© 2025 WGLT
A public service of Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

All aboard! 'The Conductors' takes little passengers on a big journey

Kids and caregivers enjoying a performance of "The Conductors"
Eric Moore
/
Courtesy
Kids and caregivers enjoying a performance of The Conductors, which is coming to Bloomington-Normal on Tuesday.

Anyone who’s ever tried to keep a child quietly confined to their seat during a theater performance knows it’s a losing proposition. Kids are squirmy. And they have questions about the world around them that must be answered. Immediately. They laugh, they cry, they announce their boredom or immediate need for the restroom. All without any of the filter that ego imposes on the id.

So how are you supposed to keep a kid seated and silent for a play?

Simple, said Ashley Laverty. You’re not.

“We’re a shush-free zone,” Laverty explained of The Conductors, an interactive theater experience designed for children up to the age of 6 that's coming to Bloomington-Normal on Tuesday.

Chairs aren’t even a thing during the performances, which invite kids to move around the world of the play as they see fit.

“You can engage however you want,” Laverty said. “And sometimes that might even mean leaving or standing in the back. And that’s OK, too.” But for the most part, she said, kids are really excited to find out they’re participants, rather than just spectators.

Laverty is the founding artistic director of Kerfuffle, a Midwest-based theater and dance group that creates performances for young audiences. The Conductors, which Laverty directs, is billed as a celebration of community, friendship, and new experiences, all made possible with the help of a magic train.

But the production itself is happening thanks to a very real train that will deliver the cast and crew to Normal’s Uptown Station.

The Conductors is a co-production of Kerfuffle and The Connecting Routes Project, a Chicago-based theater group that travels the country by rail. Josh Bernaski, the founding artistic director of the project, was inspired by classic American theater programs and vaudeville artists who used to travel by train to communities across the country.

Beyond celebrating the connection trains have to the past, Bernaski also had an eye on the future.

“I wanted to bring attention to the incredible resource that trains are for our country,” he said. “And how traveling by train is one cleaner way of transportation.”

In collaboration with Illinois Art Station, two performances of The Conductors will be offered in Bloomington-Normal on Tuesday, June 4. The first will be held outdoors at 10 a.m. at the Connie Link Amphitheatre in Normal. A second indoor performance will kick off at 2 p.m. at the Bloomington Public Library. Admission for kids and their grownups is free.

Sarah Nardi was a correspondent at WGLT. She left the station in 2024.