Rainforest Adventures at Center for Puppetry Arts is great for crawlers to 7YO

Puppets and animals, well more specifically animal puppets-what’s not to like?  That’s the overall story behind the latest show at Center for Puppetry Arts.  Center for Puppetry Arts is the largest organization in the United States that is devoted to the art of puppetry.  If you’re only vision of a puppet is something that slips over your hand then you need to pay them a visit.

Rainforest Adventures is different from the other shows I’ve seen there because there wasn’t a plot.  That sound like a slam, it’s not.  There really is no narrative device in Rainforest Adventures.   The audience gets introduced to a howler monkey that gets playful with a couple of melons that fall down from the tree.  He starts playing with them, bouncing them off the tree, balancing on them and more.

From there we meet a giant crocodile, spiders, butterflies, sloths and over 30 exotic plants and animals.  There is a simulated water area in the middle where the vegetation ends and the water animals; like the hippo, croc and a couple others make their appearance known.  When that happens dry ice comes from the area, giving the very effective illusion of water.

Various animals will come and go from any direction and it’s their rhythm that drives the show.  A flamingo may be trying to eat something off of a plant, which will lead to a frog, which then leads to something else.

The only dialogue in Rainforest Adventures is a voiceover that you hear when new animals enter the stage.  In a deep, booming voice they’ll simply state the name of the animal and the puppeteers will make it do its magic.

One thing that is amazing is to realize that only 5 puppeteers make the show work.  Watching the show you’ll see dozens of butterflies chase each other, immediately followed by something else and all of it goes running across the stage.  At the end of the show they turn the house lights on and the puppeteers give the audience a quick overview of how they made some of the puppets work.

Surprisingly, one of the smaller puppets; a cat required all of them to make it move.  They showed everyone some rod puppets, body puppets and more.  Once the audience is released they have puppet making classes upstairs, which kids will love.  Our oldest accidentally left his puppet at a friend’s house and we’ve already made arrangements to pick it up later this week.

Rainforest Adventures is a puppet show about animals in the Amazon.  There’s no storyline, just animals coming and going, which makes the fact that this is a fun show all the more amazing.

Rainforest Adventures runs through March 15, 2015 and lasts about 50 minutes.   Showtimes during the week are 10AM and 11:30 AM Tuesday-Friday, Saturday 12 and 2:00 PM and Sunday 1:00 PM and 3:00PM.