” series running now through October.

This veteran company of actors and arts educators, putting on “Ferdinand the Bull,” “The Velveteen Rabbit” and other childhood favorites, is noted for its knack for drawing young children into playing active roles in these highly interactive, literature-based performances.

“Our mission is have our shows resemble children’s play as much as possible,” said Elizabeth Tobias, the company’s co-artistic director and Theatricum Botanicum’s classroom enrichment coordinator, “and the actors are adept at gauging a child’s response -- the shy child that needs encouragement and the shy child that needs to be let off the hook.”

The Theatricum’s picturesque canyon setting is an ideal destination for a casual family outing: During Creative PlayGround’s shows, audience members sit under a big oak tree, right next to the action. For “Peter Alsop’s Kids Koncerts,” the other part of the “Family Fundays” series, the outdoor main stage, with its rustic backdrop, is occupied by some of the best kids’ music artists in the country (among them Jessica Harper; Dan Crow; Barney Saltzberg; Gwendolyn & the Goodtime Gang; Parachute Express; the Bobs’ Gunner Madsen; Beethoven’s Wig; the dean of rhythm and rhyme, Hap Palmer; and “What Kind of Cat Are You?” singer-percussionist Billy Jonas, who opened the series).

“I look for artists that will complement the informal, comfortable surroundings,” Alsop said. “It’s just not about slick -- these people are seasoned professionals and really good -- but if there’s some little kid crying in the audience, my artists will respond to it instead of pretending it’s not there. I want humanness and caring to be prevalent.”

More fun in the sun

Children’s Night at the Levitt in Pasadena is new, part of the Levitt Pavilion’s outdoor Summer Concerts. Among its offerings are the wild Russian folk troupe Limpopo, the Cuauhtemoc Aztec warrior dancers, the Bob Baker Marionettes and one of a handful of children’s music successes, Joanie Bartels.

Not far from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, on the California Plaza downtown, from July 25 through Aug. 29, families can take the “Grand Performances” world tour. The stops in this lively Sunday afternoon of multicultural offerings include Cambodian dance, a musical ensemble from the Congo and Angahara Ensemble’s dance-theater performance of the Indian Pachatantra fable, “Mitra Bheda,” narrated by puppeteer Gary Jones’ “Yuppet” creations. The series ends on a homespun note with the “Eighth Annual Marcia Berman Sing-Along.”

There’s plenty of room at the open-air, 1,245-seat John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills, site of the annual, summer-long “Big!World!Fun!” series. “Adventures in Storytelling” features juggler-actor Nathan Stein, who romps his way through “A Fisherman Out of Water,” his comically fractured version of a Japanese folk tale. And “Adventure in Outer Space” stars offbeat mime duo Keith Berger and Sharon Diskin.

On Saturday, the series takes flight with Razzle Bam Boom’s Mark Beckwith and Obediah Thomas, who perform “The Wright Brothers: A Two-Man Musical,” while putting together a half-size replica of the Wright brothers’ plane.

“One of our goals is to have families experience the arts together,” said Ford managing director Dave Pier. “Our not-so-hidden agenda is to create audiences for the future by exposing kids to arts and culture at a very young age. If they like it, we know a lot of people will come back.”

Attendees receive an “adventure club book” to keep track of their visits and earn goodies (a compass, binoculars, a safari hat) for attending a certain number of events.

And some of the summer’s sunniest treats are the annual Occidental College Children’s Theatre shows, performed on a grassy plot in the Remsen Bird Hillside Theater area. Each year, in its signature physical comedy and improv style, the company puts on a program of world folk tale adaptations and one wacky, cut-loose original spoof. July and August’s romp is “The Boy Who Cried Wolfman.”

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Especially for children

Big!World!Fun! Adventure Series

Where: John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood

When: 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Aug. 28; 8:30 p.m. Sept. 3.

Price: Adults, $5; 12 and younger, free.

Info: (323) 461-3673 or www.fordamphitheatre.org

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Children’s Night at the Levitt

Where: Levitt Pavilion, Memorial Park, 85 E. Holly St., Pasadena

When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays, through Sept. 8.

Price: Free

Info: (626) 683-3230 or www.levittpavilionpasadena.org

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Classic Fairytales

Where: Geffen Playhouse at the Brentwood Theatre, Veterans Administration grounds, Wilshire Boulevard near San Vicente Boulevard, Brentwood

When: 11 a.m. this Saturday 26 and July 10; ends July 10.

Price: Adults, $6; ages 3 to 15, $2

Info: (310) 208-5454 or www.geffenplayhouse.com

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Creative PlayGround

Where: Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica

When: 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, July 3 through Aug. 1.

Price: $8, except July 3, pay what you can.

Info: (866) 633-6246 or www.powerhousetheatre.com

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Family Fundays

Where: Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga

When: 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Oct. 31.

Price: $8

Info: (310) 455-3723 or www.theatricum.com

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Grand Performances Children’s Series

Where: California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 3 p.m. Sundays, July 25 through Aug. 29.

Price: Free

Info: (213) 687-2159 or www.grandperformances.org

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Monday Morning Children’s Concerts

Where: Madrid Theatre, 21622 Sherman Way, Canoga Park

When: 10 a.m. Mondays, through Aug. 30. Dark July 4.

Price: Free; reservations suggested.

Info: (818) 704-1358 or www.valleycultural.org

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Occidental Children’s Theatre

Where: Occidental College, Remsen Bird Hillside Theater, 1600 Campus Road, L.A.

When: 10 a.m. Thursdays to Saturdays, July 8 through Aug. 21.

Price: Adults, $8, 12 and younger, $5

Info: (323) 259-2922 or www.oxy.edu

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Summer Sounds: Music for Kids at the Hollywood Bowl

Where: 2301 N. Highland Ave., L.A.

When: Shows 10 and 11:15 a.m., workshops 10 and 11:15 a.m. Mondays-Fridays, July 12-Aug. 20.

Price: Shows, $5; workshops, $3

Info: (323) 850-2000 or www.hollywoodbowl.com

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TattleTalers: Family Storytelling Festival

Where: Beverly Hills Library Auditorium, 444 N. Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills

When: 7 p.m. Tuesdays, through July 20.

Price: Free

Info: (310) 288-2211 or www.beverlyhills.org