UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Imago Theatre’s “Frogz” treats family audiences to human-sized sloths, escaped penguins, finicky frogs, red-eyed reptiles and other fanciful things. Five agile performers — aided by a menagerie of ingenious masks, outrageous costumes and original music — will conjure a carnival of the absurd at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, in Penn State’s Eisenhower Auditorium.
“With just enough variety, an occasional good-natured excursion into the audience and the kind of occasional menace that not even children take seriously, ‘Frogz’ knows how to entertain,” wrote a New York Times critic. “… Theater like this opens the eyes to the possibilities of exploration in the vast realm of imagination.”
“Frogz” unfolds in a series of hopping, jiggling, undulating, waddling and slithering vignettes.
Imago has performed the show in two runs on Broadway, at venues around the world and on national television.
The production is the brainchild of Carol Triffle and Jerry Mouawad, Imago’s founders who trained in a mixture of theater, movement and visual arts pioneered by Jacques Lecoq in Paris. The company, based in Portland, Oregon, started in 1979 as a mask troupe touring to small communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Buy tickets online or by phone at 814-863-0255. Outside the calling area, dial 800-ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (weekdays 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk (weekdays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Bryce Jordan Center (weekdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.). A grant from the University Park Allocation Committee makes Penn State student prices possible.
The McQuaide Blasko Endowment supports the presentation. Big Froggy 101 is the media sponsor.
Kids Connections, which is free for ticket holders and includes a craft-centered, child-friendly activity provided by Shaver’s Creek, will take place in Eisenhower one hour before the performance. Due to space and time restrictions, Kids Connections participation is limited.
Also, the Center for the Performing Arts and the Penn State Dance Program will collaborate to present a free one-hour movement workshop for children ages 3 to 10, plus their parents and grandparents, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 1, in 209 Visual Arts Building (adjacent to the Palmer Museum of Art) on the University Park campus. Participants can create basic choreography with dance faculty and student members of the University Dance Company, express themselves through fanciful movement and create costume pieces to wear during the workshop. Participants, including adults, should wear comfortable clothing. Dance experience is not needed, and advance registration is not required. Free parking is available in the yellow lot at the corner of Curtin and Shortlidge roads.
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