That old saw about all that’s old being new again might be currently meeting its most extreme example on the stage of Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre Company.
For there’s nothing much older than dinosaurs, the beasts that roamed the Earth and flew above it as late as 66 million years ago before an enormous asteroid blasted into the Earth, the resulting cataclysm wiping out the lot of them, according to the most commonly held scientific theory.
Lizzie Burder, left, as Miranda, with puppeteers in “Dinosaur World Live,” a touring production from England’s Nicoll Entertainment that runs at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis through April 5, 2026. It features a young paleontologist exploring the world of dinosaurs, which are portrayed with life-size puppetry. (Glen Stubbe / Children’s Theatre Company)
But those ancient animals are making a comeback courtesy of an English theater company called Nicoll Entertainment. It created “Dinosaur World Live” in 2017, and it became popular enough to secure a spot in London’s West End (their Broadway) for a theatrical run that ended up earning the production an Olivier Award (their Tonys) in 2024. That staging is now out on the road, stopping in most towns for a single night. But Children’s Theatre Company has invited the Englanders to stay for a month.
Based upon opening night, I can tell you that – if you know a dinosaur-obsessed child aged in the single digits – they might find this 50-minute spectacle fascinating. Just don’t expect the experience to be particularly educational, for any information the host imparts about the animals is pretty consistently drowned out by screaming children.
Speaking of old, puppetry has been around for about 3,000 years. So you could call “Dinosaur World Live” the meeting of a very old art form with some very ancient animals – or at least how they’re theorized to have looked and behaved, according to paleontologists.
Is there a plot to this theater piece? Well, sort of. Your host, Miranda, offers a back story to the project that involves her family of scientists being shipwrecked on an island off South America upon which many of the dinosaurs somehow survived to the present day.
But, from there, this basically becomes a fantastical large-scale take on a bird show at the zoo, Miranda introducing you to each of the beasts with whom she’s developed a relationship, from a hawk-sized microraptor named Orlando to a giraffatitan named Gertrude too large to fit onstage.
As your host, Lizzie Burder makes for very enjoyable company, deftly mixing child-like enthusiasm with just enough frantic dread to convince you that this whole operation could turn dangerous at any moment. And she’s great with kids, which is important, in that she plucks at least four volunteers from the audience at each performance to come up onstage and aid in soothing addled animals.
Puppeteer Georgia Wall, left, and Lizzie Burder as Miranda in “Dinosaur World Live.” (Glen Stubbe / Children’s Theatre Company)
A team of five puppeteers helps bring designer Max Humphries’ imaginative creations to life, and they are indeed impressive, their human operators at least partially visible and wholly audible. So young audience members will never be able to totally suspend their disbelief.
Yes, it’s a puppet show, albeit perhaps the largest scale one you’ll ever encounter. While most offerings in that art form start with a story and then tell it via puppetry, “Dinosaur World Live” feels far more like the puppets came first and writer-director Derek Bond threw together something like a story to justify showing them off.
So there’s no story arc and not much to learn here, but the oohs and aahs of awestruck kids might be enough to keep the adults in attendance engaged.
‘Dinosaur World Live’
When: Through April 5
Where: Children’s Theatre Company, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis
Tickets: $109-$25, available at 612-874-0400 or childrenstheatre.org
Capsule: It’s all about the eye-popping puppets.
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