Whilst pondering what to blog about for our next Monkeyman show, I began thinking about what I find special and particularly enjoyable about The Showcase. We have always done our best to provide a unique and freeing environment with our shows, for the audience of course, but also with our performers, directors and technical crew. I can say with no hint of a lie that I think I experience this the most during The Simian Showcase. We work with new performers, new playwrights, new directors, and with the format of an evening of short plays, it allows us to go in any direction we like with them, and they with us.

I can say that I have had a great deal of fun with Matt and Deej, as Matt and I test each other and get to know how we work as a team on stage, and as Deej watches and guides us to the performance he has envisioned and knows we can achieve. I believe that this is truly representative of a Monkeyman Productions show experience. I am completely comfortable, as I feel both of my compatriots are and that is what will come through during our play. Which, I believe, will give the audience a sense of excitement, as they watch a performance that is truly the result of combining work and play. That is what I can personally promise from Gunpowder Arizona, and I am excited to sit and watch the same energy unfold in the other three plays we will be presenting for you. Debs and Errol shouldn’t be too bad either… kidding you two (don’t hurt me)! See you all there!

P.S. Get over here! Reserve tickets!

Some men are born to be King. Others are born to be Walmart greeters. No-one knows what kind of Royal Jelly it takes to turn one from the other but suffice it to say, such delicious confections are seldom required for one to make the transition from actor to director. Indeed, coming up through theatre school, folks are often required to be actors, writers, directors, props masters, and all around wranglers of other wayward souls in the chaotic soup of students trying to get assignments done.

Once one escapes such a creative melee, they usually begin to find their niches, whether it’s staring bleary-eyed into a monitor, manning a board with gnawed on fingers, treading some boards and not knowing what to with one’s hands, or sitting in the front row, tugging one’s hair and shouting, “No no no! Again!” It did not take long for me to discover I most prefer to be told what to do than to make all the necessary decisions that come with directing. Indeed, I’ve often found myself responding much better to dictators than to marshmallows. At least with a dictator, you at least know that they know what they want, even if it’s madness. Marshmallowy, “Let’s discover this together” types always leave me feeling a little like I’m back in Sunday school.

So with that in mind, I have to look at myself in the director’s chair and ask just how I got here? Now, prior to taking on Shark Week for Simian Showcase, I had directed a show that was not written by myself a grand total of once and a half. The half was in a directing class and it mostly consisted of me trying desperately to get one of my actors to talk louder and slower to little effect. The full show I directed was David Ives’ Sure Thing, which is an absolute delight and if one has a dopey male, a sassy female, and a working bell, then one’s job is essentially over. Not a ton of experience but at least it’s not my first rodeo.

Now the reason I’m directing this show is very simple: I couldn’t audition this time around. Due to scheduling conflicts in the form of my wife being a made a priest during our matinee, I was going to be unavailable so I thought to myself, just how can I contribute to this endeavour? Like most things, the answer came in the form of a whim I blurted out loud. Why don’t I direct? As it happened, one director was leaving for Norway so my suggestion turned out actually to be of some use. Some script perusal followed by some auditions and next thing I know, I’ve got a cast, a life-saving stage manager, and we’re now well into the rehearsal process with less than a month to go.

I’ll admit it’s all a bit much to take in. When one is used to being given direction, it’s a bit of a gear change to sit back and dish it out. I have a rough sense of what I like and I’d like to think I can recognize lameness and awesomeness and encourage one while tamping down the other but it’s still odd to be ship’s captain when one has spent most of his time as the one legged dwarf with an accordion.

Still, I’m glad to be doing it. Not just for the experience or the sense of being in charge but because I actually feel like I’m contributing in a fun, new way and lending my own odd, slightly oblique angle to the proceedings. I mean, it’s not every director who would take an actor’s off hand comment about casting a two-hander with both actors switching roles every night and yet here we are. Unnecessary madness? Probably. A cheap ploy to get well-meaning aunts to buy tickets for two different nights so they can see their nephews perform each part? Definitely. But it is undeniably fun and hopefully just novel enough without being precious.

What I’m saying is, you can leave your royal jelly in the fridge; I’ll take actors who know funny and a stage manager with more sense than I have any day of the week.

It’s going to be an interesting one both for the company and our fans, as we participate in the Fringe’s new AlleyPlays program. We’ll be creating a production that can fit into the most intimate of spaces while still giving you all the geek-friendly energy, jokes, heart, and energy you’ve come to expect from our shows.

And what is the show going to be about? D.J. Sylvis and Friend-of-Monkey Manda Whitney are creating a collection of short pieces about the video gaming experience that we’ll be calling, Headshots and Healing Potions. We’re still in the alpha stage of putting the pieces together, but the show is going to touch on a plethora of aspects of gamer culture, both old-school and up to the minute. It’ll be theatre that leaves you with bits in your eyes.

So keep your schedule open for July 4th-15th, stuff your pockets full of quarters, and watch this site for more details as we’ve got them to share. We’ll all level up together!

When you go to a rehearsal as a playwright, you’re generally there to be a fly on the wall – you want to go unnoticed, frantically scribbling while the actors read, hoping they don’t notice that you’ve written, “What the hell was I THINKING?” over all of their favourite lines. As a director guiding the initial read-throughs of someone else’s play, though (and I don’t recommend directing your own unless it’s been really, really well revised and polished already), you need to be at the center of things. You need to kick the tires on the play, look under the hood, ask the actors how they feel about their characters and what they have to do and to speak. In both cases, you’re looking for the strong points as well as the weak ones; you’re looking for what works and what might not be doing what you’d hoped and creating a more coherent whole.

It’s an exciting process, and I’m pleased to have been involved in the collaboration on both of these plays. Sometimes, I feel a little bit of a tug to step in where it’s not really appropriate – to make directing notes when I’m watching a rehearsal of my play, or to sit down and put my own touches on Nick Philpott’s script in a place or two – but I resist, and I let things take their natural course. I think we’ve got a really strong quartet of fun, geeky, well-polished plays coming for you this April 13th-21st; I hope you’ll come out and see what we’ve wrought.

Thursday, February 16th from 7pm to 10pm
and
Saturday, February 18th from 2pm to 5pm

at The Imperial Pub – 54 Dundas St. E., Toronto.

We’re looking for six actors:
5 males, mid 20s to mid 30s
1 female, mid 20s to mid 30s

Audition slots will be approximately 10 minutes in length, to be booked in person on a first-come-first-served basis on the audition dates. In addition to reading sides from one or more of the plays, actors should prepare a monologue or one part of a dialogue(no longer than 2 minutes in length) that showcases the actor’s individuality/versatility/enthusiasm. Incorporating pop-/geek-/sub-culture is strongly encouraged.

Please note: Rehearsals for the plays will most likely take place on weekday evenings and weekends.

Monkeyman Productions invites all imaginative geek and/or geek-friendly performers to come out and play with our directors.

THIS IS A NON-PAYING, NON-EQUITY PRODUCTION.

To my mind, there are just enough songs about rainbows and the only one that counts was never sung by Judy Garland (the celebrity painkillers/diet pills addict). Why is it that a hand stuffed in felt resonates with not only my generation but most of the surrounding ones as well? Perhaps looking to my personal past might reveal some answers. My childhood in West Africa was a pop cultural hodgepodge at the best of times but amidst the decades-old Mad magazines and Betamax copies of The Messenger, I had access to the Muppets in my own small way. (I will be excluding Sesame Street from this conversation because of its ubiquity)

First, there was the deuterocanonical Muppet Babies televised serial I owned, copied with dubious legality from TVs in the States and transported at great risk to the dusty lands of Nigeria for my consumption. I stared slack jawed as cartoons danced before the tumbling stone from Indiana Jones or battled against TIE fighters and wanted more. Those green and white striped socks are forever glued to my brain and I think I will always somewhat prefer that iteration of Gonzo. But many might consider that era to be a pop regurgitation of the Muppets so allow me to add further street cred by describing the wide-eyed wonder of watching the movie itself at an older couple’s house and being so blissed out that I returned the next day to see what other wonders they might possess only to be shooed away. If this were not enough, my parents had the brilliance to acquire the LP of the songs from the movie which I listened to as soon as I was tall enough to reach the arm and set the needle down carefully on the rim of the record.

Even given these things, I can’t justify my love. I had VHS copies of Garfield and Friends, Who’s the Boss, and Thoofer and yet they have not stuck in my heart with quite the same weight. I listened to the Chipmunks Sing the Beatles and and the Pretty Woman soundtrack on repeat and yet I have no interest in viewing either a Chipwreck or a New Year’s Eve. So there must be something more, some trauma that never truly healed and formed a perfect scar over my heart that marks me forever as Jim Henson’s own. If you’ll allow, I believe this trauma to be dark and twofold.

First was Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas. I only viewed it once or twice but it left an indelible mark upon me. I knew just enough from my readings of the Wind in the Willows to be absolutely terrified of weasels and the texture of the creatures I was watching reached out to me as no piece of animated celluloid or plain old flesh and blood human could. I felt for Emmett Otter in a quiet, sad way and I find myself even now growing cold at the memories of that 34 year old film.

And finally the real artifact that would determine the course of my love. It was strange and dark, familiar yet discomforting. I am of course speaking about the Frog Prince. Forty years old now, I watched the ever-loving crap out of this thing in my formative childhood in between power outages. I remember my heart beating at the injustice of the princess’ plight, fearing Sweetums as only a child can fear, and longing to sing along with all the frogs and truly be a part of that world. When the orb cracks and the purple goo explodes everywhere, a part of me still shivers. I wonder just how much of my childhood can be decoded by simply watching that today and recognizing how in love with it I was.

Each of us who looks on a piece of felt and wire with fondness and groans at the sight of Goober or other lesser attempts at puppetry has taken our own particular path to get here. Whether it was a love of Charles Grodin and Diana Rigg, a need to understand just who those creatures were who invaded the Fraggles’ home in that once Christmas Special, or fate that brought you in touch with the Muppets, their magic is hard to deny and I for one, choose not to.

The Tour Guide(Leeman Kessler)

You have two more chances to journey to Uncharted Zones.

Advance tickets are available via the Monkeyman Productions online box office.

Julam and Ver explore the far reaches of space in the distant future. The only crew of a small scout ship, they survey and catalogue planets among the remotest stars. Alone together, they reflect on the choices they’ve made and the lives they’ve left behind.

Chance features Martha Girvin as Julam and Jennifer Kenneally as Ver.

Uncharted Zones opens December 8th, 2011.

Now, I know that you have a lot of Christmas wishes to grant and reindeer feed ain’t cheap. I’m taking this opportunity to let you know about how you can make sure you see the latest offering from Toronto’s geekiest theatre company… and save some money for that Turbo Man action figure or Furby for which someone you know is wishing.

Tickets for Uncharted Zones: A Sequence of Four will cost $20 at the door… but an advance ticket, available via the Monkeyman Productions online box office, can be yours for $15.

Every time the pre-sale bell rings,
Sir Wilfrid Laurier gets his wings.

But wait! I know you have friends who would love to hear the words of Baboon-Bard D.J. Sylvis spoken aloud. You can save even more than a fin by rounding up three such persons with excellent taste in drama. A quartet of tickets can be purchased at “A Discount of Four” (see what we did there?) for just $50.

Treat yourself! It’s time to mix it up – Ross Petty, Handel, and Tchaikovsky won’t consider it cheating. Buy your tickets for Uncharted Zones today!