It’s the day of the show!

Posted by Roger on November 22, 2010 at 11:50 AM
School Shows After School Program

One last blog entry for today, the day of the Loyola Park show!!

Here’s our talented actor/artist Brandon Cloyd, creating props with help from the also talented Jenny Weiner.

Directed by our brilliant Oona Kersey Hatton and starring an amazing cast, this show is going to be fantastic and I can’t wait for it.  Just four short hours away! 

More pics:

Caleb tickles the plastic.

We love puppets!  Some of the cast rehearses for a story about a rock band.  Music for this created via GarageBand by the stupendous Anthony Courser.

Tai and Levy find each other hilarious

Jason does not like to be interrupted when he’s working!

Artistic director Luke Hatton steps in to show us all the choreography for the closing number.

“Loyola Park is a blast!” says old-timer

Posted by Roger on November 20, 2010 at 12:42 AM
School Shows After School Program

“What is this new-fangled blog thing?” asks old-time Monkey Roger, who is back doing a Barrel of Monkeys show for the first time since 2005!  Many of you were younger back then.

Okay, so it’s me, Roger.  Having lived in Los Angeles acting in film & television for the last five years, I am back in Chicago and rehearsing the latest Monkey show that will be at Loyola Park this Monday!  I’m very excited about it!  We have had four rehearsals and have adapted some amazing stories.  Some favorites include “The Orb of Light,” “The Time I Broke the Superhero Code,” and “Untitled (Meat Ribs),” in which I play Zeus, the son of the Titans.  He is a charismatic and powerful character so I understand why they cast me.

Also, I have written my first monkey song in a very long time, based on the story “The Day Cheeseburgers Were Made!!!’ by Diamond J.  It’s a great story about some lovely vampires who only wanted to have tacos for dinner, but after their mother mistakenly made the first cheeseburger ever, which they hated, they developed a taste for blood.  As Diamond writes, “That’s why vampires drink blood and how cheeseburgers were made.”  Now you know.

I have to confess I was very nervous about writing music for the monkeys again after being away for so long.  I wasn’t sure if it would come back to me.  Fortunately, it is like riding a bike—a superfun, slightly stressful, and exhilarating bike.  It mostly just felt great to be creative and contribute to a group again.  In Los Angeles, I loved doing screenwork—being on set is really fun—but I felt like the sense of collaboration and imagination that makes Barrel of Monkeys so wonderful is lacking out west.  I know that may sound like I’m being superior and perhaps you think this kind of self-congratulation has no place in a high-class website like this one (there I go again), but I really feel like I have been gone for so long that I have an outsider’s perspective and that this is in fact an honest point of view from a fan.  There are plenty of talented, wonderful people in L.A. who do sometimes work together and create some great work, but a lot of the focus, especially for people low down on the Hollywood ladder (which is most everybody), is on individual achievement.  Switching from that to creating for something greater than myself feels fantastic.

I also play a pregnant chicken in the show.

I Love a Parade

Posted by Elizabeth on November 9, 2010 at 12:31 PM
After School Program

Oh friends, what a grand ol’ time we are having at the Loyola Park After-School Program this year.  We have fabulous students, many returning, many new, and they do so many great things each Monday that a couple of years ago we developed a system to reward awesomeness with a little thing we like to call Monkey Bucks.  Each Monkey Buck that goes into a special piggy bank of good deeds reflects such actions as respecting yourself or others, offering up a kind word to someone else, following directions, especially if it was hard to follow directions earlier, being ready to work and play, presenting a fantastic, ingenious and splendid idea to the group, the list goes on.  Each student can earn monkey bucks, but all the monkey bucks earned go towards special rewards that the whole group can enjoy.  Each of our age groups earned enough monkey bucks so fast, that we got to have a collective paper airplane throw (net value: 50 monkey bucks) in only our second week!  I told you, there is so much awesome that happens each week, we can’t even keep up!

All three groups moved up in their earnings around the same time, thus it was time for a class parade (net value: 100 monkey bucks).  The monkey teachers wrestled with ideas as to how to make the class parade as celebratory as possible, within the time constraints of 10 minutes before class ended.  The answer came to us like it has come to us in many instances past when we weren’t sure how to make something ridiculously celebratory:
Silly hats and streamers.  Obvi!

Here we all are, awaiting Joe’s (AKA Grand Marshall) instructions for the manner in which we would parade:

Everyone got into the parade spirit.  Volunteers Aaron and Jenny wore their crowns with pride, and Aaron took it to the next level by wearing that Hamburger Hat with a crown on top.  If that’s not celebratory, than, heck, what is?

Kassi brought her own bunny ears (sorry for the fuzzy images, my camera phone could not keep up with all the excitement)

Anthony provided the sweet jams on this boombox.  Yes, that’s a very fuzzy Anthony.  I’m tellin’ you, my camera phone could NOT keep up!

Here are the kids parading through the majestic stairwells of our beloved Loyola Park:

I regret not catching this on camera(phone), but wonderful members of the Loyola Park District staff met up with us along our parade route to cheer us on, only adding to our community Parade of Awesome.
I love Monkey Bucks because it reminds us all that there are so many things in life to celebrate and there are so many crazy ways to celebrate them.  I remember sitting in my living room this summer with the Loyola Park teachers dreaming up these different rewards.  I remember Anthony reading aloud some of his ideas.  He paused before he read aloud his next one and said “I’m not sure if you all understand what I mean by this next one, or if you think it’s cool or not, but how about…Wizard Visit.”
My living room shook with laughter, because one, we knew exactly what he meant, and two, because we all thought it was incredibly awesome.  I really loved my job right then.

Fancy Schmancy: A Magical Place

Posted by Amanda Farrar on October 6, 2010 at 12:58 PM
General That's Weird Grandma School Shows School Workshops After School Program

Hello Blogosphere!  I’m here to tell you about an amazing event that will be occurring very soon.  For the past 9 years, Barrel of Monkeys has been presenting our Fancy Schmancy Benefit for the enjoyment of all and more importantly, to support our programming in under-resourced Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Park Districts.  In order to truly embrace the nature of our writing residencies at the event, the theme of the evening will be “Magical Place”, based upon an audience favored story penned by Dulce H. from Columbia Explorers Academy* when she was in 4th grade.  Read this story and so many more in our Story Archive!

Be amazed by the Magical Place that Fancy Schmancy will be at 7pm on Friday, October 22 at the Ravenswood Event Center, 4025 N. Ravenswood Ave.  More info here!  Purchase tickets or make a fully tax-deductible donation here!

The evening will be something like this.  (But not quite.)

Fancy 10.5 from Barrel of Monkeys on Vimeo.

We are particularly excited about seeing Magical Place return to the stage after a year-long run and a four month hiatus during the live performance at the event. 

Other highlights: New this year is a raffle for a trip for two to New York City to see Saturday Night Live!  Includes round-trip airfare for two and two tickets to a live taping of SNL.  Sorry to say that raffle laws prevent selling tickets online, but they are on sale weekly at “That’s Weird, Grandma” up until the drawing on October 22 - no need to be in attendance to WIN! 

And!  We are procuring some pretty incredibly unique and exciting auction items which we will tell you more about in future blog entries.  Stay tuned, and monkey on!

*This school year will mark Barrel of Monkeys’ 10th Anniversary of partnering with Columbia Explorers Academy!

Loyola Park Live! LAST CHANCE!

Posted by Amanda Farrar on August 30, 2010 at 01:48 PM
That's Weird Grandma TWG Weekly Update After School Program

Didn’t make it to Lifeline Theatre over the weekend to see the amazing work of our after-school program participants?  You have one last chance: tonight at 8pm at the Neo-Futurarium! 

Tickets are $15 for kids and adults, but say the phrase “talking lollypop” for regular That’s Weird, Grandma pricing!