GOING THROUGH A STAGE CHILD-FRIENDLY SHOWS HELP KIDS DISCOVER LOVE OF THEATER.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Your 4-year-old can sit delightedly through a 30-minute episode of a favorite morning TV show on Nickelodeon or PBS Kids. A cherished movie on DVD soon proves to be equally reliable and diverting.

But how do you know when he or she is ready to graduate to the lights, sounds, live audience and general wonderment of experiencing a live stage performance - particularly when the experiment may cost more than $20 per ticket?

For the past 26 years, parents of young children have been using Big Bird, Grover, Elmo and the ``Sesame Street'' gang as their tube-to-theater bridge experience. ``Sesame Street Live'' is, well, pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a live stage version of the popular television show.

The pioneering ``Sesame Street Live,'' has now spawned offshoots. Today, it is characters like Dora the Explorer, that clue-seeking cartoon puppy Blue (of ``Blue's Clues''), Bear (``... in the Big Blue House''), Winnie the Pooh and the Care Bears who take the stage and routinely get an auditorium full of children (and their parents) to sing songs, bounce in their chairs and maybe take in a few gently taught lessons along the way.

On Feb. 2, the producers of ``Dragon Tales Live!'' will bring the show ``Missing Music Mystery'' to the Pantages Theatre.

As for those venerable ``Sesame Street'' characters, they're anything but absent. No less than five different ``Sesame Street Live'' shows are touring in the United States and internationally.

``We book them every year,'' says Tom Mitze, theater director of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, which will bring in the ``Sesame Street Live'' production ``Super Grover! Ready for Action'' at the end of May. ``And the great thing about it is, it gets a new audience every year.''

More typically the home to touring Broadway musicals like ``Wicked,'' ``Cats'' and ``The Lion King,'' the Pantages is making a new entry into the family entertainment market with the ``Dragon Tales'' engagement. And for a simple reason: the development of new audiences. Get `em hooked while they're young.

``More and more people who do legitimate theater are doing these types of shows to round out their calendars,'' says Jack Meyer, vice president of programming for the Nederlander Organization, which owns the Pantages. ``Some of these can do 12 to 15 performances in a week. It's good for filling in time, and kids develop a sense of wanting to go to the theater and eventually buying Broadway tickets.''

In many ways, the ``Live'' character shows are a natural offshoot of the circus and ice shows, with the addition of a story line. Feld Entertainment, which produces the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, is also the producer of the Disney on Ice shows that visit the same circuit of Southland arenas (the Pond of Anaheim, the Forum, the Los Angeles Sports Arena) on a regular basis.

Few people know this world better than Vincent Egan, a former marketing executive with the Ice Follies and Holiday on Ice. In 1980, Egan struck a development deal with ``Sesame Street'' puppet creator and Muppeteer Jim Henson, and put a life-size version of Big Bird on stage as part of the first ``Sesame Street Live'' production a generation ago.

In ``Missing Bird Mystery,'' penned by ``Sesame Street'' executive producer Jon Stone, Big Bird was missing from Sesame Street and it was up to the live audience to help find him. The show opened at the Met Center in Egan's hometown of Minneapolis, Minn. Crowds were scarce, but a subsequent run at New York's Madison Square Garden drew more than 100,000 ticket holders over four weeks.

``Then everybody wanted it,'' says Egan, whose VEE Entertainment produces the ``Live'' versions of ``Sesame Street,'' `Care Bears'' and ``Dragon Tales.'' ``Twenty-six years later, everybody says, 'How smart were you?' I needed a job, I found one, and I worked really hard to get it.''

And to keep it. VEE's deal with Sesame Workshop is loaded with provisions specifying how the ``Sesame Street'' characters can be depicted. Certain program values are sacred and cannot change.

``This has never been a matter of using Saturday morning TV to drive something else,'' says Egan. ``This was started as an educational outreach through the use of TV. Sesame Workshop is very sensitive to how we advertise and how we promote. We do not want to destroy the image created in a mind of a child from what they see on TV.''

Production enhancement and theater etiquette (Hello, Mr. Cell Phone!) may have changed in the past three decades, but kids are still encouraged to be very much themselves. ``Live'' shows have become shorter and more focused, with an average production running about 105 minutes, including a 15-minute snack and a bathroom (and perhaps souvenir-buying) break after the first 45 minutes.

Story lines don't vary greatly. Somebody or something is missing and must be found. A new sport/activity/milestone is being faced for the first time. Quests are begun. Friends are made and trusted. In the latest ``Dragon Tales,'' - which is based on the top-rated PBS show for preschoolers - 6-year-old Emmy and her 4-year-old brother, Max, have to help the dragons of Dragon Land recover missing music in time to hold a concert.

There are decidedly worse ways to make a living, says Erin Horne, a live performer and head puppeteer with the ``Dragon Tales Live!'' company. While majoring in musical theater at Rhode Island College, Horne and her boyfriend, Matthew Furtado, set a mutual goal of ending up in a VEE show. They ended up getting cast in the same ``Dragon Tales'' tour last April, graduating in May, and hitting the road.

``With children's theater, for some people in the audience, this could be their first time in a live show ever,'' says Horne. ``The idea that you have the power to make that first experience so special is what appealed to me.''

Horne's puppet duties include working the characters Princess Kidoodle, the Giant of Nod and the wise schoolmaster dragon Quetzal. As the preshow greeter, she helps lead the audience in the warm-up song ``Shake Your Dragon Tail.''

``Audiences are so much more giving in children's theater,'' says Horne. ``They have no problem yelling if they like something or standing up and dancing in the aisles. It's so great.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

DRAGON TALES LIVE!: MISSING MUSIC MYSTERY

Where: Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.

When: 7 p.m. Feb. 2, 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Feb. 3, 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Feb. 4, 1 and 4:30 p.m. Feb. 5.

Tickets: $19 to $39. Call [phone]. Also tonight through Sunday at the Long Beach Convention Center, [phone]; and Feb. 17-19 at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Flights of FANCY

`Dragon Tales Live!' introduces children to the joys of live theater

(2 -- color) ``Dragon Tales Live!: Missing Music Mystery'' involves children in a quest to help the beasts hold a concert.

(3 -- color) ``Sesame Street Live'' has been a successful franchise since its founding a generation ago, and has spawned a whole line of shows for families.