Location: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire
Phone: 847-634-0200
Dates: February 28-May 4, 2014
See the full schedule on the Marriott Theatre website.
Performances are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, & Sundays (except March 20-30 and April 20). All performances are at 10:00 am.
Admission: $15 a ticket. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, or online through Ticketmaster for an additional fee.
Parking: There is free parking in the attached lot.
Bathrooms: There are public bathrooms with changing tables. In the bathroom we were in, the changing table was above the sinks, making it difficult to use if the bathroom is crowded. The sinks and soap were too high for Dexter to reach so he had to be lifted up.
Nursing: There is no designated nursing area.
Handicapped/stroller accessibility: The theatre is handicapped accessible. I would not bring a stroller if it could be avoided.
Food: There is no food available at the show. There are restaurants in the attached Marriott Resort.
We paid: We received four complimentary tickets to the performance. Our tickets would have cost $60 for our family to attend.
Our experience:
Schoolhouse Rock! was an animated series of educational musical numbers to teach children about science, civics, math, grammar, and history that aired in the 70s and 80s.
The Marriott Theatre’s performance of Schoolhouse Rock Live tells the story of a new teacher anxious about his first day. Five friends come along to help Tom, the new teacher, prepare for school. To do this, they remind him – through musical numbers – of all the fun things he’ll be teaching the children.
It was fun hearing familiar songs like Conjunction Junction and Just A Bill. I was concerned that the kids would be too young for a lot of the concepts (conjunctions, multiplication, etc), and that they might not be interested, but that wasn’t a problem.
The costumes are really colorful and reminiscent of the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoon and the actors are really animated. The props were simple, but worked well in the show. The singing and choreography was very impressive and really kept the kids’ attention.
Amazingly, even 15-month-old Campbell was entertained enough to sit quietly in his chair for a full 45 minutes before he got a little antsy.
In addition to Conjunction Junction and Just A Bill, they also performed Three Is A Magic Number; The Preamble; Lolly, Lolly, Lolly, Get You’re Adverbs Here; Sufferin’ Till Sufferage; Interjections; Interplanet Janet; and many more. The songs were catchy, but not quite enough that the kids learned them (not that I’m complaining about that).
We all enjoyed the show and Cooper declared it to be the best show of the shows we’ve seen at the Marriott Theatre. The kids have requested to watch Schoolhouse Rock videos since the show and although I think they’re still a little young to understand most of the concepts right now, I like that they’ll be familiar to them when they’re a little older.