Sleeping Beauty: The Time Traveler

The Princess Who'd Rather Be a Knight

Adventure Theatre's new show takes the fairy tale everyone thinks they know and runs it through a time machine: a modern kid gets zapped back to the age of Charlemagne, where he meets a princess who has zero interest in sleeping for a hundred years and every interest in becoming a knight. It's an hour long, built specifically for ages 4 to 10, and staged in the cozy theater inside Glen Echo Park where the back row is still close enough to see the actors' faces. My kids' review of Adventure Theatre shows has been consistent for years: loud laughing during, full plot retelling in the car after.

The logistics are as kid-proof as children's theater gets. Weekend shows run at 11am and 2pm, the perfect nap-avoiding slots, and select Friday performances are pay-what-you-want starting at a dollar, which makes it the cheapest live theater in the DMV if your schedule bends that way. And the theater sits inside Glen Echo Park, so the 1921 carousel, the playground, and the picnic tables are all waiting when the curtain drops. Show plus carousel plus ice cream is a complete Saturday, door to door in about three hours.

Parent Tips 💡

• ✓Book the 11am show. Morning crowds are calmer, and you keep the afternoon for the carousel and park.
• ✓Watch for the $1 Fridays. Pay-what-you-want performances are the best theater deal in the region.
• ✓Arrive 30 minutes early. Time for the playground first and the front-row scramble after doors open.
• ✓Carousel before ice cream. Learned the hard way. Spinning after soft serve is a gamble.
• ✓Make it a Glen Echo day. Thursday concerts, weekend art studios, and the park itself round out the trip.