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BY PAT LINDSEY

Parents, grandparents, or anyone who can remember childhood will laugh until their cheeks ache at the premier of the new Westport Playhouse musical, “Parenting 101: A Musical Guide to Raising Parents.” It’s two hours of nonstop fun brought to you by four talented young actors from New York state: Jeff Brooks, Amanda Danskin, Lindsay Quinn and Stephen Smith. Each actor can dance and sing beautifully, but together they are a comical quartet of sheer delight.

The play begins in the delivery room and ends 26 years and 24 vignettes later with the child’s wedding. Anything about childbirth and child-rearing you tried to forget will come rushing back to you at a rapid pace as the original cast goes through multiple costume and set changes in the blink of an eye. What’s more, this show gives a whole new meaning to your favorite oldies but goodies songs from the last several decades.

Song lyrics heard in the delivery room include, “Pain, pain, pain,” to the tune of “Chain of Fools,” and another tune borrowed from “Annie, “Your son will come out tomorrow.” By the third scene, the child is being potty-trained and sings, “It’s My Potty and I’ll Try If I Want To.”

Parents in the audience will be escorted down memory lane to the days of trying to find a baby-sitter, keeping the older sibling from spoiling the Santa Claus myth for the younger child, summer vacations, trying to be ‘Super Mom,’ puberty, high school, and teenage driving. My personal favorite was the “Everything’s Better At Gramma’s” scene, which featured Jeff Brooks as the tap-dancing, cartwheeling, cookie-baking super-cool grandma.

This production was created by the sister team of Nancy and Susan Holson, who have combined their shared childhood memories with their first-hand child-rearing experiences of other parents. With the help of co-writer/director Jay Falzone, however, the show has a much broader appeal.

If you saw “Menopause the Musical” last year, you won’t want to miss, “Parenting 101.” It’s every bit as entertaining and you’ll continue laughing all the way home.

“Parenting 101” will be in St. Louis for a six-week limited engagement, Feb. 6 through March 16. Shows will run Wednesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased for $42.50 by calling 314-469-7529 or Metrotix at 314-534-1111. Discounts for groups of 10 or more can be purchased by calling 314-579-5076.

For more information,visit http://www.theplayhouseatwestport.com or http://www.parenting101themusical.com.

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