Packed house for first show of the season presented by Kids Kaleidoscope Entertainment Series

Tim Brody - Editor

It was a full house on Oct. 18 at the Sioux Mountain Public School gymnasium with more than 100 people attending the first show of the season presented by the Kids Kaleidoscope Entertainment Series. 
Carousel Players, Based out of St. Catharines, Ontario, delighted audience members both young and young at heart with their production of Pop! Pop!
The performance, set in an undersea environment, followed the adventures of Hide and Seek, who included the audience as they discovered the wonders around them.
Carousel Players describes the show on their website (https://carouselplayers.com/), “Two characters who are very different from each other are exploring a strange new world and finding surprises in this colourful sensory experience. One instinctively hides, the other instinctively seeks. “Together they find lots of surprises that pop up everywhere!
“Pop! Pop! is a performance piece with sensory experiences, live music, adorable puppets – lots of fun for children and adults alike.”
Kids Kaleidoscope Entertainment Series Chairperson Alice Gwyn shared after the show, “We were absolutely delighted by how the performance went! Thankyou Pop!Pop! for coming all the way from southern Ontario.”
She added, “Thankyou so much to all the people who came out and made the show such a success. I know the performers truly appreciated the warm Sioux Lookout welcome!”
Gwyn explained that this was the first show for the organization with a new team, “We really want to thank Dorothy Broderick for the 15 or more years that she put into Kids Kaleidoscope, and we’re grateful that Nancy McCord and Shannon Brody have stayed on to help us transition a lot of new committee members: Nicole Wooden, Ashley McLean, April Ayotte, Monique Hagen, Aileen Urquart, Mark Walton and myself.”
The evening’s performance was dedicated to the late John Stradiotto, “Our friend: a local man, teacher with Wahsa, and father of a young family who recently passed. The very last time I saw him he spoke about how much he wanted to get better to help with Kids Kaleidoscope,” Gwyn shared.
Gwyn said the Kids Kaleidoscope Committee especially appreciated the wide age range in the audience. She shared, “This was a show for very young children, and I was delighted to see how the older kids, and adults, channeled their inner child and enjoyed the performance. Thankyou!
“Kids Kaleidoscope will be aiming to put on programming for kids up to Grade 7 and we would like to make sure we put that message out there, so people don’t assume all the shows will be for such a young audience. We’ll make sure the target age range is clear on our advertising.”
Gwyn concluded, “Now we’re looking forward to the Manitoba Theater for Young People who will be coming to put on a workshop at the end of January, and we’re working hard on getting a full programme for 2025-2026. Ontario Presents is helping us learn how to do that!”