Posted by Heidi on May 13, 2008
School Residencies
This morning BOM’s Program Director, Dixie Uffelman, and I attended Communities in Schools of Chicago‘s annual Partner Recognition Breakfast. CISC is a great organization that helps match under-served community schools with community organizations like ours that can fill critical unmet needs—everything from providing health screenings to anger management and so on. This year CISC honored us as a ten-year agency partner by giving us a lovely plaque.

That’s Dixie, showing it off.
The event was at US Cellular Field, which is always exciting. Dixie claims that she’s spent more time at the Cell as a guest of CISC then as a patron of the White Sox.
That aside, it was really great to see other partner organizations and some of the school principals and site coordinators and hear about the other ten year partners. Our friends at CISC were extremely nice (as always) and had a giant poster board depicting one of our school residencies. It’s always exciting to be in an environment where everyone in the room is committed to “meeting unmet needs” and serving the schools and communities. CISC got to thank us this morning, but I’d like to thank them—their help and guidance allows us to serve the schools that can most benefit from our specific programs and over ten years has provided us with many fruitful partnerships. We rely on their network to make sure that we can serve the most appropriate communities and help us make the first crucial contacts with new school partners. Here’s looking forward to another ten years of collaboration.
Posted by Rachel on May 6, 2008
School Shows
School Residencies
The Chalmers teaching team consisted of Educational Program Director Dixie, Joe, Alex, Monkey apprentice (and every child’s idol) Stephen, and myself. For one class we even had former Ed. Director, Kristie. After assembling such a team for a class of only 13 students, Dixie expressed concern that “their faces will be melted off by our love and individual attention.”
Joe took this picture of one third of our rockstar team fortifying at the White Palace Grill before class.

We had our first Chalmers rehearsal Saturday. In an initial rehearsal for a school show, we go through all the notebooks from the residency, and it’s always fun as a teacher to see the rest of the cast experience the kids’ writing for the first time. For those unfamiliar with our rehearsal process, we put a show together in only six short rehearsals, relying on the innate merit of the stories, our own silly abandon as performers and adapters, and chaos theory.
Read more
Posted by Tai on May 2, 2008
School Shows
School Residencies
The Stockton Elementary show was this morning, and it was a blast. This residency was taught by lead teacher Geoff, Laura G., Rani, awesome volunteer Maggie K., and myself. Although it was BOM’s first residency and show at Stockton, the kids took to us like ducks to water. They were a creative and eager bunch, and it showed in their stories.
Not only was this our first show at Stockton, it was company member Kate Staiger’s first time directing a Monkey show, and she was a natural. Over the past week and a half we have been adapting and rehearsing stories featuring robots, chipmunks, J-Lo and a not-so-scary haunted house.

On the way to the school this morning, after our traditional pre-show breakfast, we saw a surprising sight on Montrose Avenue:
Read more
Posted by Rachel on May 1, 2008
School Residencies
We just taught our sixth and final workshop day at the Chalmers School, and yes, it was rewarding, and yes, the children were amazing, and yes, it warmed our hearts. But also . . . we got candy. And lovely beaded necklaces ceremonially presented by the children.

Yes, that Crunch bar wrapper is empty. It couldn’t wait for the picture.
Read more