BARREL OF MONKEYS JOINS FORCES WITH CHICAGO ARTISTIC HEAVY HITTERS FOR ALL NEW “CHICAGO'S WEIRD, GRANDMA.”

Company Members from Lookingglass Theatre, The Hypocrites, The Neo-Futurists and many more join Barrel of Monkeys for the return of the cross-disciplinary extravaganza titled “Chicago’s Weird, Grandma.” Barrel of Monkeys has called up some of its favorite Chicago performing artists to add their own takes on the stories by Chicago Public Schools students that inspire the sketches that make up “That’s Weird, Grandma.”

Members from each guest organization will use elements of theater, experimental dance, puppetry, clowning and vaudeville-inspired performance art to transform the creative writings of third, fourth and fifth grade CPS and Chicago Park District students into original sketches and songs. Each artist will be given original stories from Barrel of Monkeys’ in-school residencies to choose from and create a 3-minute sketch. A different guest artist/s appears each week (see schedule below - subject to change).

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Participating Companies:

Monday, October 27 – Cast Members of Lookingglass Theatre & Manual Cinema
Monday, November 3 – The Neo-Futurists
Monday, November 10 – Vein City
Monday, November 17 – Noah Ginex Puppet Company
Monday, November 24 – The Hypocrites
Monday, December 1 – The Young Fugitives

Barrel of Monkeys, a Chicago-based arts education theater ensemble, conducts creative writing workshops with students in underserved Chicago Public Schools and turns their stories and words into professionally-performed theater, presented both in-school and through a weekly revue for the general public called “That’s Weird, Grandma.” Barrel of Monkeys performs more than 300 student-written stories for the students in their schools and 150 stories on the stage of “That’s Weird, Grandma” each year.