KNOW A MONKEY
Posted by Alexis on February 11, 2011
I got to visit with Monkeys Michael Govier and Curtis Williams during last month’s (awesome) Monkey-O-Kee fundraiser night, and just before they took off for an auspicious adventure!
I have been told that you guys are about to have an adventure. Tell me what it is!
Michael Govier: Curtis and I wrote a musical entitled “The King’s Proposal, or the Marriage of Princess Guido” and it’s going to Seattle to play at Seattle Musical Theater. So it’s a cool place, big venue … and we leave tomorrow.
Amazing – so this is the world premiere of your play out in Seattle? You’re coming back to Chicago right?
Michael: Oh yes, this is just an away game.
When you get out to Seattle, what’s it going to look like for you guys?Michael: Well, the play is already cast - we have a cast of 13 people and then we have set designers, costume designers, and everything is being built as we speak. The Seattle Musical Theater is a cool theater that’s been around for 33 years, so it’s not a brand new company, but this is the first time they’re doing a world premiere musical. I’ll be directing it, and Curtis will be musical directing it.
Curtis: I get a couple lines too though.
Michael: He’s actually in the show. The conductor is written into the play. And another Barrel of Monkeys cast member is coming out there with us, Brennan Buhl— he’s going to be playing one Princess Guido. And we found an abundance of talent in Seattle.
Can I get a quick synopsis of the play?
Michael: Quick synopsis, okay. A king is forcing his daughter to marry someone against her will, and the daughter obviously doesn’t want to do it. And the king will become the richest man ever if this marriage happens, because once the marriage happens he’s going to kill them off. So now the Princess runs away, and Guido is charged with making sure this wedding happens, or else he will be executed. So he goes to extensively great lengths, up to the point where he will dress as the princess and impersonate her, so that no one knows she’s gone.
That sounds awesome. Has being a Monkey furthered your skills in any ways that have helped you guys write the play?
Curtis: For me, yes. Barrel of Monkeys allows you as a music writer to explore any genre, whether or not you’re good at it. I did a rap song last year ... I even got a BOM little award for my phrasing of [Curts busts out his rapping] “it’s a typical cyclical sickle scary situation” —so that’s something. But I’ve probably written at least 60 to 75 songs in the last 8 years. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes they’re good, and sometimes they just are . . . so it’s a lot of fun and has helped me learn a lot.
Michael, you’re the funny words man. I would think that working with the kids words is kind of a constant of wellspring of creative funniness.Michael: Oh absolutely, you can kind of see things from a really different perspective. I love how kids write so random, and the way they connect things is very different than what adults would do and what you’re told is good structure. You you can almost start new; you don’t have to worry about “This is the second act, and the second act has to fall 60 pages in, and the third act starts…” Instead it’s like whatever, you don’t have to worry about it and it’s just as fundamental as, “Have a beginning, middle and end. … you’re good.” That’s it.
Can you each give me a favorite Barrel of Monkeys memory?
Michael: Sure. I’m going to give you two but they have the same ending. Basically, there was a kid that had written in our program at Loyola Park for a long time. I was teaching him that year and he wrote a story called Farticine, and it’s about a fart pill, fart medicine - it holds in all your farts for three days, and then you release one massive stinkball fart. But he had like five gems in his book of stories, so I was talking to him and I calmly asked “So what’s your favorite story?” and he told me it was Farticine. So then of course I took that story and I made sure that got put through. Then there was this other girl who wrote this story called Bob’s Restaurant, and the same kind of thing happened, I asked her what she liked the best and she told me it was that one. And then right after the show I went up to them both and asked them each, “What do you think?” And both of them had the same answer. They said, “It was perfect.” It was the most satisfying thing that these eight-year-olds or ten-year-olds were so satisfied with our adaptation. They were like, “That’s exactly what it was.” That’s what they saw and that’s what they wanted.
Curtis: When we teach I always like to pay attention to the kids who aren’t popular or talking all the time. I remember myself when I was that age, I was a quieter too. There was one girl and she was really quiet all the time, and she had this story that was epic, it was amazing. It was this sort of Jekyll and Hyde story about a scientist who she takes her own pill because the scientific community doesn’t believe in her—well, in my mind the funding ran out—and she takes the pill and doesn’t know the side effects and turns into a monster who basically destroys and kills everybody. The superheros try to stop her, but it’s too late. It includes this passage of the scientist being a monster and then coming back and being a scientist and saying, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” And I took this and I turned it into a big epic rock opera. And so we performed it in her school and went back into the classroom after, and all of a sudden she was a rock star. And that to me was an amazing moment. Everyone was high-fiveing her, this quiet girl who didn’t really speak when we taught for the past six weeks, and now was the hero.
Time to go back and watch crazy Monkey karaoke—but before we go, can we Chicagoans cross our fingers that we’ll see your musical someday?
Michael: Certainly, we’re in talks with a couple theaters that are very interested and looks like potentially you might see it in 2012.
Is there a Facebook page or anything we can go to to support you guys?
Curtis: There is. There’s a Facebook page, a Twitter account … there’s everything you might need at www.TheKingsProposal.com!