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Wear your yellow and blue to go see Splash 'N Boots

Canadian children's musical duo visits Sudbury Oct. 7

Taes Leavitt of the Canadian children's musical duo Splash 'N Boots said it's the absolute honesty of kids that she loves.

“People say 'Oh it must be easy performing for kids,'” said Leavitt, a.k.a. Boots.

“For me, the thought of performing for adults is the scariest thing in the world. I really love kids' honesty and their ability to be in the moment. You never know what they're going to come up with — their dance moves, or what they say.”

Splash 'N Boots — which visits Laurentian University's Fraser Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 7 — started in 2003 when Leavitt was taking a children's theatre class at Queen's University in Kingston. 

She and classmate Nick Adams (a.k.a. Splash) put on a kids' show at the library for their class project. 

“After that, we were like 'Why would we do anything else ever?'” said Leavitt, who counts veteran children's entertainers Sharon, Lois and Bram, Fred Penner and The Wiggles among her role models.

“I remember when we first started out, I said 'We need to be like the Wiggles.' We went to a Wiggles show in Toronto and sat at the very back without children just to do some research.”

Splash 'N Boots started off performing at children's birthday parties and gradually started playing larger venues and recording albums (they've released nine to date).

A year and a half ago, Splash 'N Boots finally got its own Treehouse TV show, Big Yellow Boot.

“We kind of just kept going back to Treehouse every year, for eight years,” Leavitt said.

“We'd be like 'Do you want us now? How about now?' So it was a lot of persistence. It totally is a dream come true to be able to have that kind of a reach. And also filming is really fun.”

For the show's pilot, Fred Penner lent his star power to Splash 'N Boots, playing their next door neighbour that helps them fix a leak in the boot.

“I think Canada has such a good history of children's entertainers who are real and genuine,” Leavitt said.

Splash 'N Boots is currently crossing the country as part of its Big Yellow Boot Tour. Expect to see the whole gang from the TV show on stage, including Keys the piano and Charlie the puppy.

“We're really excited to come to Sudbury,” said Leavitt. “We're looking forward to coming to the show. We always encourage families to wear their yellow and blue. We have opportunities for pictures in the lobby.”

Tickets, which cost $28.25 each, are available through the Sudbury Theatre Centre box office. Visit SudburyTheatre.ca.


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Heidi Ulrichsen

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