Posse of Preciousness

As a medical courtesy, we provide the following advisory to everyone past puberty:

Please check your blood sugar levels and set glucose monitors at code red. Serious sweetness ahead.

So sweet, in fact, that you can spare this show the trivial labels of "cute" or "adorable" because "My Little Pony Live!" is go-for-broke, perky-to-the-max precious -- but it earns it honestly. Truly "kid-tacular" in every sense of that (invented) word, "My Little Pony Live!: The World's Biggest Tea Party" will gallop -- perhaps prance is more accurate -- into the Cox Pavilion this weekend.

Stars of stage, screen and children's unruly toy piles since 1982, the frilly fillies of the My Little Pony stable -- your youngsters know them as Pinkie Pie, Minty, Sweetberry, Rainbow Dash, Thistle Whistle, Sew-and-So, Wysteria and Rarity the Unicorn -- will romp around "Ponyville" in a 90-minute, interactive production.

The show imparts the lessons of friendship, understanding, cooperation and inclusiveness with about a dozen teaspoons of sugar to help the medicine go down. Among this cast of characters, even Mary Poppins would look like a world-weary dame.

"To do this, you have to have a certain amount of kid still in you, and I really enjoy playing for a living," says Stephanie Harmon, the choreographer who teaches the ponies how to shake their horsey-heinies.

"Kids love the massiveness of it," she says. "When it starts, you've got this scrim that's backlit and the ponies come out and it's like, 'Oh my God, they're huge and they're real and they're here and wow!' It's the biggest moment for the kids. They can participate, and it's so different from what they can see anywhere else."

Hasbro's plastic pony posse has been dazzling kids for 25 years, at one time even outselling that bastion of cute coupledom, Mattel's Barbie and Ken, while expanding their effervescent empire to animated specials, two TV series, a full-length 1986 movie (starring the voices of Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman), DVDs, online communities, collectors' clubs and conventions. They even seeped into American political discourse when, in a 2005, post-Katrina panel titled "My Little Crony," cartoonist Steve Sack depicted President Bush brushing a toy pony with false eyelashes after dismissing FEMA's Michael "You're Doing a Heckuva Job, Brownie" Brown.

On their -- what's the PG way to say this? -- "rear flanks" are colorful symbols called "cutie marks" (proper ponies don't call them tattoos). Among the show's 21-song score are such whimsical warblers as "Shake Your Cutie," "Off to Unicornia" and "Do the Squink."

" 'I'm a Little Tea Pot' is another good one, because they all know that one, and at the end of Act 1, the 'You're Cordially Invited' number is big with a lot of choreography," Harmon says. "But 'Disco Dash' in the second act is the number that probably gets the biggest response. It goes from Sew-and-So's dress shop into a big disco dance number. That's the big yell-y, scream-y one of the show, because they recognize the music and the ponies do some disco and hip-hop stuff."

Harmon primarily choreographs children's stage shows such as "The Reluctant Dragon" and "The Wizard of Oz," as well as mass-appeal projects including "Oliver!" and "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." (She also supervised the middle-age moves on "Menopause The Musical," which the "Pony" demographic won't identify with for another 40 years.)

"Children's theater can be a lot more fun to work on," she says. "It gives me a lot more freedom than working in adult theater, and children are better audiences. Kids really let you know what they think of what's going on out there on the stage. Unlike most adults, they still believe in the magic of it. It's real to them."

Granted, if you could squeeze it into a powder and pour it in a packet, "My Little Pony Live!" could elbow in on Equal and Splenda on the artificial sweetener market. Still, kids can experience a healthier, all-natural high on this live-theater sugar rush, and we can't imagine a single medical reason not to sweeten a child's soul.

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0256.