Duo Shifts Folk Tales From Shelf to Stage at Libraries

There’s a phenomenon, in the tradition of the American theater, known as the “out-of-town tryout,” whereby a play has a trial run away from the area where it will have its main performance.

The local actor-producer team of Lorrie Oshatz and Royce Herron, whose production of ethnic folk tales called “A Story Circus” may be seen at several Los Angeles Public Library branches in the Valley this weekend, have their own way of “trying out” shows.

At a certain point during the duo’s recent rehearsals, Herron, a mother of two grown children, turned to Oshatz, a mother of three youngsters, and said, “OK, I think it’s ready for your kids [to see].”

Oshatz says of her little critics, ages 5, 7 and 10, “They can be tough!” They can also be useful. Recently, Oshatz says her 7-year-old son suggested that a certain slapstick scene would be funnier if she turned the prop horn around and tried “to play it the wrong way.” Now the shtick always gets a laugh.

“Children are extremely sharp,” Oshatz said of the elementary school-age kids who come to the shows at the libraries or when they are staged at local schools. “Some stuff goes right over the adults’ heads, but kids get it--especially when we do a story in rap.”

Nevertheless, Oshatz reports, “Parents come up and say afterward, ‘I enjoyed it as much as the kids.’ And my reply is that you’re supposed to. It’s for people.”

Herron is a 30-year veteran of theater and screen acting and appears as Miss Appleby, the teacher in the TV show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” Oshatz, who founded Flights of Fantasy Story Theater nearly three years ago, is a playwright and makes short films. This summer the duo has been performing as many as two free shows a day at libraries around the Valley and Los Angeles, courtesy of a grant to the L.A. Public Library from United Airlines.

In the fall, they will resume performing at local schools.

The stories in the shows are linked to the folk heritage of the kids in the audience--Latino, Chinese, Armenian, etc. “We perform in English. But because we’re so visual, all the kids can get it,” Oshatz says.

Another, rather poignant, aspect of the performances is that kids often don’t want to leave the library or school multipurpose room when the performance is over. “They hang around to watch us take the set down. And they want to touch the props,” Oshatz says.

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BE THERE

Flights of Fantasy Story Theater presents “A Story Circus” at several Valley branches of the Los Angeles Public Library: today at 12:30 p.m. at Studio City Branch, 4400 Babcock Ave.; Saturday at 1 p.m. at Encino-Tarzana Branch, 18231 Ventura Blvd.; and Aug. 9 at 2 p.m. at Van Nuys Branch, 6250 Sylmar Ave. Call local branches for show dates through August.