'Dragon Tales' fires up the senses

The show offers a spectacular feast for the eyes.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YOUNGSTOWN -- The PBS children's favorite "Dragon Tales" has come to Powers Auditorium, and it is guaranteed to bring not only smiles, but also oohs and ahs to everyone, no matter what their age. The characters are lovable for the little ones, and the sound and light effects are awesome. The show is produced by Vee Corporation, also known for production of "Sesame Street Live."
This show, "Missing Music Mystery," features brother and sister Emmy and Max, who traveled with their friends Cassie, Ord, Zak and Wheezie to Dragon Land to hear the Singing Springs concert, but the singing stops and suddenly all the music goes missing. They think Mr. Pop might have caught it in his sound catcher, but he says someone has taken it. So off they go to search for Mr. Pop's missing sound catcher and restore the music to Dragon Land.
Looks great
The show is a nonstop visual feast. The set is exquisite: stars of lime green, turquoise blue and fuchsia glow atop the beautiful curtains, cut like lush foliage, sometimes in rich green, sometimes bronze, with big magenta flowers. The whole room seemed to always be in animation -- lights twinkling, colors changing, many different sets and backdrops.
The most luscious scene was the black-light dance in the Dandelion Forest. Multilayered curtains of the deepest blues and purples hung to give the appearance of depth, as dancers in purple-black filmy costumes, with huge neon yellow leaves, and hats that looked like blossoms just starting to open, sang and danced a triballike tune called "Hum." Crickets chirped and eyes of forest creatures and plants blinked in the background.
The two kids, Max and Emmy, in this case played by a real brother and sister team, were nonstop energy. One of the neatest things was watching them ride their flying dragon friends, Cassie and Ord, who literally floated on stage through their misty mythical land, bobbing like rides on a carousel as they all sang "Hi Flyin' Friends." Cassie and Ord each have fears to overcome, and whenever they do, their dragon badges glow in reward, as lights burst through the stage and audience.
Mr. Pop's trumpet-shaped sound catcher can suck up any sound, including the Giant of Nod's yawns. Bubbles of white lights whooshed across the room and appeared to enter its bell whenever Mr. Pop decided to steal a sound.
The Singing Springs was like a huge, ornate fountain, which not only poured forth music that sounded like an orchestra of harps and organ, but also spewed out bubbles that glistened like tiny rainbows reflecting in the lights.
Solving the problem
When the music suddenly stopped, the group decided to consult the wise Quetzal, who helped them discover their own abilities to solve the problem and come up with the right answer. Not that any of these dragons were small -- they all towered over the two children -- but this guy was huge, an enormous yellow reptile with a Mexican accent, who sat in an even bigger chair overseeing the youngsters like a loving grandfather and tapped his hand as they all sang "Betcha Can."
Act 2 begins with the friends going to ask Princess Kidoodle for her help in finding the sound catcher. The tiny gate to the land of the Doodle Fairies grew and grew and grew when they all said the right rhyme. The Princess gave them a clue, and they set off on their adventures.
In all, the show was just plain fun, and the performance was flawless and professional.
X"Missing Music Mystery" continues today at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. For tickets, call the Powers box office at (330) 744-0264 or Ticketmaster at (330) 747-1212 or www.ticketmaster.com.