Sheena Marie Ortiz talks to Viv Hardwick about bringing TV's Dora The Explorer to life as a major UK theatre tour reaches Newcastle next week and about what it's like to be a New Yorker five years on from 9/11.

SINCE 2000, the TV series Dora The Explorer has captured the imagination of millions of pre-school children worldwide with its US blend of education mixed with adventure.

Now a stage version of the show is touring the UK and Dora-playing New Yorker Sheena Marie Ortiz is well aware of the pressures on her both professionally and personally as she chats about her role on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre.

As Dora sails into Newcastle's Tyne Theatre next week, Tuesday until Sunday, Ortiz says: "I wish this was a cartoon when I was a kid. The musical is based on the cartoon the Pirate Adventure and is an hour long about Dora and Diego (her all-action cousin) and Swiper (the thieving fox) and every character you can think of is in it. The pirate piggies steal Dora's chest because they think it has gold and jewels in it, but it doesn't.

"It contains everything they need for a pirate adventure party. So the whole adventure is about using the audience's help and participation to get closer and closer to getting the treasure back."

Ratings put the animated adventures of the little girl into the top three of Nickelodeon and Children's ITV programmes. But Ortiz's biggest challenge is turning herself into a seven-year-old girl again. "It's interesting because it's actually once you see the audience and the kids that you don't even think about having to be seven again because energy is bouncing off each other and it's so easy to do. Everybody says it must be so difficult to do ten shows a week but it never is but it's always so much fun. I'm very, very lucky, this is a very cool job," she jokes.

The actress with family links to Puerto Rica adds: "I know a lot of children in my own family don't speak Spanish because their parents don't speak it to them but they still know all these words because they watch the show."

On going on tour overseas from the middle of August, she says: "We love it. The people are such fun, we have been going out and love going to restaurants and everybody just wants to know what we're doing here, where we're from and it's kind of nice because you don't know what to expect when you go to another country and you don't know if people will want to talk to you. I've never toured internationally so I didn't know what to expect. If I have a question I'm not afraid to stop people on the street and ask and I don't know whether I'd do that so much in New York, it's a friendlier atmosphere.

"The pace of life in New York is so fast and sometimes you forget to be nice to people. So it's definitely different in that way here."

TALKING to her so close to 9/11, Ortiz's thoughts turn to the anniversary and she says: "I usually try to find a church and light a candle and say a prayer. Usually the whole day is just a rough one. 9/11 was my first day at college and I went to NYU and I was just a couple of blocks away when everything happened. So it's definitely a rough time. I feel like a lot of people have come a long way in five years and sometimes going to memorials make it a little tougher."

Her thoughts on New York placing the Freedom Tower on the site are not so charitable and she calls it a "really large obnoxious building and I know they have to do something, but somehow I feel that putting a residential building in that area is not right. I don't like the idea, I feel it should have remained more of a memorial site but in the same way you have to move on. I can't say what I think is best but whatever they do they'll do it in a beautiful way and it will be great for people to see."

But would she live there? "Absolutely not, I would not live there, no, not because I think it would be a target or anything but it's a very eerie place down-town now. It was so thriving and such a great place for restaurants and shopping. It's a financial district and everything was so busy. Now it's so quiet and I think it's always going to be that way."

On the more amusing side of touring, she adds: "In the States if you ask someone where the toilet is they think you're rude because we call it rest-room or bath-room so we don't say toilet. So that's something I'm definitely getting used to. I don't mind now but at first you have to say to yourself 'this isn't rude, it's okay to say it'. I don't why it has such a negative conotation it just does."

Does she have to be careful to protect Dora's reputation while on tour. "Even on and off stage and a lot of times you come out of the stage door and there are families there waiting I'm always very conscious and aware that you don't want to destroy any child's vision of this character. So I make sure I'm always doing my job."

Dora goes to France and returns to the UK in January and after that the tour closes and another show called Go Diego Go will open in the US. Ortiz is not auditioning again, however, and says: "I think I'm done because I also did four months in the States before this so it's definitely time for me to struggle in New York with auditions for a little."

* Dora The Explorer, Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, Tuesday until Sunday. Box Office: 0870-145-1200.