‘Sesame Street’ show far from pedestrian

Wednesday, May 5, 2004 | 9:07 a.m.

What: Sesame Street Live "Out of This World."

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: Cox Pavilion, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway.

Tickets: $10, $12, $16.

Information: 739-3267.

Life on the road ain't easy.

For a big yellow bird, a count, a grouchy man, a couple of aliens, two contentious roommates and a rubber duckie, it might seem a little, well, displeasing.

But come showtime you'd never suspect. When the curtain rises, they are undoubtedly "the people in your neighborhood."

"They feel like old friends to you," said Tom Lieberman, creative director for Sesame Street Live "Out of This World!" being presented Thursday through Sunday at the Cox Pavilion by VEE Corporation.

In the musical stage production, written by Annie Evans, a staff writer for the TSesame Street" television series, Martians are stuck on Sesame Street trying to return to space. While there, characters explore similarities of Earthlings living on completely different areas of the planet.

Audiences are taken to Sesame Streets throughout the world, including the the Russian Sesame Street show, "Ulitsa Sesame," and the South African Sesame Street show, "Takalami Sesame."

"We learn different words in different languages," Lieberman said. "The theme of this show is that we are all on Earth together and that we are a family of friends living on the same planet.

"It's a message of global understanding. We feel that's a good lesson these days."

Sesame Street Live began touring in September 1980 in Minneapolis. The production features all the familiar characters of the television show: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar, the Count, Elmo, Cookie Monster and Grover.

The Emmy Award-winning educational television program premiered on public television in November 1969. It is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year and is broadcast in 148 countries.

Unlike the television show, the stage production, where the characters (actors in costumes) sing and dance, allows audiences to see some leg.

"Even Oscar has a leg moment," Lieberman said. "Oscar emerges and walks out of the can."

Creating the characters to scale and ensuring that cast members don't overheat in the costumes was probably the greatest challenge in creating Sesame Street Live productions, Lieberman said. But for audiences, it's worth the effort.

"With television, although it feels like they're speaking live to you, they're not," Lieberman said. "When you get into an arena or theater, you are breathing the same air as them. There's a certain electricity you get that you don't get on television."

Lieberman, a veteran writer, producer and director who worked 10 years with Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion," even wrote a song for the show.

The storyline, however, was tackled by Evans.

"She knows so well the education curriculum the show is trying to promote, the background of characters, their motivations," Lieberman said.

"She knows the characters inside and out -- literally."