DOOR PRIZE Kids find surprises on the Wall of Doors and Drawers at Spertus’s new children’s center.
Photo: Dawn E. Roscoe
Someone involved in local theater isn’t the first person you’d think a museum would contact for help designing a massive new children’s center. But Jim Lasko, the artistic director of Redmoon Theater who’s made a name for himself crafting large-scale public-performance spectacles, isn’t your typical local theater-type.
That’s exactly why Rhoda Rosen, director of the Spertus Museum at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies (610 S Michigan Ave, 312-322-1700), wanted Lasko to oversee the creation of the new 2,500-square-foot Joyce and Avrum Gray & Family Children’s Center that opens to the public on Sunday 26. A longtime fan of Lasko’s work directing performances in public spaces, including outdoor Halloween and winter pageants featuring puppetry, dancing and multimedia art, Rosen says the partnership seemed obvious. “Jim’s aesthetic vision inspires wonder,” she says. “Our approach to learning and our commitment to telling stories made it seem natural to turn to him.”
Lasko was surprised to be asked to work on the project—the final component of Spertus’s new center, the rest of which opened in November 2007. He had no experience creating anything specifically aimed at kids and—though raised in a Jewish family—was never particularly observant. But after giving it some thought, he realized he might in fact be a good fit for the job because of his experience inspiring the collective imagination of all-ages audiences.
“[Redmoon’s] outdoor spectacles were about creating a fertile environment for the imagination,” Lasko says. “And creating an exhibit is about opening up space physically but also opening up people’s minds.”
The goal for the new center, which is aimed at kids ages 2 through 12 and includes a parent-teacher resource room, art workshop and multimedia space in addition to permanent installations, is to present Jewish culture in a way that has universal appeal. “We want to extend our outreach to families, who for the most part, have found it difficult to visit the museum,” Rosen says. “Rather than [offering] a particular understanding of the Jewish experience, [our goal is to provide] invitations to learn with the help of things like space, shape, texture and juxtapositions of objects.”
Lasko researched the mystical traditions of Judaism for inspiration, and came across a myth explaining that God created the alphabet. He says he was inspired to use that as the underlying theme for the space. “According to the story, when humankind manipulates the alphabet into all its permutations through words and sentences and stories, the world will be perfected,” he says. “So we [designed the space to give visitors] different ways to look at letters.” Though the English alphabet is the focus, some Hebrew characters are displayed.
Highlights of the permanent exhibits include a doughnut-shaped aquarium that kids get to the middle of by climbing through tunnels. Once there, they can watch fish and hear stories based on water-themed Jewish folktales. In the “Big Block Video” area, inspired by another tale, children choose a block with a letter printed on it and then place it in front of the video screen. A film of a Redmoon actor portraying that letter and appealing to God to be the first in the alphabet appears on the screen.
The setting also integrates aspects of nature in its backdrop, with hills and an actual running stream incorporated into the space. “I wanted children to be able to play,” Lasko says. “I had a lot of energy when I was growing up and wasn’t allowed to release it in museums.”