Posted by Philip on March 19, 2009
School Shows
We began rehearsal last night for Dewey School, under the direction of the fantastic Molly Brennan, who encouraged us to think about STYLE. We wrote some lesser-used ways to tell a story up on the board, such as Greek Chorus, Vaudeville, Opera, Horror, and many more. It was delightful to see how performers could use tone and style to add to what the author wrote, while still honoring their story and what’s on the page.
A favorite moment: crazy Laura McKenzie and Brandon Cloyd as Lunch Ladies spilling slop (drool) into the food and, unable to remove the slop, throwing it out the window, only to be attacked by kid zombies who were HUNGRY! I hope this story is coming to theatres next Halloween.
Being a new monkey in the group, it’s just so cool to me to see the huge amount of creativity that comes out each adapting. You get to see people’s personalities in how they bring a story to life, and with so much energy bouncing around the room, it is always entertaining.
We also had a lot of acrostic poems in the kids’ journals at this school. I had no clue what the word acrostic meant either. Best to demonstrate with a poem by Tiesha in the 4th grade:
Turtle is slow
Ice is a brick
Elephant is big
Slice of pizza
Hungry as pie
Apple so juicy
TIESHA!
(Aaaaand…we are turning this story into a song – stay tuned)!
-Philip
Posted by Heidi on March 18, 2009
School Shows
A few weeks ago the good folks from CPS Right Now stopped by BOM’s residency at Little Village Academy to learn a little more about what we do in the classroom. They got some great footage of Elizabeth, Ricky, Desiree, Mikala and Mary Winn teaching the awesome Little Village students. They mixed that with interviews with Elizabeth, some of the kids, and Principal Elsa Carmona.
The resulting video is a pretty great glimpse at what we do, and I hope you’ll take a minute (...or 6…) to check it out.
Many thanks to Sarah and the people at CPS Right Now, as well as Ms. Carmona and the amazing 4th Graders at Little Village!
Posted by Heidi on March 16, 2009
That's Weird Grandma
First, thanks to all the Monkey fans who came out to the Old Town School of Folk Music yesterday to catch us as part of “Milly’s (almost) All Kids Review”! I’m sure someone (Rachel?) will write a full blog post later, complete with photos and a description, but from my perspective there’s nothing like watching BOM in a sold-out show full of kids. Especially when one kid reacts to a moment in “Dance of Yousail” by crying out “but it was only a barrel!!”
If that last sentence didn’t make any sense to you, you definitely haven’t seen “That’s Weird, Grandma” in a long time and should come to the Neo-Futurarium.
How about…tonight? Tonight would be a good night to see a show.
You can, as always, buy tickets online. The full running order is after the jump. Not to spoil it or anything, but…NUTS!!
Remember: Only three more Monday nights before we switch to SUNDAY AFTERNOONS!! WOW!! Yep, April 12 - May 31st we’ll have shows Sunday at 2pm. We’ll get back to Mondays after Celebration of Authors in June.
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Posted by Heidi on March 9, 2009
That's Weird Grandma
Another awesome week of “That’s Weird, Grandma” is on order for tonight. You will, of course, like it. This week we introduce “I am a dog”, a hilarious argument about how dogs should get to wear clothes too. Performer Dixie Uffelman may have described it as a moving parable about class struggle…or it’s a funny story where dogs wag their behinds. You’ll have to judge for yourself.
By the way, you would already have heard that comparison if you followed BOM on Twitter.
Full running order after the jump!
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Posted by Rachel on March 5, 2009
Company Members
Podcasts
Over the summer and fall, we lost a few good men. I wrote a post about Eric and Jonathan’s last school show at the time, and no, I still can’t deal.
When John Dixon left, it wasn’t such a clean break, more of a . . . “checking out the New York scene,” “probably be back in a month or two,” kind of a thing. Maybe he wanted to let us down easy . . . maybe he’s really not sure . . . he’ll come back to us . . . one day, one day . . .
(Hey, wait a second! How John left, that’s a lot like how it sounded when Lauren Sharpe left, and she just got cast as a New York Neo-futurist. Hmmmm. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Monkeys are happy for her, but . . . but no. This post isn’t about Sharpe. That wound is still too fresh.)
This post is about the men who are featured, together, even in their absence, in our most recent podcast, “My First Girlfriend” by Tyberius W., from, that’s right, that storied Chalmers show.
See, we won’t let them leave. We recorded little parts of them . . .
The voice-of-an-angel Silverberg part . . .
The mad-genius-composer Mastro part . . .
And the “shoot, that boy can rap” Dixon part . . .
(The faces of the spellbound children in this photo have been blurred to protect their privacy—OR MAYBE they’re blurry from trying to keep up with the AWESOME! Dixon’s face has not been blurred to protect his privacy. He can’t keep up with his own awesome.)
Silverberg, Mastro, and Dixon each recorded their parts—individually—in the days before they left town. Przygoda played some guitar, and . . . he stayed. We’re still trying to figure out how this song works. Its powers. Its limits.
And Mike Tutaj FUSED them all together with the magic of DIGITAL AUDIO RECORDING and MIXING and RADIOACTIVE LIGHTNING BLASTS!!! Or something. He did that thing he does.
Then, long after all the other parts were recorded, Christina, and Dixie, and I huddled together between some curtains and eggcrating in Mike Tutaj’s hallway, and it was hard to get around the curtain if you needed to use the bathroom, and we only had one headset for a lot of the time until Christina thought of using her iPod headphones, and our MEN HAD LEFT US! OUR MEN!
It was an emotional time.
We recorded our back-up diva parts in harmony with the robotic shadows of our frontmen. And that’s how you get a song about lost love. Oh, Tyberius, we feel your pain! We’re right there with you!
