Red Monkey Theater Group is the resident theatre group for The College of Mount Saint Vincent, in the Bronx. Deep in the bustling streets of New York City just north of Manhattan this theatre company has been performing both classic and contemporary pieces in intimate performing venues for years. This November the RMT Group put on their yearly "Dungeons and Monkey's" Charity event.
This November the RMT Group put on their yearly "Dungeons and Monkey's" Charity event.
This provides the opportunity for both new and experienced individuals to play Dungeons and Dragons, each game session ran by the professional actors of Red Monkey Theater. This day long experience helps students, and anyone else interested, understand the motives and feelings of others, helping develop empathy, problem solving, and teamwork all in the form of play. The day included both free and paid experiences including a dramatic performance of a live session full of actors in character, accompanied by lighting, sound, and other fun surprises for the audience.
This day long experience helps students, and anyone else interested, understand the motives and feelings of others, helping develop empathy, problem solving, and teamwork all in the form of play.
For many this was their first time experiencing table top role-playing, a hobby gaining in popularity in the last decade since it's early adoption in 1974. For those unfamiliar the system is quite novel, a story teller (in this case an actor) creates the world, they're the whispers in the trees and the voice of every character you meet from the kind shop owner to the wicked villain, in his evil fortress. The players interact with the storyteller, in this case called a dungeon master, determining their approach to the adventure. Often they investigate troubles, experience trials and tribulations, hoping to save the day. Whether that mean a simple journey to find a lost pet, or a grand adventure to save the country from a dragon. Every story is unique, and between the players and the Dungeon Master no two experiences are ever the same.
Every story is unique, and between the players and the Dungeon Master no two experiences are ever the same.
As mentioned before this provides a lot of students the unique experiences of acting, interacting, and working together with strangers that often become fast friends. In today's digital age the added advantage of having an activity that young people can enjoy face to face, and foster important personal skills, can't be undervalued. They even provided a table for children under twelve who might have an interest in the game, but no opportunity to play due to a lack of resources or guidance.
The RMT Group works with midnight run, offering 100% of all the ticket sales from their performance to the charitable organization.
While it could be enough to help benefit youth and help get live theatre and shared story telling into the public eye, that's not all this event was designed to do. The RMT Group works with midnight run, offering 100% of all the ticket sales from their performance to the charitable organization.
Midnight Run is an organization that works to help foster understanding and communication between various residents of New York City. Predominantly they work to help bridge the divide between communities and their homeless population, by organizing the distribution of resources by other local communities to those in need. In their own words "Midnight Run is not a solution to homelessness. Our goal is to forge a bond between housed and homeless people by establishing a foundation of sharing and caring from which solutions may evolve." This is similar to the stance ThreePenny Theatre Company takes, we know our work in and of itself may only directly impact the lives of relatively few in our lifetime on the global scale, but if through our work, outreach, and voice, we can reach our communities maybe we can change the hearts of those vital individuals who determine the direction our country takes.
In their own words "Midnight Run is not a solution to homelessness. Our goal is to forge a bond between housed and homeless people by establishing a foundation of sharing and caring from which solutions may evolve."
And even if we can't change the world, if we can be the difference in giving hope to those with none, even if it was only one soul, we'd know it was worth the effort.
You can learn more about Red Monkey Theatre Group at: https://redmonkeytheater.wordpress.com/2019/10/14/dungeons-monkeys-2019/
You can learn more about Midnight Run at : https://midnightrun.org/our-story
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Cody O'Hare is one of the Co-Board Members and the Development Director of ThreePenny Theatre Company. He's written multiple short plays, other works of fiction, and designs training courses for digital marketing, and dreams of creating and introducing exciting new theatre, that can help inspire social change.