Friday, January 1st, 2010
STORY PIRATES
BY DAKOTA KIM
FUNNY VOICES The
ensemble performs “The
Day I Got My Head Stuck
in a Barstool.”
Educational children’s entertainment often resembles a lecture with supposedly cool props—and usually leaves students feeling less than enthused and unlikely to absorb the message.
Enter the Striking Viking Story Pirates (www.storypirates.org). Founded in 2003, the arts education organization made up of performers promotes literacy and appeals to children’s minds and funny bones by engaging them with lively writing workshops and performances of their material.
“Instead of children’s theater being theater for children, this is theater by children,” says Chris Tuttle, one of the troupe’s original cast members.
The Story Pirates host weekly performances at the Drama Book Workshop on West 40th Street in New York City, complete with puppets, costumes, singing and dancing. During each show, a story is written by the children in the audience and performed by the adult actors.
“Three puppets—Siegfried the Orange, Rolo Vincent and Francois de Bunne—are basically the emcees for the show,” says Peter Russo, another original cast member. “They help instill courage in the kids, because it can be a scary thing to share your ideas with other people.”
In addition to their weekly shows, the Story Pirates visit dozens of schools each year to perform a collection of the best sketches adapted from stories written by children. Students then participate in creative writing workshops at which Story Pirates members use a combination of theater games, visual arts, music and video to show them how to shape their ideas and create detailed stories.
“Kids make the connection that everything you see on TV or at the movies had to have a writer,” says Creative Director Drew Callandar, one of the company’s three co-founders. “When they realize that, it’s sort of this ‘a-ha!’ moment for them.”
About a month after their initial visit, the Story Pirates return to the schools with brand-new puppets, props and sketches inspired by the stories the children wrote during the workshops. At these follow-up performances, the featured student authors are
FUNNY VOICES The ensemble performs “The Day I Got My Head Stuck in a Barstool.” asked to take a bow in front of their entire school. “It’s amazing how supportive these kids are of each other,” Russo says. “Writing is personal; it’s not easy to say, ‘Hey everybody, look at what I wrote.’ Our workshops and performances bring children’s talents into the light.”
The Story Pirates recently began incorporating multimedia elements into their programs. Movie workshops at the Bronx Art Charter School and The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan allow children to write and star in short films based on their own scripts. Kids can also operate cameras and edit footage to make final cuts, which are broadcast on YouTube; previous Story Pirates films have been viewed more than two million times.
Last year, a young New Yorker enthralled by his city’s subway system wrote a story entitled Leo’s Favorite Train Is the F Train. The Story Pirates turned it into a song, filmed a music video for it—featuring footage of the trains and segments of costumed troupe members dancing and singing on and around subway cars—and premiered it at Comix, a comedy club in Manhattan.
“It’s a hilarious and beautiful music video, and an amazing tribute to the young author’s love of the trains,” says CEO/Co-Founder Benjamin Salka.
When the Story Pirates are not in New York, they bring their show around the country. In 2008, the theater group visited 121 schools nationwide and performed for almost 50,000 children. They also presented a show geared toward adults at Bumber-shoot, Seattle’s annual international music and arts festival, and are seeking new company members for shows in Los Angeles.
“It’s been a remarkable journey,” Russo says. “In some ways, we’re becoming a funky, Henson-type production company.”
A company with singing, dancing puppets that travel around the country encouraging young people to use their imaginations—it’s a story that could have been written by a child.
