Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience is a kid’s show with a message for everyone.

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience is a musical parable about individuality that will have you laughing loudly while thinking deeply. Playing through March 30 at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the script may seem a heavy lift for a children’s play, but its message will resonate with everyone.

Now, just picture grown-ass adults in padded flesh-toned onesies to suggest chubby rats in their birthday suits. Sporting rat tails, the six-member cast scampers around stage in multiple musical numbers with bawdy delight. They are a happy lot, singing and dancing in simplistic bliss — that is until Wilbur the rebel rat upsets the status quo.

A UCCS Theatre Arts student and FAC newcomer, Andre Jones Jr. is both whimsical and thoughtful in his portrayal of the naive Wilbur. Not content to look like everyone else, he has discovered a love for clothes and fashion. This doesn’t fly with the colony and unrest ensues.

Based on the children’s book by Mo Willems, Wilbur spars with his rodent pals who proclaim, “We can’t handle such a scandal, think of all you imperil by donning apparel.” Wilbur and his rodent pals rock and roll their way through the story with grandiose antics and impressive choreography in their humorously clunky costumes.

From left: Andre Jones, Jr., Debbie Kagy, Isaiah Culling and Rhianna DeVries. Photo: Isaiah Downing

Big show on a small stage

No sense is left unsatiated in this big show on a small stage. Lights, sound and set align like planets to swiftly transport the audience into the rat’s tunnel. Creative illumination pairs with pitch-perfect sounds to shift scenes and moods. No space is wasted, no scene dispensable, no character without an imaginative line, expression or subtle gesture. Under the capable direction of Jenna Moll Reyes, stagecraft and actors synch to create a magically meaningful 60-minute fable.

Young patrons were half the audience during Naked Mole’s opening night. The wee ones are invited to sit on mats inches from the stage and cannot help but come to their feet periodically. They sing along, dance and even advise a conflicted Wilbur as the story comes up close and personal with its message.

Isaiah Culling (Venti) is a gentle giant of an actor who leans into children’s theatre with credible vibrato. He recently appeared in FAC’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and The Snowflakey Princess at the Millibo Art Theatre. And no actor rocks the onesie quite like Culling!

Rounding out Culling’s snarky rat pack are FAC newbie Debbie Kagy and Rhianna DeVries with numerous regional credits in acting, directing and producing. With Culling often comically towering between them, the trio are an agile ensemble of all smiles as they stomp the stage with their larger-than-life rat personas.

A Colorado Springs native and local Realtor, Stephen Turner plays the colony’s cranky patriarch, Grand-Pah Stark. Turner has made the stage his avocation for 25+ years, most recently performing in the FAC’s holiday show The Little Mermaid. He carries his rich lines and character’s physicality with gusto as both wise and a wise cracker.

An FAC performance veteran and teaching artist with the Colorado Springs Conservatory, Tracy Nicole-Taylor shows her versatility with multiple mole roles in the show. She skillfully switches from the colony’s reporter stage left to an elusive secret service agent protecting the colony’s patriarch.

While Mole Rats is a kids’ show filled with fun and energy, there’s plenty to dig into for the older crowd. After all, we’re all navigating life’s playground to hone tolerance and acceptance — especially in such divided times.