Awesome Allie: First Kid Astronaut

If your kids aren’t into pink cupcakes and tutus, chances are you skipped Vital Theatre Company’s last few productions (Pinkalicious, ). But girly frills are replaced by makeshift spaceships, orange jumpsuits and zero-gravity underwear jokes in the company’s spunky and original musical Awesome Allie: First Kid Astronaut. Allie (Dara Hartman) is a whip-smart but lonely girl who dreams of blasting out of boring old Skokie, Illinois, where “the Walmart is our only pride and joy.” She sends an SOS to outer space, where it’s intercepted by a babbling Teletubby-esque alien. Soon enough, Allie’s on a mission to Pluto, picking up a talking dog and a disco-loving Soviet cosmonaut along the way.

The cast of six is uniformly sweet-voiced and energetic, with Chris Kind getting the most laughs as an accident-prone president who walks into walls and trips over his desk. (He’s sure to remind parents of Chevy Chase’s classic Gerald Ford impersonation on Saturday Night Live.) The songs by Drew Fornarola are catchy and clever, particularly one that teaches the audience a hilarious mnemonic for learning the order of the planets (“My very educated mother just sat upon nine pizzas”). Allie does the moonwalk (no surprise there!) to another tune.

With just enough nods to the sci-fi-geek parents in the audience—the computer on Allie’s makeshift spacecraft is called PAL—Awesome Allie is a welcome choice for kids and adults who are more interested in stars than glitter.

is playing at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre through April 26.