About Us

Michael & Jennifer at Play

We love what we do and we love sharing this playful adventure with people. Kids, adults…everyone’s included. When people ask what we do, we usually say we have a skill toy and entertainment company where we teach people of all ages how to play with skill toys at events and celebrations. That’s the long answer. The short answer is ” we play with people”. It sounds pretty simple, but talking about it further reveals a deeper truth. Really, we seek to inspire and activate a lifelong spirit of playfulness. You see, we believe that play really can change the world. A little bold, we know, but we have our reasons.

The kind of play we’re talking about is active, creative, expressive and cooperative. Play that encourages and affirms a person’s sense of being awesome. Sometimes when we’re playing with our toys and we do something really cool, it kind of feels like we’re Jedi Superheroes. That’s what lots of people feel when they stop thinking so hard and truly play. As we’ve been known to say: Think Less, Play More!

As business owners and homeschooling parents, sometimes it all feels like a whole lot of work, but those are just the times when we forget to take a deep breath and PLAY! Since 2001, we’ve been traveling around the US teaching and sharing sphereplay, toys and playfulness. For the past 6 years we’ve been running our business (and lives) on the road out of our 26′ Home Bus, affectionately named so by our son. We have to admit, it was really challenging sometimes, but it was mostly incredibly wonderful. Especially fantastic were all the amazing people all over the country who played with us and our incredibly talented crew. We figure it’s somewhere in the realm of a million people!

Now, in 2010, we find ourselves in a new chapter of growth. We’ve “settled down” into a cute little house in Maine where we home school our son Ayden (almost 7.5), play with our daughter Alea (almost 2.5), run our business and play in our basement (there’s a whole lot of winter here). It’s big enough to hoop in and we have spheres all over the place; even in the office! We love the community here. There’s still plenty of travel in the forecast, but it’s nice to have a home base. All in all, it’s really exciting.

We started Try Out Toys Entertainment out of our love of play and play continues to be our motivation, our muse, our golden thread that runs through it all. Our mission is to inspire playfulness because when we play together we make our world a happier place. See? It is true, play really can change the world.

Playfully yours,
Michael & Jennifer

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