One of the toughest things about bringing an autistic child out in public (or any small child for that matter) is their inability to sit still for a movie or theatrical performance. Music Station is a fairly new business in the space formerly occupied by World Folk Music Company at 1808 West 103rd Street in Beverly. I received a Facebook message from an old friend about bringing my boys to a Yo Gabba Gabba puppet show at Music Station. Usually bringing my boys anywhere from the Beverly Arts Center to the Shedd Aquarium is a fiasco, but I decided to bring my 5-year-old, figuring the $5 adult/$3 child admission wouldn’t be much of a loss if we had to leave after 10 minutes.
What a pleasant surprise! The show was a perfect experience for my son. There was a lot of audience participation – the kids were given big toothbrushes to brush the teeth of the characters, combs to brush their hair, sponges on sticks to give the characters a bath – very sensory. The kids were not forbidden, but encouraged, to run up and down the aisles during the show. There were balloons and beach balls being volleyed around the whole time and no one gave me a dirty look when my son crawled under several seats to get a wayward balloon. The length was perfect, about an hour.
