"The Fabulous Fable Factory" by Joseph Robinette is a work children's theater.
             An individual unfamiliar with this genre of theater might simply assume a work of
             children's theater to be a dumbed-down version of adult theater. This might be
             particularly the case in terms of "The Fabulous Fable Factory," when such an
             individual heard that the narrative of the play was one in which Aesop's fables
             were retold in a modern context. However, the use of a fable-like structure for
             this work of children's theater is actually a brilliant, creative, and
             strikingly interactive choice of a plot. Fables by their very nature are
             interactive tales, where the reader, or in this case, the audience member,
             is asked to become part of the story of the tale, passing judgment upon the
             actions of the character and engaging in an active learning process. This
             interactive process is truly what is at the heart of children's theater.
             The acting of the play is extremely presentational. Rather than
             attempting to embody the character in a Method' sense, the actors present
             their stock characters in a very self-conscious way, asking the audience to
             pass judgment upon them. The play is set in an abandoned factory where the
             factory's machinery, an assembly line of different individuals, come to
             life to enact fabulous fables. The set design of the factory is also not
             realistic, but encourages the audience to use its collective imagination to
             create a factory environment, and to invest importance in the stories told,
             and the fictional conceit that there can be such a thing as a factory of
             stories. Thus the set design supports the direction of the actors, the
             acting, and the narrative of the story.
             But the striking things about witnessing this play, as typical of
             children's theater in general, is the way the audience is encouraged, not
             to sit in silence, but to become part of the play in action and to act...