Imago Theatre’s ‘Frogz’ Brings Fanciful Creatures to Eisenhower Feb. 6

Imago Theatre’s “Frogz” treats family audiences to human-sized sloths, escaped penguins, finicky frogs, red-eyed reptiles and other fanciful things.

Five agile performers —aided by a menagerie of ingenious masks, outrageous costumes and original music — will conjure a carnival of the absurd at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6, in Penn State’s Eisenhower Auditorium.

“With just enough variety, an occasional good-natured excursion into the audience and the kind of occasional menace that not even children take seriously, ‘Frogz’ knows how to entertain,” wrote a New York Times critic. “Theater like this opens the eyes to the possibilities of exploration in the vast realm of imagination.”

“Frogz” unfolds in a series of hopping, jiggling, undulating, waddling and slithering vignettes.

Imago has performed the show in two runs on Broadway, at venues around the world and on national television.

The production is the brainchild of Carol Triffle and Jerry Mouawad, Imago’s founders who trained in a mixture of theater, movement and visual arts pioneered by Jacques Lecoq in Paris. The company, based in Portland, Ore., started in 1979 as a mask troupe touring small communities in the Pacific Northwest.

Kids Connections, which is free for ticket holders and includes a craft-centered, child-friendly activity provided by Shaver’s Creek, takes place in Eisenhower one hour before the performance. Due to space and time restrictions, Kids Connections participation is limited.

You can buy tickets online at www.cpa.psu.edu or by phone at (814) 863-0255. Outside the calling area, dial (800) ARTS-TIX. Tickets are also available at four State College locations: Eisenhower Auditorium (weekdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Penn State Downtown Theatre Center (weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.), HUB-Robeson Center Information Desk (weekdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Bryce Jordan Center (weekdays, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.).