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With just 10 minutes of dialogue and the slimmest of story lines, re-creating P.D. Eastman's book "Go, Dog. Go!" as a children's play could have been a snooze. But some two years ago, when Adventure Theatre's Artistic Director Michael Bobbitt was confronted with the challenge, he knew exactly whom to call. Director Karin Abromaitis had the audacity to use puppets in her conceptual version of "Macbeth." It was obvious she was willing to take her ideas to the dog house and beyond.

Once Abromaitis read Allison Gregory and Steven Dietz's adaptation of this 1961 classic, she recalls telling Bobbitt, "You can't send me a script like this and not expect me to say yes." It was her ideal script with "nothing dictated" so the former mime, clown and movement skills specialist could "play with it."

Now, just a year and a half after its first appearance, "Go, Dog. Go!" has returned to Glen Echo Park's Adventure Theatre and is on stage through Nov. 8.

This time Abromaitis promises to ratchet up the "physicality," especially since the adaptation takes place inside a brightly colored circus tent. Selecting actors with "circus skills," the three male and three female cast members spend 50 minutes in constant motion — think a high-intensity aerobics class wearing dog costumes and floppy ears. The director readily admits this is a "hard" show to cast since the actors are required to sing, dance and have all their "movement chops" down pat, which she "exploits to the fullest."

Within the first five minutes, six brightly colored dogs manage to climb up and down, crawl under and over every possible prop, and if this isn't quite enough, they proceed to perform flips and somersaults. Pandemonium almost takes over the stage, until the show's alpha dog Emcee Dog (Matt Dewberry) steps in, blowing his kazoo and dressing down his little doggies.

Sure, real dogs don't play baseball, row a boat or drive a car, but Abromaitis makes no apologies with all the anthropomorphosis. She isn't interested in her dogs "walking on all fours."

Maybe not, but audience members might notice that the pups occasionally exhibit a few canine proclivities including scratching, shaking a stray back leg and wiggling an overly excited tail.

The pups begin their fantastic journey surrounded by streamers and an orange circus tent, but just like children, who Abromaitis likes to say "can create a universe inside a cardboard box," the canines' magical kingdom becomes much more than the Big Top. Small wooden arches transform into a seesaw, then into a lunch table, before re-emerging as zooming racecars and finally a two-tiered cake. And the square piece of sea-blue fabric one of the pups drags out of a corner easily becomes a proper tablecloth, an ocean and then a cozy blankie.

Parents can't help but see their own rambunctious brood in the six pups carrying on before collapsing into an exhausted heap. But sleepy-time lasts less than a second before the mischievous tail-waggers are back up and at it again.

Even with the peripatetic high jinks, Eastman's simple poetic language is never tossed aside like an old chew bone. When the musical was developed in 2003, the late Eastman's estate (he died in 1986) insisted that the play must only include the words and phrases used in the book. Still, the writers were given plenty of room to switch around scenes, repeat words and phrases, and even howl the author's words at the moon.

With the author parsing the language to basics, this simplicity becomes almost sublime with Emcee's first sentence: "Dog."

Favorite characters are given their due; Emcee Dog has an ongoing debate with Hattie (Mundy Spears) as she asks "Do you like my hat?" and he responds, "I do not." And then it's a quick "Goodbye" until she returns wearing yet another hat and asking the question once again.

Bobbitt admits youngsters, age 6 and older, may wish for a more defined storyline, but he has learned in his three years of running Adventure Theatre that for preschoolers, "color, sound and discovery defines theater. A linear story isn't necessary."

The play may not have needed a once-upon-a-time storyline, but the director had to be careful when evaluating what most contemporary tots understand.

"Small children don't have some [of the] reality-based experiences" that Abromaitis saw noted within the play's text. At one point, a dog throws a bucket of pretend water at another dog.

"Nowadays with Swiffers [mops], we wondered how many little kids even see buckets filled with water around the house," she said. "We are always deciding if this particular idea needs to be something they understand from a life experience or if it can work simply as visually interesting abstraction."

Abromaitis believes children understand more than we think, but she also believes it's important to be cautious at times. During one rehearsal, the dogs were driving their pretend racing car and one actor had an intense facial expression.

"I realized that faces can be scary to small children. Now I tell them to smile more," she declares.

"Go, Dog Go!" will have a traditional run, but Bobbitt is negotiating a deal to send the play and its actors across country and to Canada on a national tour — a first for Adventure Theatre.

Bobbitt considered taking "Goodbye Moon" on the road, but with so many components to the set, he decided to look at other shows, and that's when he decided on this play.

Using just one truck and a van for the actors, they hope to travel for at least nine weeks, performing in spaces with up to 1,500 seats. With some 200 children's theaters dotted throughout the U.S., theater for the tiny tots is booming.

"Parents will give up stuff for themselves, but they have to find something to do with their kids," Bobbitt concludes.

The artistic director hopes this newest venture will generate revenue and exposure for the 58-year-old theater organization.

It looks like these dogs are looking to take a bite out of our nation's children's theater.

"Go, Dog. Go!" will be performed though Nov. 8 at Adventure Theatre, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd. Performance days and times vary; call 301-634-2270. Tickets are $12 for children, $15 for adults and free for children, 12 months and younger. For tickets, visit tickets@adventuretheatre.org; for general information info@adventuretheatre.org. The play is recommended for children, ages 5 and younger.