While we’re annoucing staff changes…

Posted by Heidi on August 26, 2008 at 10:14 AM
General Company Members

...I’m delighted to let you know that we have hired our first ever Company Manager. This part-time position will replace and expand the “Finance and Development Assistant” role ably held by the delightful Geoff Rice, who after two years of balancing the books and helping write grants leaves the office to focus on his more familiar role as monkey performer, teacher, and mentor.

We’re thrilled to announce that our Stage Manager, Maggie Fullilove-Nugent, will increase her monkey commitments by taking on this job.

In addition to Maggie, we’ve also hired long-time monkey Sarah Goeden as the new After School Program Coordinator. For some reason we don’t seem to have a hilarious photo of her in a silly hat, so here she is on the far right of the second row in this group shot from 2004.

More about all of these delightful developments after the jump.

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TWG August 25, 2008

Posted by Tai on August 24, 2008 at 03:37 PM
That's Weird Grandma

Hi Monkey fans. Tai here. How’s your weekend going? That’s good to hear. Oh, me? Well, I had TWG rehearsal this morning. Donnell took a little video. What’s that? Sure, you can see it. But I will warn you, it may frighten cats and/or coworkers:

(RSS readers, I haven’t yet figured out how to get video to work in feeds. So click on the title. You won’t be disappointed.)

That’s just a taste of what you’ve been missing if you haven’t been to TWG lately. Check out Monday’s full running order after the jump. As always, it’s a good idea to buy your tickets in advance.

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New Artistic Director for BOM

Posted by Heidi on August 21, 2008 at 01:32 PM
General Company Members

I am extremely pleased to announce that we have hired Luke Hatton as our new Artistic Director.

As you can see, he’s pretty serious about the job.

As many of our most devoted friends know, a little over a year ago BOM co-founder and Artistic Director Halena Kays announced that she was taking a sabbatical for the 2007-2008 program year while she pursued other opportunities. In the interim we hired the amazing Laura Grey to serve as Artistic Director. For the last year Laura has directed “That’s Weird, Grandma” and most of our school shows, provided exemplary artistic leadership and direction, and generally lived up to our very high expectations of her skills and abilities. During her sabbatical Halena decided that BOM was in good hands, and she was free to go to graduate school and dream up new amazing things.

Meanwhile, Laura is so dang talented that The Second City hired her to write and perform with them. For the last six months or so Laura has been doing the equivalent of holding two full time jobs, and she’s continued to meet and exceed our artistic hopes and dreams. Sadly though, she can’t continue this balancing act and will be stepping down as Artistic Director at the end of August. While this is sad for me in the office, it may be a delight for you the dedicated monkey fan as we will regain her as a performer in our school shows and the occasional run of TWG.

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Picture of an Eagle

Posted by Rachel on August 21, 2008 at 01:00 PM
General Company Members

We knew he could wrangle birds of prey. We knew he could cast a TV commericial, and direct, and narrate with authority, and tell a funny story.

We knew he had a keen fashion sense.

Now we know that this guy, Mr. Matt Miller, also knows puppets.

That’s right. He studied them. At puppet school.

Matt led an amazing puppetry workshop for the entire company at the retreat this year.

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Sun-Times says Heidi makes Chicago a better place!

Posted by Tai on August 19, 2008 at 02:12 PM
General Company Members

Our wonderful Executive Director Heidi Thompson Saunders was featured in today’s Chicago Sun-Times as one of “50 People Who Make Chicago a Better Place.”

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