All Aboard for Fun

To you, he's just a big smiling train. But, to your kids, he's a steam-spewing, track-traveling, locomoted rock star.

And when Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends chug into Las Vegas this weekend for five live performances at Cox Pavilion, Thomas-loving kids and their parents both will have a chance to reconnect with their inner conductor.

"Thomas & Friends Live! On Stage: A Circus Comes to Town" features characters created by the Rev. W. Awdry for a series of children's books that later became the basis for a popular series of TV programs in the United Kingdom, the United States and worldwide.

Jenn Rapp, the choreographer and co-director of this weekend's live show, has been crafting stage extravaganzas featuring high-profile children's characters for about 10 years, and calls it "a fun job."

"For me, the most exciting part of it is that this (young) audience is so excited to have an experience like this," she says.

Transforming the animated Thomas stories into a life-sized live theatrical production was "an interesting challenge," Rapp says, beginning with finding a way to bring the characters to the stage so that "kids really felt they were meeting Thomas."

To augment the production's live actors -- the show's roster of characters includes Sir Topham Hatt, the stories' "director of the railway," who even sings in this production -- the show features 10-by-10-foot drive-around vehicles equipped with steam bursts and movable faces.

The 90-minute show also features 26 songs incorporated into a story line that involves the railroad engines and people of Awdry's fictional Island of Sodor preparing for the arrival of the circus.

The circus and circus characters add "a colorful, theatrical element" to the show, Rapp notes. "You have to compete with these giant trains onstage, which is no small task for human actors, to bring some theatricality to it."

"It's a really fun show," Rapp adds, and one that's designed to encourage participation by kids in the audience.

"It's a totally interactive experience," she says. "We get them clapping along with us. To call for Thomas, they use their arms to pull an imaginary whistle, and move their arms around to make the wheels go around and around.

"It's certainly not a polite, sit down, watch-and-clap-at-the-end-of-the-song audience. We want to make them feel part of the action."

Rapp -- whose credits include acting, directing and choreographing stage shows featuring such notables as SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and Scooby Doo -- enjoys watching audiences respond to the show. Parents "have as much fun watching their kids watching the show and getting to do the actions," she says.

"It's like a rock concert for kids. It's the Beatles. They go crazy when they see Thomas. They go wild," Rapp says. "And the best part is getting to witness it. That's sort of special."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.