Autumn Ness is ready to clown around with sound. After 23 years as a company member at Children’s Theatre Company, she’s taking a break from spouting speeches on stage and interpreting words written by others.

In fact, for her latest creation, “Babble Lab,” she’s eschewing words altogether — or at least those of any language you’ve heard before. For this 45-minute show designed for the youngest demographic of theatergoers, playwright and performer Ness is having fun as a lab-coat-clad scientist who explores sounds and then oversees a series of experiments in which letters run amok.

And fun it is, if you have a preschooler ready for their first show (or second or third). With the help of imaginative costuming and set design, “Babble Lab” is a brisk, bright bit of clowning that has a lot in common with the mostly wordless but certainly not soundless comedy of Jacques Tati and Rowan Atkinson’s “Mr. Bean.”

So it might surprise you to learn that “Babble Lab” had serious beginnings, as Ness came up with some of its earliest staging ideas while attending the hearing and perception tests that helped determine diagnoses for her two neurodivergent sons. It also leans for inspiration upon the Dada art movement that addressed the chaotic atmosphere of World War I Europe by creating new words and wild modes of performance with uniquely distinctive costuming.

Autumn Ness in the Children’s Theatre Company production of “Babble Lab,” which runs March 9-April 14, 2024 at the Minneapolis theater. (Glen Stubbe / Children’s Theatre Company)

Ness dons her own versions of the latter, courtesy of designer Annie Cady. Most memorable is the attire in which we first find her, an outfit of packing foam and headphones that broadcast outward instead of in. She opens the show by wandering the atrium outside CTC’s Cargill Stage where children and their grownups are gathered, pointing a vuvuzela-style noise maker (a plastic horn) at various walls and sending forth the sounds she detects from beyond, like traffic and toilets.

Then, like a pied piper, Ness’ scientist leads the mostly preschool-aged audience (clad in socks provided by staff in lab coats) into the theater, which feels very much like a play space for this play.

In many ways, “Babble Lab” seems a spoof of the kid-friendly “Mr. Wizard” TV science programs of yore, as our host and protagonist makes sounds with various objects — balloons, paper, keys, chattering plastic teeth — then tosses them into a canister in which they’re cooked into letters.

Some of the concoctions end up inside Ness, but she spews them out onto a screen, interacting with the projections of Jorge Cousineau in a kind of live action and cartoon combo. At one point, we’re even brought into close contact with her tonsils via a projected film.

It’s a show that’s all about imagination and, above all, clowning. And Ness proves quite skilled at it, director Sarah Agnew succeeding as a midwife for the zaniness in this comical creation, which takes place within a surrealist laboratory designed by Open Eye Theatre founder Michael Sommers.

While there are gags that will work for the accompanying adults, this is a show clearly designed for the youngest. But Ness’ earnest, often exasperated scientist has some serious clowning chops to show off. And that can be delightful for any age.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘Babble Lab’

When: Through April 14
Where: Children’s Theatre Company, 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis
Tickets: $17-$26, available at 612-874-0400 or childrenstheatre.org
Capsule: Designed for the youngest among us, it’s a fine fit for any kid who enjoys good clowning.

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A bill aimed at clarifying the kinds of force police can use in public schools passed the Minnesota Senate on Monday, but will still need a little more work before it reaches the governor’s desk.

Members of the Senate voted 57-9 to approve the bill, which is designed to address what law enforcement said was a confusing 2023 policy restricting the situations where officers can hold students face-down.

More than 40 agencies suspended their school resource officer programs last year in response to a 2023 law. Most agencies returned after Attorney General Keith Ellison issued guidance that addressed most of their concerns, but it remains one of the top issues in this legislative session.

The bill moving forward in the Legislature clarifies that police can use prone restraints in situations where physical danger warrants doing so. It directs the state’s Peace Officers Standards and Training Board to create a new set of standards for school resource officers with the input of schools and community organizations, and also prohibits school resource officers from administering school discipline.

“It provides clarity for our school resource officers regarding their role in the school and how they can best support our students,” said bill sponsor Sen. Bonnie Westlin, DFL-Plymouth. “This is a child-focused, child-centered approach to SROs within our schools and promotes a positive learning environment for all students.”

Senate GOP amendment

House Republicans joined their DFL colleagues to pass the bill last week, and while the Senate bill also had broad bipartisan support Monday, the process in that chamber was not as smooth.

Senate Republicans successfully amended the SROs bill to include the destruction of property as a justification for police to use force. And before that amendment, they tried to scrap the bill altogether and simply repeal the SROs law from last year.

“I think going back, eliminating what happened last year is the best repair but this is an improvement,” said Sen. John Jasinski, R-Faribault. “We can not take the tools away from law enforcement to keep our citizens safe.”

Since the bill was changed in the Senate to include the destruction of property factor, there’ll be more work to do before it can get to Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Tim Walz, who has said he will sign it when it reaches his desk.

The Senate will have to come together for a conference committee with the House to reconcile the difference between the bills.

Debate on SROs

Backers of this year’s SRO bill say letting police hold students face down when the situation demands helps police keep schools safe. But opponents say there’s no circumstance where officers should use prone holds, which they say are excessively dangerous as students may not be able to communicate distress.

Police groups such as the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association and the Minnesota Peace And Police Officers Association back the bill. Activist groups like the Solutions Not Suspensions Coalition remain opposed, as they don’t want a rollback of restrictions on face-down restraints.

Opponents of the bill and sympathetic DFL lawmakers have put Democrats in a position where they’ve needed GOP votes to get a bill passed. As a result, the bill has become more amicable to the interests of law enforcement.

All the no votes so far have been a handful of DFL lawmakers, including Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, who said she was “deeply uncomfortable” with the bill, which she said did not have sufficient input from disability groups and others with concerns about police force on students in schools.

“This will open people up to far more harm, particularly children in schools,” she said Monday during Senate floor debate.

Issue since last August

Republicans called for a special legislative session last fall to pass a bill to address the SROs issue, and they’ve criticized their DFL colleagues for not acting on the issue sooner. The issue first came to light in August 2023 as students prepared to return to school.

The bill could have been on its way to the governor’s desk Monday, though now there’ll be more work to do. Sen. Zach Duckworth, a Lakeville Republican who has taken the lead on the issue for his party in the Senate, says the change is necessary to make it clear police can use prone restraints in more situations.

Asked if the amendments and added steps were justified given the GOP’s complaints of how long it is taking to get a bill passed, Duckworth said there wouldn’t have been action if Republicans didn’t push on the issue in the first place.

“We can take an additional day or two to get a final product that protects our teachers kids and schools,” he said.

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