Seven Days: Vermont's Independent Voice

Sharpest Crayon in the Box

Crayola may look at the drawings of Harold and the Purple Crayon’s kid protagonist and see only the color — “purple pizzazz,” they’d identify it — but audience members are more apt to get lost in the story. It’s not hard to; the plot, based on the picture books of children’s author Crockett Johnson, follows an imaginative young boy as he draws himself into an enchanted garden, a circus tent and more. Harold’s journeys — composed of “simple lines to illustrate sweet stories,” notes NPR — get an extra dose of magic from traveling nonprofit arts organization Enchantment Theatre Company. Life-sized puppets, masked actors and large-scale digital animation translate the tales from the page to the stage. And you don’t still have to play with crayons to go. ETC’s productions “mix mime and dance into a stylized ballet of color and sound that entrances both the kids and their adult companions,” says Philadelphia Weekly.