Where-To-Go Wednesday - Lucy the Elephant and Literally Alive Theatre's Beauty and the Beast

What: Lucy the Elephant

Where: 9200 Atlantic Avenue

             Margate, NJ

Who: All ages

Mom's view: If you are in the vicinity of Margate, New Jersey,(Margate is about five miles away from Atlantic City) and you want to do something fun that doesn't take a lot of time, visit Lucy the Elephant. Lucy is not actually a live elephant but she is a building shaped like a giant elephant. She was build by James Lafferty in the 1900's because he wanted to attract buyers to the properties he was selling. Since then, she has become a historic landmark. Visiting Lucy is fun for everyone.Young children will love to see the giant elephant and climb up inside her. Older children and adults will enjoy learning about her history. Lucy is small inside but not claustrophobically small. To control crowd size and keep her from becoming claustrophobically small, guided tours are given every 30 minutes. You do have to take one of the tours to go inside Lucy. However, once you are inside, you are free to explore on your own. Inside Lucy, aside from the view, you will find historic artifacts and elephant artworks along with clippings regarding Lucy's history. You will also be shown a video about her history.  Lucy is six stories tall, and does not have an elevator. Accordingly,if you don't like narrow windy stairs and/or if you are unable to climb narrow windy stairs, you may want to rethink a visit to Lucy unless you only want to view her from the ground, and you don't actually want to go up inside .Lucy is open year round Wednesday-Friday 11:00 -4:00 and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 5:00. She is closed Monday and Tuesday. For more information go to http://www.lucytheelephant.org/

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We were given free tickets to Literally Alive Theatre's Beauty and the Beast for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own based on our experience.

What: Beauty and the Beast

Where: Player's Theatre

              115 MacDougal

              New York, NY

When: Now through April 26, 2016

Who: All ages

Mom's view: Beauty and the Beast is truly one of literally alive theatre's best productions. The songs are mostly fun especially My Ship Has Come In, Two of a Kind and Unbelievable. The cast are well chosen for their roles. Kaitlyn Baldwin's Beauty is just the right mix of kindheartedness and toughness. Jonathon Rion Bethea's Beast is just scary enough without being too scary for the little ones. He is equally adept at playing the Beast's softer side.  It was surprising to see Eric Fletcher in the role of Beauty's adoring father. Although,  he is good in the role, it is unusual to see him in such a serious role. His comical portrayals of one or another famous fairy tale character is often one of the highlights of Literally Alive shows.  However, this show is still full of laughs with Rebecca Pomerantz and Heather Cadarette as Beauty's annoying sisters providing plenty of comic relief. If you go to the show don't expect to see the Disney version of the story. Literally Alive productions are based on the original version's of classic fairytales. Although often this makes them a lot darker in tone, that is not the case here. This version of Beauty and the Beast is still light and happy over all, and does end happily. For more information go to http://literallyalive.com/shows/beauty.html, To order tickets go to https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/953649.

And that's Mom's view. Tune in to tomorrow's Talking Topics post for more about Lucy the Elephant and Beauty and the Beast.