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The Mall at Stonecrest is ready to celebrate the back to school season with puppeteer Peter Linz with special guest “Theo” from Between the Lions on Saturday, August 14th at the 2010 Family Back to School Expo. Live shows at 12:30, 2:00 and 3:30 p.m. Meet "Theo" up close and personal after each live show.
Peter Linz, a native of Georgia, who is the puppeteer behind the popular character “Theo” on the hit PBS show Between the Lions began puppeteering at the age of three. He entertained his first audience (a group of birthday party-goers) at the age of 8 and was bitten by the Muppet bug at age 10. He went on to graduate with a BA in Psychology from the University of Georgia.
Like many successful Muppet performers Linz has served and continues to serve a term of duty on Sesame Street, performing numerous characters over the course of 17 seasons. His best-known characters, however, emerged on the successful Disney Channel preschool program Bear in the Big Blue House in the form of a nervous mouse named Tutter and a playful otter named Pip.
Linz has also created and led workshops in television puppetry under the auspices of the Jim Henson Company in Germany, China, Mexico and the United States. Linz has had great success outside of the Henson universe as well, performing in popular children's series such as Between the Lions, Puzzle Place, Blue's Room, The Book of Pooh, Cousin Skeeter, It's a Big, Big World, and the PBS series, Lomax - The Hound of Music, in which he performs the title character.
Linz performed on the stage in the Tony award-winning Broadway musical Avenue Q from 2003-2005 as puppet captain, ensemble member and understudy for Princeton, Rod, Brian, Nicky, Trekkie Monster, and Bad Idea Bear #1.
Between the Lions features Theo, Cleo, Lionel and Leona - a family of lions - run a magical library where characters pop out of books, vowels sing and words take on a life of their own. The series combines puppetry, animation and live action to help young children learn to read. The series is geared toward children 4 to 7 years old that dramatize the benefits of reading, show that learning to read and spell can be a struggle, but a worthwhile one. In addition, the show emphasizes that there are many reasons to write and introduces new vocabulary words and their meanings.
Between the Lions gives young viewers a chance to have meaningful and manageable reading experiences by using key words in simple, decodable, connected text onscreen. The program also reinforces high-frequency "sight" words to help children become more comfortable with reading.
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