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Exhibit Review: Science Center's 'The Sky Above' is gentle trip into space
Friday, November 03, 2000 By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Correction/Clarification: (Published Nov. 4, 2000) The soundtrack for "The Sky Over Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," a planetarium show at the Carnegie Science Center, was performed by Joe Negri, Max Leake, H.B. Bennett and Paul Thomson. Yesterday's review incorrectly gave credit to staff musicians.
Can you say "constellation?" Where does the sun go at night and why you can't catch the moon?
Fred Rogers answers these questions and more as he leads his young audience beyond the city limits to a Neighborhood of Make Believe that has sprawled to include the entire universe.
"The Sky Above Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," funded by the Buhl Foundation, is a unique preschoolers' planetarium exhibit that, for the first time, recasts the popular characters of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" as virtual 3D images who shed light on what happens when it gets dark. Two years in the making, it's a production of the Carnegie Science Center and the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium and Observatory.
Don't expect to be rocketed beyond the solar system with the sophistication of other planetarium shows. Pittsburgh's CommerSel Studios contributes herky-jerky computer animation intended for an audience that is perfectly enthralled by 30-year-old hand puppets. And don't worry about charting vectors or being asked to repeat scientific terms in Latin. "The Sky Above" explores science at an early developmental level, answering questions that are vitally important to Rogers' regular TV viewers: What are those streaks in the nighttime sky? Why can't I catch the moon? Is it safe to be alone in my room when the lights go out?
Rogers wrote the text, performs the voices and appears in two short segments that bookend the 15-minute projection show, which is augmented with 10 minutes of real-life discussion by a planetarium presenter. Framed in a giant TV, everyone's favorite friendly neighbor poses questions about the sky as the Neighborhood of Make Believe segues beyond the screen and enters the Neighborhood of Digital Animation.
It's fun, even for adults, to see Rogers' familiar puppets reincarnated as interactive, three-dimensional images. Kids who've become accustomed to the 360-degree potential of high-tech video imagery will get a kick out of taking a virtual trolley ride through the Neighborhood and seeing it for the first time from a trolley's-eye point of view.
King Friday greets his planetarium guests and makes a few fundamental scientific proclamations before the show slips into a story line in which X the Owl, Henrietta Pussycat, Daniel Striped Tiger and the royal family head out to the 'burbs to watch an animated Lady Elaine trying to catch the moon with a fish hook. Theme music performed by Joe Negri, Max Leake, H.B. Bennett and Paul Thomson provides a familiar context.
Following the "Neighborhood" tradition, "The Sky Above" encourages children to ask questions and be open to all possibilities, no matter how strange and complicated the world might seem. Equally important, it offers parents and guardians some guidance on how to provide small, accessible answers to big, complex questions.
Next year, "The Sky Above Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" hits the road for a worldwide planetarium tour.
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WHERE: Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium and Observatory, Carnegie Science Center, North Side.