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FAIRBANKS — A live Sesame Street performance is more than just an opportunity to see favorite television characters on stage.

It’s “like a rock ’n’ roll concert for kids,” performer Samee Nann said. “It’s so great. The kids just go crazy.”

Nann will be the lone human on stage with all the Sesame Street favorites — Zoe, Rosita, Telly Monster, Zoe’s pet rock Rocco, Grover and of course the ever-popular Elmo — this weekend when the traveling show Elmo! Ready for Action! opens at the Carlson Center.

The show offers a new twist on one of Sesame Street’s oldest gigs: Offering educational entertainment for youth. The show calls Sesame Street’s finest to action when Super Grover loses his super powers and begs his friends to help him. Nann said the audience gets to help a little too.

“Grover starts out doing everything wrong. He isn’t sleeping, he’s not cleansing or eating correctly, so Elmo and the rest of the gang have to help get him back on track,” Nann explained, adding as the only human character in the show — the musically talented Kay — she gets to help in the process as well as assist in the song and dance element of the plot.

The process of “all the characters getting together to help find Grover’s superpowers” ends up being a lesson about the importance of eating nutritious foods, getting enough sleeping, following rules of good hygiene and exercising. Once the gang gets Grover “back on track” with those four important life tactics, his superpowers return. Nann said the concept is enjoyed by children and appreciated by parents.

“After the show I’ve had parents come up and thank me, saying things like, ‘I actually got them to brush their teeth tonight.’ They all love it,” she said.

Nann has been with the Sesame Street Live performing group since November 2005, hired shortly after her graduation from Point Park University in Pittsburgh. Feeling lucky to find a job so quickly after graduating, Nann said she was also blessed to find a job that is so much fun and so reminiscent of childhood.

“I loved Sesame Street. Who didn’t?” she said, noting her favorite character as a child was Barkley, the oversized pooch. “He was huge, horse-sized, like a dog you could ride. What little girl wouldn’t love that?”

While her talents are shared among three characters — Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch and Kay — Nann said her favorite role to play on stage is the human role of Kay.

“I feel like I’m a rock star. All of the kids look up at me, wide-eyed, in disbelief that I get to be on stage with all their favorite characters. It is amazing the reaction I get,” she said.

As a human in the show, she also gets more control and flexibility with the scenes. The costumed characters, and the puppet Oscar, are more limited because their voices are pre-recorded by the original character voice actors in New York before the show hits the road. Nann, as Kay, can be more impromptu, interact with the crowd, and enjoy more of a varied performance.

“I like to change it up with each show. I play off the crowd and just have fun with them. It is nice to have a little different show each time,” she said.

Regardless of her preferences or the “rock star” in her, Nann acknowledged most audience members have a different favorite stage presence: Elmo.

“He is very curious, he asks a lot of questions, and he really gets the kids going because when Elmo asks a question, you’re going to answer it,” she said.

While the youngsters in the crowd are at full-throttle excitement throughout the show — “They are dancing around the entire time, it is like a little mosh pit in the front, they are so into it,” Nann said — the performance is one that all ages can relate to mostly because, honestly, who doesn’t know Sesame Street?

“My mom knows it through my watching it, parents now have grown up with it, grandparents know it. It has been around for 30 years and the characters are so well known and familiar,” she said. “It really is a fun family thing.”

The Ready for Action show includes a mix of old elements fans remember from Sesame Street as well as new dances and songs. An array of popular favorites such as “Old MacDonald, “Splish Splash,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Sunny Days” are sure to bring out the rock star in everyone.

What: Sesame Street Life: Elmo! Ready for Action!

When: 7 p.m. tonight; 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 4:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Carlson Center

Admission: $16 - $31, with tickets available at the Carlson Center box office and Fred Meyer Ticketmaster, www.ticketmaster.com

Contact staff writer Erica Goff at 459-7523.