JANUARY 15, 2007
Smoke Signals 5
Children's Museum Dedicates "Play It Again Theater
Spirit Mountain Community Fund is principle sponsor.
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With the curtains closed on the new stage, Museum Executive Director Sarah Orleans, left, says thanks with a "Thanks for being a Star" star to Spirit Mountain
Community Fund Director Shelley Hanson and Program Officer Louis King.
By Ron Karten
For all the kids out there that are
afraid of the dark, there's a new ven
ue in town at the Portland Children's
Museum. The venue, called the Doro
thea Lensch Play It Again Theater, is
"the stage that never goes dark."
Thanks to a $50,000 lead grant
from the Spirit Mountain Commu
nity Fund (SMCF), and additional
support from the PGE Foundation
and the Juan Young Trust, kids have
the run of the new theater when or
ganized events are over, and it comes
with professional lighting from Rose
City Light and Sound, more costumes
than Halloween, a puppet stage and a
raised platform called a Juliet stage,
that may be the only one in a kids'
theater anywhere.
So says Sarah Orleans, Executive
Director of this children's wonderland
now celebrating its fifth year at the
Portland Zoo complex. Over the last
18 months, the museum has built six
new exhibits, a new oval classroom
and two national traveling exhibits
one featuring Sesame Street char
acters and a second, the result of win
ning a national competition, showing
how Japanese children live.
The theater provides for an audi
ence of more than 100 for shows,
professional and childlike, on a
semi-circle of carpeted risers in
front of the stage. Outside, a marquee-type
sign makes the announce
ment of each show possible. Lights
and sound effects are as available
to kids as to professionals. Ditto
costumes.
The museum had 250,000 visitors
last year, and in the summer of 2005,
the museum welcomed its one mil
lionth visitor to the current space.
According to the Portland Business
Journal, the museum is the state's
11th largest attraction.
Besides fund raising, "new ideas"
are Orleans' main preoccupation,
"and keeping people excited about
the new ideas."
This idea, however, was not such
a hard sell at the Spirit Mountain
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y.
Community Fund. "This new the
ater offers the chance for lively,
theatrical play, and research has
proven time and time again the
value of play in brain development,"
said Tribal member Shelley Hanson,
Director of SMCF. "Spirit Mountain
is proud to support another pro
gram that brightens the futures of
Oregon's children."
This is the third grant the Com
munity Fund has provided to the
Children's Museum since 2001 for a
total of $112,000.
The theater was dedicated to Doro
thea Lensch, former director of the
Portland Bureau of Parks & Rec
reation, who was instrumental in
starting the museum all the way back
in 1949. It is the nation's seventh
oldest.
The theatre, almost twice as large
as the museum's existing Imagina
tion Theater, has been available to
kids since December, but juggler
and comedian Rhys Thomas (www.
jugglemania.com) made it all official
on Friday evening, January 5, giving
the opening proclamation a humor
ous reading before launching into a
20-minute juggling routine.
In one bit, Thomas used three
rubber balls, two red, one yellow,
to represent a waterfall, stalactites
and stalagmites in a cave, numerous
mythological figures, and countless
other witty visuals, all while keeping
the balls in the air.
A very young but very accom
plished marimba band as well as
characters on stilts and balloon bend
ing clowns welcomed visitors to the
opening night festivities. The food,
appropriately, included tiny little
hamburgers and cheeseburgers along
with macaroni and cheese.
"Oregon is blessed to have it in our
neighborhood," said Hanson, "offer
ing programs and services for tod
dlers through older youngsters."
And from the look of things on
this recent Friday evening, these
programs get the toes twinkling on
a lot of adults, too.
T
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Juggler Rhys Thomas works his magic, left, charming children in the
audience, above.