Posts relating to school shows.
Posted by Rachel on May 16, 2008
Company Members
School Shows
Blog: So, Rachel, as the official Chalmers blogger, why have you been neglecting me?
Rachel: Well, because Lacy and Dixie pretty much covered it. They told you all about the Bollywood number, and the power outage, and the uniform debacle.
Blog: They didn’t tell me about one thing.
Rachel: What one thing?
Blog: Don’t pretend you don’t know.
Rachel: Oh, but that’s the dark side of the Chalmers show. Do we have to go there?
Blog: It would be wrong not to.
Rachel: Fine, we’ll go . . .
The Chalmers show was the last*** school show performance for Jonathan Mastro and Eric Silverberg, and I cannot deal.
These guys have always been a bit ahead of me on the road—seniors when I was a freshman at Northwestern. Eric starred in the first show I saw at college. We all had the same acting teacher. I remember sitting in on their acting class and watching Jonathan rehearse a Pinter scene. Little did I know, within four years time I’d be watching Jonathan perform fourth grader David E.‘s story “Ordering Cars” in the same style.
These two witnessed my horribly awkward audition for the company. They were around for the Sorry Tournaments, and rehearsing at the dog kennel, and Thursday night karaoke at Carol’s. They remember when the Monkeys’ first collection of props got stolen because the company kept all its worldly possessions in a van—I wasn’t around for that, but they were. They did nearly every school show my first couple of years. Eric signed me up for my first Monkey teaching gig. Now he’s a full-time public school teacher. Jonathan’s been teaching at Chalmers for so long, and so well, that kids in the 8th grade swarmed him the second we walked on campus.
If Halena Kays is the Monkey Mama, these guys are the Daddies. They’ve stuck around, shaping the company since the very beginning. Now, they’re real daddies, which is at least part of the reason they’ve got to call it a day.
*** Instead of last, let’s say, “last for now,” because you never know where life’s going to take you, and because I’m certain we’ll all be doing Monkey shows together in our senile delusions when we’re 110, and because, as I said before, I can’t deal.
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Posted by Dixie on May 15, 2008
School Shows
Hey all- there’s been a lot said about the Chalmers show- which is fair because it was OFF THE CHAIN! First- we didn’t have a lot of cars to get us to the show, so I had to fit all of our props, show curtains & the big keyboard into my station wagon.
Behold! The wonder of the wagon!
Seriously, it was full. When we got to Chalmers there was a little scuffle because half of the class that we had taught weren’t allowed to come to the performance, because they were out of uniform. We asked that they be allowed to come, and Principal Dossiea said only if they found some uniforms to put on. All the girls scrambled to cobble together some regulation uniform, while Alexis explained to me that they all dressed in regular street clothes to protest the uniform policy. “But we didn’t know that it was Monkey Day!!!” Eventually they had on uniforms, and we started the show. The performance was terrific, and the kids were a brilliant audience. All was well until during the closing song, the keyboard cut out…. so did the lights. There was a blackout across much of the south side! We kept on singing a cappella, and the show was finished!
We returned the notebooks to the proud authors, and carefully headed home- with none of the local traffic lights working.
I love the Chalmers School!
Posted by Lacy on May 14, 2008
School Shows
Intrigued by Donnell and Tai’s dueling impersonations of Laura, I swung by Loyola Park tonight to watch the final run-through of the Chalmers show.
...Oh my heavens, my friends. I was NOT disappointed.
First of all, there was ‘The Missing Owner,’ which spawned all the aforementioned antics. You can see Laura here, in the middle of the story. Context: This is where she kidnaps a penguin from Alaska, before she takes it back to the Lower 48 and leaves it to die of heatstroke, in the street, then later uses its lifeless corpse to make a YouTube movie.
Laura: Hey There. My name’s Norbit, and I’m gonna be your new daddy.
Dixie: (worried penguin sounds)
Also, what do you love about Barrel of Monkeys? Is it the whimsy? Is it the range of genres? Is it the ambitious storytelling? IS IT THAT WE HAVE A BOLLYWOOD NUMBER IN THIS SCHOOL SHOW??
Sorry. Did you catch that?
THERE IS A BOLLYWOOD NUMBER IN THIS SHOW.
The Chalmers Show stories CANNOT get into Grandma fast enough, friends. Oh la la.
Posted by Lacy on May 13, 2008
That's Weird Grandma
School Shows
Monkeys is a big company. Not all of us can be in the same show at the same time, so a lot of times we’ll end up hearing about characters and sketches we don’t actually get to see in person.
Last night after “That’s Weird, Grandma,” Donnell and Tai spent a good ten minutes losing their minds laughing and trying to explain how hilarious Laura McKenzie is in the [currently in rehearsal] Chalmers show.
Donnell: She does this thing like THIS…
Tai: Yeah - yeah, but then it’s THIS thing…
Donnell: No, and then she’s ... [incoherent laughter] ... hang on… okay THIS…
Tai: And then she…
They finally gave up.
Now we GOTTA go see whatever it is that Laura does in the Chalmers show.
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.
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