THE EDEN VALLEY STORY (A 40TH ANNIVERSARY SERIES)
as told by Bette Lou Higgins, Artistic Director

PART 15

The Sense-Ational Circus featured two characters -- The Ringleader (basically our “scientist”) and Twenty-Twenty the clown (she wore his glasses on the back of her head because “hindsight is always twenty-twenty!)

Of course, the play revolved around the 5 senses. But the big point was that there’s always one “sense” that nobody thinks about -- the BRAIN which makes all the others work.

On working on the brain section of the play, we decided we needed to have a way to make people understand the size of the brain. So we got a mathematician to calculate the size of the brain and what that would equal in terms of length if the brain were made like a roll of toilet paper! Then we cut a ribbon the appropriate length put it on a roller and inserted it inside a skull. Twenty-Twenty would then ask the kids how long they thought the brain was. She’d get all sorts of interesting answers like “Three minutes” or “six months”! After everyone gave up, she’d tell them the exact length and then she’d pick a kid from the audience to help her show everyone how long that really was. Twenty-Twenty and her new helper would then take the skull all the way out to the lobby. She’d open the skull and the child would unwind the ribbon taking his end back to the audience. It was a great visual and people would get up to go see where Twenty-Twenty actually was. It was truly a Sense-Ational moment!

To be continued ...