"Do you like my hat?" asks the pink poodle in P.D. Eastman's 1961 children's book, Go, Dog. Go! "I do not," says the big male dog, as he looks at her flowered hat. "Good-by," she says, walking off. "Good-by," he replies.

This happens twice more, once on scooters with a feathered hat, and once on skis with a long stocking cap. The fourth time the dogs meet, the poodle is wearing a crazy party hat adorned with items like a flower pot, a mop and candy canes. "I like it!" says the boy dog. "I like that party hat!" And they drive off into the sunset together.

A few modern readers have taken issue with the idea that the female dog seems to be changing herself to try to please the male, but that's not the way Jerry Rapier sees it. "It's just an opportunity to be more fabulous," said the director, after a recent rehearsal at Salt Lake Acting Company.

The 40-year-old company is producing the 2002 musical version of "Go, Dog. Go!" as its first-ever children's production. The musical brings in MC Dog to speak most of the text in the book, including the part about not liking the hat, which lessens the atmosphere of courtship. SLAC has changed things up even more by casting the MC Dog part with a woman, Colleen Baum.

"It's hopefully about being strong enough as an individual in a group setting to not lose sight of yourself," Rapier said, adding that this is just one of the life lessons found in Go, Dog. Go! "The book really illustrates that with how the group of dogs come together, and they all have a place," he said. "Even the yellow dog, the one that there's never quite room for, but everyone makes room for him."

Jay Perry, the actor who plays Yellow Dog, said, "It seems like he's a little bit slow to get to the place that he needs to be, and everyone's already there, but he still gets invited; he still gets to be a part of everything. He doesn't feel too sorry for himself; he can still express himself with the group and perks right back up. It's a good thing for kids to see that."

Another lesson of the musical is patience. "There's one part, where the red dog [played by Dustin Bolt] gets a little impatient," Rapier said. "It shows that impatience doesn't really help the situation."

MC Dog's message is one of positivity. "If I bring up an idea, everybody's like, 'OK, yeah!' " Baum said of her character. "And I think that's a good example for little kids. We're just staying positive and making it a fun example of working together."

Baum, who's appeared in a number of SLAC productions, said she was especially excited for this one because she has a master's in theater for young audiences, and she always wants to audition for local children's plays, but can't because they're usually not Equity parts.

Another actor who's getting the opportunity to call on his educational background is Repertory Dance Theater company member Nathan Shaw, who plays Green Dog. He was a musical theater major at BYU, and his dance training helps him with the role of Green Dog, because when it comes to lines like "The green dog is up," or "A green dog is over a tree," he can do some pretty elegant leaps.

It's important to have professional children's theater, said Rapier, to fill the void left by the dissolution of Sundance Children's Theatre a few years ago. SLAC's Interim Executive Producer Nancy Borgenicht, said she decided to produce a children's play simply because she had no place to take her grandchildren to see professional theater.

The actors can relate to that; Baum said her nieces and nephews have never been able to see her act because she's usually appearing in productions with strong language. Deena Marie Manzanares is also excited that her 4-year-old cousin will get to see her onstage for the first time.

Manzanares said she's drawn plenty of inspiration from her chihuahua for her part of Blue Dog. "People are always helping her and carrying her around," Manzanares said of her character. "And she's hyper. I'm always bouncing around and wiggling. I'm very playful." One of her favorite sections is her monologue, when she wakes up alone onstage after all the other dogs have left their shared bed, and she reminisces about their adventures up to that point, acting out the other dogs' parts as she does so.

Manzanares, whose last few theater roles were women in crisis, has an alternate life acting in funny sketches on YouTube, so she's enjoying the chance to play a comedic role onstage, as well as the physicality of the role.

Manzanares' husband, David Evanoff, is the musical director and musician for the show. He said he's tried to add an extra level of interest by making his arrangements "really big, obviously bigger than the playwrights and the composer had anticipated." He added that he's trying for a "cartoony" effect with the show's jazzy, disco and pop sounds, like the Hanna-Barbera cartoons he grew up with

Rapier added, "Cartoony not in a simplistic way, but in a complex way of say, like 'Bugs Bunny,' where the music is incredibly sophisticated, so it holds the interest of more than one generation."

He hopes the 50-minute show will appeal to the adults who accompany the children in the audience, just as the original book was designed to appeal to the grown-ups who read it to kids.

"A lot of times the approach with children's theater is to think smaller because the people are smaller," said Rapier, "but in reality their ability to process information is so much greater than ours because they're coming at it without any baggage. It just is what it is, and 'I like it' or 'I don't.' It would be nice if we could all be like that."