On & Off Broadway

Sesame Street Live ‘Elmo Makes Music’

Review by Elyse Trevers

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Listen. Chances are someone, somewhere is making music. Music is everywhere. This is the lesson Jenny, the music teacher and newest resident of Sesame Street, teaches the energetic colorful band of familiar life-sized characters, including Big Bird, Abby Cadabby, Cookie and Telly Monster and of course, Elmo in Sesame Street Live at Tilles Center.

For the entirety of the sold-out performance, Jenny is waiting for her truck to deliver her instruments so she can teach everyone how to play. To pass the time, she teaches the gang and the audience how to count to the number 8 (the number of the day and notes in a scale) by singing a la do-re-mi in the Sound of Music. She tells them they can find instruments to make music anywhere, using objects around the house and even by using their voices.

Jenny gets sadder as it looks like her music truck will never arrive and the friends decide to surprise her by giving her instruments they can find a pot and spoon drum, dancing glow in the dark shoes, and, my favorite, a rubber chicken that sounds like a cow and makes ‘moosic’ in true Sesame Street fashion, Elmo and his friends welcome Jenny onto the street and into their hearts without hesitation and will stop at nothing to give her what she wants most … music.

The cast is incredibly talented and the music ranges from old favorites and sing alongs like “The People in Your Neighborhood,” “Rockin Robin,” and “The Alphabet Song” and new tunes such as “Music Means the World to Me.”

When we got home after the show, my 3-year-old companion picked up her cymbals, triangle and maracas and began to sing. Lesson learned.