MR. MISTER
You don’t know the things he’s done, the chaos he’s set loose in his time …

JUDAS
I do. I know all about him. Dr. Notto Nefarious, born in 1962 in Horsefly, British Columbia, in his father, Dr. Primo Nefarious’, secret mountain lair. He was raised by henchmen, started university when he was fifteen and got his doctor’s degree three years later. His father died the next year in an accident with Rubberman and a giant tube of glue, and he took over the family business. He arch-enemied Hair Helmet, Monkeyman, Power Beam, and somebody called the International House of Protectors –

MR. MISTER
IHOP. That was my team. And my name.

JUDAS
And after a final battle between IHOP and Dr. Nefarious at the Toronto Harbourfront in September 1987 –

MR. MISTER
Do you remember those Breakfast Bots of his? Toucan Sam, Quisp, that little leprechaun –

JUDAS
He was knocked out by one of the heroes, arrested, and spent the next twenty years in prison.

… from Act I of The Nefarious Bed & Breakfast. Reading of the new draft coming early in June. Watch this space …

First of all, many many Monkey-thanks to everyone who made it out to The Banana Festival — a tremendous time was had and I think we put on some damn good plays. We’re hoping to bring the Festival back next year, so if you’re a playwright / director / actor who thought it was a good idea, add us to your newsfeed / Facebook / Twitter and we’ll keep you in the loop!

Of course, now that the show has closed, we’re fighting off the post-production blues by looking forward to the company’s future. There’s a lot of exciting stuff coming in the next few months, both as far as the company itself (you’ll be seeing some new faces soon) and the shows we’ve got coming for you. It’s an exciting time to be a Monkeyman — or a Monkeyfan!

Next up, most likely later in June, we’ll be doing a reading of the brand-spanking-new draft (so brand new I’m not done with it yet — gulp) of The Nefarious Bed & Breakfast, a comedy that has everything your geeky heart could desire: a devious villain, valiant (if in one case, a little boneheaded) heroes, utility belts, undercover intrigue, a giant laser, and a half-man, half-ape. Keep your calendar open, and we’ll be posting more once we set a date!

Let me tell you, friends and Monkeyfans, if you missed the first weekend of The Banana Festival you missed a lot! Great plays, great music, great audiences enjoying the heck out of every moment — it was really a tremendous time for all involved! Many thanks to all the fine performers, technicians, directors and audience members that were all a part of it!

But wait, there’s more! Three more shows, in fact! Friday night at 8, Saturday at 8 and 10:30. Three more chances to experience monstrous love, celebrity crushes, superhero angst and the zombie apocalypse (again)! Three more chances to enjoy the musical stylings of the rib-tickling Chelsea Manders! And all for a mere ten dollars — this offer will not last, ladies and gentlemen!

Well, it will through Saturday night. But we’re starting to get a nice stack of reservations for the shows, and we did sell out one of our performances at the Imperial Pub last year — why not call 416-737-1267, email headchimp@monkeymanproductions.com or buy tickets online now so your seat is reserved? We don’t want you to miss out on our theatrical antics!

I hope we’ll see you there, and I hope you’ll enjoy the show as much as we’ve enjoyed bringing it to you! Many happy Monkey thoughts!

To celebrate our opening weekend, we had a little party after the Saturday night late show with cast, crew and a few of our close friends. This is the way we celebrate — with beer and fine 80′s classics:

Below are a few candid snaps from the party as well. Trust me, you don’t want to miss the mayhem as we continue the show next weekend!

Or if you came from elsewhere, we’ve got a very nice article in the Eye this week. It’s a great piece and hopefully gave you a sense of what we’re shooting for here at Monkeyman.

I hope you’ll check out the site, read the page for our Banana Festival, and maybe even reserve some tickets to see the show! Welcome home!

And finally, a report from the director of the last play in the Festival, The Second Last Man on Earth. Allow me to introduce Mr. Phil Rickaby, who you might remember as the director of our last play about zombies, Dead Man’s Party:

I am directing The Second Last Manon Earth by Jordan Hall for Monkeyman Productions’ Banana Festival. The good news is that the play is great. Also good news is that now I get to play Left 4 Dead 2 and call it “research”.

Not so great is the fact that I’m coming in as a ringer. Basically, things came up and the director originally slated to direct the play was unable to do so, and the Monkeymen called me. And (to quote 24) WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

But the best news is that the cast is great. Tim Nussey, Melissa Zaccardelli, and Jack Morton are pulling the play together and despite the short time, and really finding some great stuff in the scenes.

In a short amount of time, we’ve managed to make some good choices about the characters, flesh out their histories, and get the play blocked. Now we can start to find the nuance in the scenes, and get the dialogue really moving.

Once thing I’ve noticed about not having a lot of time is that you basically have two options: you can try and hurry, worrying that if you don’t rush through everything that you’ll run out of time. Or you can work slowly, making sure that you work carefully. It seems that best option is to work slowly, taking your time, and ensuring that you work through each moment, not glossing over anything. This is the best use of the actor’s time. Working slowly like this means that everything gets its moment, and actually helps the actors to learn their scenes. Its been an important lesson to learn.

Wanting there to be equal representation for all the plays in The Banana Festival, I took a minute this morning to scribble down a few paragraphs about the background for my play, Fortress of Solitude:

Fortress of Solitude (thanks to Leah Bobet for the title) is set in Toronto, and while there aren’t many overt references to geography or history, it’s a Toronto pretty much like the one we’re used to. Except, of course, for the fact that superheroes (and by extension, supervillains) are real. There are women and men who can fly, or shoot laser beams from their eyes, or take tremendous amounts of punishment without being harmed. There are evil geniuses hatching plots involving giant robots and interdimensional catastrophes. The city is often in peril. But other than that, life is pretty much the way we know it.

It’s a setting I’ve used before, in various unpublished fiction and another play Monkeyman is developing, my comedy The Nefarious Bed & Breakfast. But while those stories are broader and more cartoonish, I wanted to try telling a more personal story within the same overall framework when I put together Fortress — something serious, though of course with the elements of comic relief to which a world containing Top Dog, Maiden Mystic and Force Girl would still be prone. I wanted to see if I could bring out of this world some honest emotion, some characters the audience would be able to sympathize with and relate to.

Of course, I’m far from the first to do so. Comics and graphic novels have grown increasingly more sophisticated over the past few decades, and there are many storylines — even in the superhero books — that have truly touched me with their depth and emotional resonance. The work of creators like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Mark Waid and many more have pushed the boundaries of what a story set in a super-powered universe can be, and I’m a huge and unabashed fan of the genre.

Fortress of Solitude is my slight attempt to do something similar within the limitations of the stage. My Toronto has brightly-suited superfolks flying through the air fighting giant monsters, but when those people go home they have real relationships, real problems to deal with (or run away from). I hope it’s a world you’ll find as interesting as I have.

Less than a week away from the opening of The Banana Festival, we asked a few questions of the cast from BillyJoelTookMetotheProm.com, Hannah Barnett-Kemper and Merritt Crews:

The first word that comes to mind when you hear the name “Billy Joel”:

M: Awesome with lots of exclamation marks.

H: Pop-legend/sensation.

What’s it like to work on playing a fifteen-year-old girl?

H: Playing a fifteen-year-old girl is essentially tapping into all of that stuff that you keep suppressed on a daily basis anyway. I don’t think there’s a twenty-something chick out there who isn’t a fifteen-year-old girl who’s working really hard to curb those impulses.

M: I think one thing, for me, is trying not to play it too young. Remembering that fifteen isn’t nine.

H: But there’s something in that too. When you are a fifteen-year-old girl, you’re constantly working to not seem nine and working to try and seem eighteen. It’s a balancing act, where you want to have frappuccinos…

M: But you hate coffee.

Describe the play in five words.

M: Awesome. Excitement. Devastation. Betrayal…

H: Sparkles.

What’s the best thing about working with Hannah?

M: We have a lot of fun together. I’ve worked with people that I just want to throttle in rehearsal. And I don’t want to throttle Hannah, which is nice.

What’s the best thing about working with Merritt?

H: The fact that she doesn’t throttle me, apparently… When we can use our natural connection to benefit the characters… There’s not many people you can do that with on a stage. And there’s not that many people you have that with in real life, anyway.

As we get closer and closer to The Banana Festival, we’ll be sharing a few little behind-the-scenes looks at what’s been going on with the individual plays involved. I asked Leeman Kessler, featured in the play Monstrous Invisible, to talk a little about how he’s approaching his portrayal of the writer H.P. Lovecraft:

When I first heard that Stephen was brainstorming a play about Lovecraft, my imagination kicked up a frenzy. One of my first acts was to dress up as Lovecraft for Halloween and come to work, complete with my My Li’l Cthulhu doll. I consider that my first audition. As the months went by and it became more and more apparent that this play would be reality, I began to delve even more headlong into Lovecraft’s eldritch works of fiction. I fear my mind began to race with the possibilities of portraying this man who is such an enigma and yet shares so much of his mind and his essence with his readers.

Once the official audition had come and gone and I was secure in the role, safe from all others, I allowed the true madness to boil over. Lovecraft is a man of incomparable style and voice. A man of contradictions that mirror the contradictions of his age. Brilliant and self-educated but without so much as a high school diploma. Raised in aristocratic settings yet living in squalour with no real employment for his short, adult life. Positively oozing with racist hate, anti-immigrant fear and poisonous anti-semitism and yet choosing a widowed Ukrainian Jewess as his wife. When he died, he died in pain and penury.

Playing Lovecraft is perhaps the most enthusiastic project I have undertaken. I won’t know it’s quality until it’s done but there are few roles I have yearned for or relished so much. I am indebted to Stephen for putting these words in my mouth, for DJ and the rest of my fellow Monkeymen for giving me a stage on which to walk, Laura whose vision gives me the chance to shine, and finally Tanya, my amazing partner in this crime.

As a geek in love, it is my pleasure to portray one of the earliest examples of geek romance, set amidst the hurly burly world of amateur horror and science fiction literature not far removed from the escapist world we inhabit. It is truly a delight if a maddening one.

41 press releases (most sent out for the second time, slightly revised).
150 full-colour posters.
Numerous website updates over the course of several weeks, involving 15 headshots (and counting).
Twenty-two Twitter updates.
One Facebook event (finally).
One phone interview (which will hopefully result in one article).
Dozens, if not hundreds, of people spreading the word.

And seventeen days until opening night of The Banana Festival! Have you bought your tickets yet? You better be coming, wouldn’t want all of my hard work to go to waste now, would you?