BOM Blog

In the immortal words of Rachel, Barrel of Monkeys is tired.

So we’re taking a couple of weeks off from “That’s Weird, Grandma”. There will be no performances November 3, 10, 17th. Yes, that’s right: Your next chance to see the show is November 24th.

This is the first time we’ve taken Mondays off since April, and as you can imagine we’re all looking forward to a little rest after the summer, Fancy Schmancy, and all the rest.

In honor of Halloween, please enjoy the following story and accompanying illustration by Jose R., who was in the 4th grade at Columbia Explorers academy when he wrote it in 2004.

Thank you again to everyone who participated in the “Free Night of Theater” promotion. We got some fabulous crowds as a result and hope that we’ll see many of you back again in the near future.

More than 120 people were introduced to “That’s Weird, Grandma” because of this nation-wide promotion and we hope that those of you who were able to attend the reception last night got a chance to ask the actors/staff any of your burning questions about the show. If not, remember you can always contact us for more information!

We look forward to participating again next year.

Remember all that zany Cleveland School goodness I told you about? Here’s the Cleveland cast getting their first taste of it . . .




All 70 journals worth.

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The Cleveland Team gathered for a marathon journal reading on Sunday night at Erick’s house. He made us some fish curry soup of his own invention, and it sustained us for the five hours it took to read the brilliant writing of 70 students. We read everything our students write, and it is a pleasure, but given our teachers’ busy schedules, finding a time when everyone can gather to read so many journals is a challenge. We have to do it all at one go

For the Cleveland residency, we had two volunteer teachers, Katie and Lupe, who have been indispensible. They used their Spanish speaking skills to help those of us who studied French in high school communicate. They volunteered their time and energy to meet for breakfast before each teaching day, to teach for six mornings when they could have been at other jobs, and most recently, to read and sign all our students’ journals. The children love them—I know because they wrote about it in their journals—and we love them too.

Here’s the intrepid Cleveland Team before our reading meeting:

See the After picture post-jump . . .

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It’s been a day. We started pretty early (Maggie was corralling chalkboards at 7:00am) and we just wrapped up now, 18 hours later. In between there was a lot of glitter, some feathers, a few toasts, hats by the dozen, an auction, hoity-toity hors d’ouevres, a lovely buffet, some specialty cocktails,  a fun show, and some inspiring speeches. I’m talking about the Fancy Schmancy benefit of course, and while I hope that others will post some photos later, I wanted to take a moment to thank the more than 150 of you who were able to attend. I hope you all got your Time Out gift bag and are even now enjoying just one more truffle while planning your outfit for next year. Or maybe you’re gloating about the items you won in the auction—we’ll be calling you if you didn’t get a chance to take your winnings home.

I haven’t run all the numbers, but so far it looks like this was a successful event for us. We couldn’t do it without your help, and we are very grateful.  All of the proceeds will support our work in the Chicago Public Schools and Park District. As a nonprofit, we rely on the support of our monkey friends to continue to bring our unique and high-quality program to under-served communities. We know that the current turmoil in the financial markets and consequent economic stress makes this a difficult time to ask for your support, and we’re honored that so many of you were able to step up.

Not to appear greedy, but if you were unable to attend fancy this year and would like to make a donation to support our school programming, you may do so online.

Monkey on.