That's Weird, Grandma | Playmakers Laboratory

Category: That's Weird Grandma

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The Monkey Minute!

Posted by Amanda Farrar on April 9, 2015

The Monkey Minute That's Weird Grandma Company Members

Barrel of Monkeys has upwards of 65 active members. These company and ensemble members lovingly refer to themselves as “Monkeys”. Monkeys act as teaching artists in the classroom, adapt the stories written by the students for the stage, perform them for the students in the schools, and finally, perform for YOU at That’s Weird, Grandma almost every week.

Each Monkey is paid for their work in the schools, but donate their time to perform in That’s Weird, Grandma to allow the revenue generated from these public performances to support our arts education programs in schools that need them the most.

Below, Lacy Campbell describes what it’s like to walk into a show that has been going on almost nonstop since 2001. You can see her and all her Monkey friends Sundays at 2pm through April.

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It’s Hard To Be Laura McKenzie
By Lacy Campbell

One of the [many] joys of being in That’s Weird, Grandma is that as a company member of Barrel of Monkeys, you can hop in and out of shows. Have some time on your hands? Sign up to do the show for six weeks! Want to do a play with another theater? No problem, sit the next one out and someone else will step in for you.

However, since the cast is constantly shifting in a fruitbasket turnover of tangled wigs and tutus, this means that many of us end up sharing roles. For example, Laura McKenzie won’t be in the next few weeks of That’s Weird, Grandma, so I’m taking over a few of her roles.

But here’s the real problem:
I can’t be Laura!!!
NO ONE CAN BE LAURA.

The facial expressions!? The physical comedy!? Her reaction when Horsewolf eats her hair and she’s initially furious, then realizes it’s Horsewolf and beams with pride and delight?* …Guys, I have huge shoes to fill.

But that’s the thing. I gotta fill them, and somehow, I will. On Sunday at 2pm.

Last weekend, in our seven-hour “learn, stage, and perform an entire show!” frenzied sprint that is New That’s Weird, Grandma Cast Weekend, the entire cast took on this impossible task in different ways. Mary Winn has to be Ryan in I Am A Butcher and I Love Meat. Gwen has to take over for Jen in Tragic Fireworks, and some poor soul has to step into Donnell’s role in Princess Who Don’t Like Ketchup.

Mary Winn Heider, Lacy Campbell & Rachel Wilson in
In Monkeys, we are constantly raising the bar for each other by trying to be as wonderful as the person who went before us.

Who was the first dog you saw in The Dog Was Dead? I can no longer remember if the first dog I saw was Kristie, Molly, Erica, or Emjoy. They all are fantastic. They all are hilarious. I guarantee they all felt terrified that they couldn’t possibly be as amazing as the dog who went before.

They all were.
We all are.
Show’s at 2:00pm on Sunday. See you there!

*all these things actually happen. Please see Horsewolf, it’s such a good story.

The Monkey Minute!

Posted by Amanda Farrar on March 18, 2015

The Monkey Minute That's Weird Grandma Company Members School Shows School Residencies After School Program

After teaching creative writing residencies in a Chicago Public School or the Chicago Park District, teaching artists collect the students’ notebooks and share them with several of the company’s ensemble of professional actors and musicians. Together, the teaching artists, actors, and musicians adapt selected stories for the stage and return to the school to present an original performance drawn entirely from the student-written material.

The experience of seeing their work performed in front of an audience of their peers is profoundly moving and empowering for the student-authors. The experience of performing student-work for the authors themselves can be intensely challenging and stressful for the Monkeys, because as much as we try, not every adaptation is an A+. As Oona Kersey Hatton experienced, students can be our greatest critics and our greatest teachers.

How do the story adaptations currently being performed in That’s Weird, Grandma measure up? Come judge for yourself. Tickets available now for Sundays at 2pm through April 26 and only 2 more Monday at 8pm performances!

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Adventures in Adaptation
By: Oona Kersey Hatton

I joined Barrel of Monkeys in 2000. At that time we were rehearsing in a converted warehouse space that was used during the day as a doggie daycare. It had a concrete floor and was surprisingly clean, with only the faintest redolence of the daytime occupants.

I was so excited to be in the ensemble, and I had signed up for the first show of the year. One of my first adaptations was a collaboration with Ryan Walters, Erica Rosenfeld Halverson, and Tom Malinowski. I remember very little about the story except that it involved two forest animals getting into a heated altercation that they ultimately brought to the Bottom of the Pond (personified) for mediation. I played the Bottom of the Pond. Other cast members played Bugs Bunny (an example of how celebrity characters frequently appear in stories, often out of context) and other small mammals.

We had a great time with our adaptation, which showed the animals getting into a fight and then trying to resolve the dispute by all sharing their versions of “what really happened.” This meant that we essentially acted out the story three times. In our creative vision, the differences in each repetition—which relied on subtle adjustments to character portrayal—were increasingly hilarious and absurd. In reality, the satire would have been impossible for an audience of any age to discern—first, because the size and acoustics of the performance space would have rendered any but the most exaggerated contrasts impossible to discern, and second, because the audience had very little opportunity to get to know the characters and therefore would have difficulty grasping how they were being parodied.

Even Oona is confused.

If this criticism seems a little heady, take the word of an audience member from that fateful morning. A student sitting in the front row turned to her companion in the middle of our performance and exclaimed, “this story is too long.” We immediately recognized that her assessment was correct, and we enjoyed repeating this pithy critique for years to come.

I left that morning with a few thoughts that my next ten years in Barrel of Monkeys would confirm:
1. The audience is always right.
2. Repetition needs justification.
3. Not every adaptation will be a slam dunk.

I use these and hundreds of other Barrel of Monkeys-lessons every day as I teach and continue to make theatre.

The Monkey Minute!

Posted by Amanda Farrar on March 11, 2015

The Monkey Minute That's Weird Grandma Company Members School Shows School Residencies After School Program

In each and every school show since Barrel of Monkeys’ inception in 1997, one or more student-written stories have been adapted into song for the stage. Multiply that by upwards of 15 original school shows each year, and you have a couple hundred songs in the archives!

We have so many songs, in fact, that presently That’s Weird, Grandma is an all-musical revue! You can see 16 of some of our most favored songs adapted from the incredible work of student writers this Sunday at 2pm and Monday at 8pm. Jennifer Johnson, author of the following blog entry and current performer in That’s Weird Grandma: The Musical, shares some of her most favorite epic Barrel of Monkeys songs that have not yet made their way into the current show! Enjoy celebrating the power of these students’ imaginations!

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My Favorite Epic Barrel of Monkeys Songs
By Jennifer Johnson

In the classroom, we encourage students in Barrel of Monkeys writing programs to continue stories they’ve started or we ask specific questions to further their creativity during the writing process. Sometimes, a student is ready to write! And the product is long, detailed, complicated, creative and fabulous. Below are my favorite epically long stories written by students in Chicago Public Schools that we’ve turned into songs.

Jennifer Johnson in That's Weird, Grandma: The Musical

Sculpting Alaska

By Gautam R., Hough Street School
“Let the competition begin,” boomed the announcer, as I quickly started planning out my ice sculpture. Scrape, scrape, scrape, went my carving tool as I knocked away ice. This was the regular carving routine. We were at the 2000 year end ice sculpting contest in Alaska. Nobody would think of such a wonderful sculpture as a fish sculpture. “Hey Jimmy,” a voice shouted, how you doing? Continued!

Sculpting Alaska was brilliantly staged using the entire cast. There are so many great characters to play in this story/song. Two people even played the actual ice sculptures!

IRS Moles

By Ben L., Hough Street School
Eeooo! The sirens rang throughout the city. Speakers popped out of buildings. “Run, the IRS Moles are coming” said the speakers. Everyone ran. They knew that moles would make them pay. “Come on” said Harold to his mother as they ran. “But the cookies” said his mother, “we need them.” “We’ll have to leave them” said Harold. “Dang” said his sister. “I say we fight back against this tax collecting” said Bob who was 2 and very smart. Continued!

I was in the original cast of this—I got to sing “Dang, not the cookies!” It’s one of the best lines I’ve ever sung in a BOM song!

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IRS Moles from Barrel of Monkeys on Vimeo.

The Race

By Dorian W., South Loop School
Once upon a time there was a man named Truman. And he was joining the Big Race finals to win $300. When he was practicing he run 5 miles a day. When he run home he took his dog out and ran with his dog. His dog was named Ace. His dog was really nice and could run so fast. He was the fastest dog in the whole world. Truman was a gym teacher. Continued!

I love The Race because in the end Truman races by jumping in the sack—it’s so exciting to watch!

The Evil Kangaroo

By Emilio G., Loyola Park After School Program
Once upon a time in 1212 BC and now in the middle of the ocean there was a city named Freeopolis that no one knew about. Everyone was happy until Professor Wiggems built an experiment on kangaroos. It went completely wrong. The kangaroo escaped and destroyed the city, then when there’s no hope left it’s to be continued…The island sinks and the kangaroo finds a boat. Continued!

Emilio G. wrote many stories about evil kangaroos and Professor Wiggems, but this one is my favorite! It’s staged with lots of action and verses!

A long story creates a wonderful basis for a musical theatre masterpiece!

The Monkey Minute!

Posted by Amanda Farrar on March 4, 2015

That's Weird Grandma Company Members

Do you ever wonder how we put together the stories that are performed in That’s Weird, Grandma? How do we pick just a couple dozen stories from 17 years of incredible student-written stories? How do we showcase a range of schools, types of curriculum, and each ensemble member? Founding member, Jason Sperling, answers all your burning questions!

And, see the delicate balancing act of That’s Weird, Grandma that is currently being directed by Joseph Schupbach at the Neo-Futurist Theater every Sunday at 2pm and Monday at 8pm through March 30! It is an ALL MUSICAL spectacular!

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A Day in the Life: Creating the That’s Weird,Grandma Runlist
By Jason Sperling

Putting together the run list for That’s Weird, Grandma is a delicate balancing act. We are simultaneously serving multiple constituencies: the public audience, the performers, and the children whose voices we are sharing. Having had the opportunity to direct several rounds of That’s Weird, Grandma, here’s a look at some things we consider when assembling the crackerjack lineup each week.

That's Weird, Grandma
Types of stories: In all of our classroom residencies, each week focuses on a different type of writing, ranging from dialogue to persuasive arguments to true stories. Having a mixture of all of these represented in That’s Weird, Grandma keeps the show interesting, and lets the audience check out different styles that the students create. Of course, within each style, there are differing types of adaptation. A puppet piece, a rap, film noir, straight-forward narrative – one of the strengths of Barrel of Monkeys’ ensemble is that everyone brings a unique set of performing abilities to the table, meaning that any given writing type might have any genre of performance. It’s also important to check the tone of the stories – I call this “quirk vs. heart.” Those two qualities are not mutually exclusive, but to me it’s very important to have an equal balance in any given That’s Weird, Grandma show. We want to balance the over-the-top oddities with the heartfelt moments, which ultimately make both resonate more strongly. One of the goals of performing That’s Weird, Grandma is to raise the profile of Barrel of Monkeys in Chicago while simultaneously championing the vision of the students we work with. We want to give the audience insight into the heart of what we do, which is working with students in our school (and after-school) programs.

As for the performers, it’s important to try to give everyone a chance to shine. Everything you see on stage at That’s Weird, Grandma was originally adapted and performed at one of our school residencies, for which we usually have a cast of 12-14 Monkeys. Each Barrel of Monkeys member signs up for however many school shows their schedules allow, meaning on average everyone in Barrel of Monkeys does 4-6 school shows per year, appearing as 10 or more characters in each show! They may play the hero of the story in one piece and jump directly into being a carnivorous garbage can in the next. When we choose stories for That’s Weird, Grandma, we ask the cast for suggestions of stories they were in or saw that they’d like to resurrect. We want the cast to be having a blast on stage – when that happens, it clearly spreads to the audience too!

Sometimes we have a disproportionate number of performers who were all in the same school shows, meaning most suggestions come from a limited number of schools. To offset this, it’s also important to represent a wide variety of schools in the story choices. We have 17 years of story archives in the Monkey office: audio tapes (!), photocopies, scripts of the earliest work, and DVDs of more recent years. The staff and interns have also catalogued everything in computer files, letting us search for stories that way too. Depending on who’s in the show or directing, the stories will be from a wide range of years.

Once the stories have been chosen, we need to choose a running order. Somehow there’s just a flow that feels right – is a story loud or quiet? An all-play involving the whole cast or just a few people? Are the song/dance/movement pieces spread throughout the run or bunched together? Is one performer the featured character in several stories in a row? Even things such as giving actors time to change costumes, set chairs, or clean up messy props factor in. Frequently we’ll start with a story that “teaches” the audience how to watch a Barrel of Monkeys show; something with a strong point-of-view, clean beats, and clear Monkey style. Hopefully this helps any audience members who are new to seeing That’s Weird, Grandma dive right in and journey on with us. Lastly, we try to let stories that have been put into the order more recently have a little time to find their legs, and when new pieces join each week the whole balancing process starts again!

Creating just the right run list each week is a challenge, but a rewarding and fun one which allows directors to see our work through multiple sets of eyes.