http://www.edmontonjournal.com/mobile/iphone/story.html?id=5109290

PARADE Meet at 25 ave & 4th Street (Safeway parking lot) 4:00pm Friday April 1, 2011

Parade to studio 2404 Erlton Road SW

CASINO!

This Wednesday and Thursday Green Fools and dozens of amazing volunteers host a major fundraising endeavour at the Elbow River Casino.

Wednesday the 30th of March 10:30 AM– 7 PM or 11:15 – 7PM

Wednesday the 30th of March 6:15 PM – 3 AM

Wednesday the 30th of March 10:00 PM– 3 AM

And

Thursday the 31st of March 10-30 AM – 7 PM or 11:15 – 7 PM

Thursday the 31st of March 6:15 PM – 3 AM

Thursday the 31st of March 10:00 – 3 AM

Email Jennie at mail@greenfools.com to join the F.U.N!

APRIL FOOLS DAY PARADE! THIS FRIDAY!!!

Green Fools Theatre presents the 20th annual April Fool’s Day Parade

Friday April 1

Free family fun!

Meet at 4:00 pm at the parking lot at 25th Avenue and 4th Street SW.

*** Note new start location**** 25th Ave/ 4th Street

Parade through Erlton to Green Fools Studio.

Come join in the Parade of Stilt walkers, Calgary’s Samba Band, mask wearers and Fools of all ages! Bring your own costume or wear something of ours. We will be parading back to the Green Fools Theatre where we invite you to stick around with your fellow fools to enjoy activites, snacks, and Green Fools Theatre’s stilt/ mask creations. CHEER ON SPRING!

Call 237 – 9010 or mail@greenfools.com for details

VOTE FOR CIRCUS CAMPS!

Click and vote here: http://www.refresheverything.ca/tricksterprojectatedenvalley

Your vote can help raise funds to sponsor Green Fools and Calgary Children’s Festivals  vital and life changing circus camp for kids in need.

VOTE EVERYDAY!

JUST CLICK HERE EVERYDAY!

http://pep.si/eTthAs

The Trickster Project is a weeklong circus arts mentorship program that uses circus skills training as a vehicle with which to foster teamwork, build self-esteem and develop leadership skills with students in grades 4 – 12. The project is a partnership between the Calgary International Children’s Festival and Green Fools Theatre and has operated annually for the past four years.

The project recently completed its second year at the Chief Jacob Bearspaw Memorial School on the Eden Valley Reserve located near Longview, Alberta. Teachers and counselors have noted positive outcomes including improvements in student behavior, their respect for each other and their openness towards new experiences.

The community has expressed a strong desire to have the Trickster Project return to the school in the fall of 2011. We are seeking partners able to contribute towards making this happen.

WORK A CASINO SHIFT AND GET A FREE TICKET TO GREEN FOOLS HALLOWEEN HOWL!

We need your help! It’s fun! You get free food! And we’ll give you a free ticket to the Howl! (best Calgary Halloween party- sells out each year!)

Here are the Casino volunteer shifts- I’ll be there for all of them to give you a personal squeeze:

Wednesday the 30th of March 10:30 AM– 7 PM or 11:15 – 7PM

Wednesday the 30th of March 6:15 PM – 3 AM

Wednesday the 30th of March 10:00 PM– 3 AM

And Thursday the 31st of March 10-30 AM – 7 PM or 11:15 – 7 PM

Thursday the 31st of March 6:15 PM – 3 AM

Thursday the 31st of March 10:00 – 3 AM

At the Elbow River Casino PLEASE CONTACT JENNIE at mail@greenfools.com to join the F.U.N!

Green Fools Theatre is a not for profit charitable organization specializing in masks, puppets and stilts. Based in Calgary, our work has toured internationally for all sorts of audiences; we work extensively with communities and youth at risk. Each year we run a casino to raise vital funds for the company. The funds go to pay for day-to-day operations, new puppet shows, workshops, our events and other Green Fools programming.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=elbow+river+casino&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

January 22, 2011

Dean has been in Edmonton working with Eilleen Sproule (Director & co-writer of Project Whooping Crane and director of Crossing the Mediterranean) on the new adult clown show. They’ve had an incredible first few days, the show has an outline and is shaping up to be a very funny but dark piece of clown theatre. The work is incorporating video and music and is being developed over the next few months with hopes of having a sneak preview in March at the Uptown. Details to follow!

The Green Fools have had a few studios.

The old space we called Hell above what used to be the F&D production shop on Spiller Road is a memorable favorite. I can still smell the chemicals and paint wafting through the floors. That studio had a vibrancy. Artists from many disciplines came out for Cabarets and really generated an underground arts scene in the city. Hell was a cool space and is a symbol of a different time. Artists were still broke but we didn’t care and permits didn’t seem to be an issue at all. A time when rent was cheap- $350/ month for 2400 square feet! A time gone by.

We invested a tremendous amount of effort and care into our next studio, Crump Manor in Ramsey: building a sprung floor for the theatre and a lighting grid, an attached apartment for group meals and visiting artists! (Which we all lived in at one point or another.) But our time there came to an end.

Across the tracks in Inglewood we moved to another special kind of haven. The Woodstone building owned by someone willing to fill it with artists and ruffians and run by Jim, an enlightened arts friendly manager who played god in one of our Halloween shows. Though you had to side step some tweakers, the Old Trouts were our neighbours in the same building, as was visual artist Dean Stanton, we shared our office with Sage Theatre and many more artists occupied the building. It was a kind of community. We would have parties and events and use all of our studios. At Halloween we would have outdoor shows and fires, aerials repelling off the side of the building, a piper on the roof. If you needed any material or equipment, some advice on a puppet or just a visit you’d just pop over to the one of the artists studios. This special building was bought by a new owner and all of the artists were evicted. Progress! Greed.

Each time forced to move, each time luck stepped in to provide us with a space we could afford. This time we heard about the old church in Erlton that used to be the Horseman’s club and was a longstanding underground venue. We enjoyed a couple of years using and renting out the space. A little lonely perhaps, having no artist neighbours around, just us in the drafty lone shack at the end of a row of decrepit homes, homes which have each been bull dozed one by one. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before the bull dozers the owners of the whole property, including the church and the whole block, changed zoning so that the property, including the church, could be poised for the creation of condos. No more shows allowed at the studio. Rehearsal, office and workshop only. Venue no more.

This was just before the bust. And when the economy did go bust and so many condos downtown were left unfinished, cranes dangling, stopped dead in their tracks, the skyline looking more like ground zero than Calgary (And I don’t mean that lightly. The image is incredibly similar), the owners stopped the plans and are sitting on the property. This was partly good for us, buying us more time in the space, but the owners still refused to change the zoning back so we still are unable to use the space as a public venue. This is a huge drag. And that is a huge understatement.

You know that bylaw officers troll the block making sure we don’t use the space for public events/ shows? And some have even taken a special interest in our case ready to pounce on any public art activity. Can you imagine making sure we don’t let people see a play here the focus of your job, or even your day, or even a moment? I mean its pathetic. It’s symptomatic, though, of a deep loathing our culture has towards the arts. Some left over from the puritans who slaughtered their way across the new world. Unless the art is a commercial success… then its worshipped.

So here we are. With a studio we can only kind of use, looking around for anything usable in a city much more interested in clients with dollars. We don’t have many of those. Just a bunch of puppets in suitcases.

Now we haven’t given up! We are still looking. And we are still operating in the church- sometimes even sneaking in a performance or two. Crossing our fingers while stickin it to the man. We also still provide something we have always provided for the extended arts community and that’s affordable rehearsal space. The studio is buzzing all year round. Established companies like Ghostriver, Sage and the Impro Guild are a regular here, as well individual artists or groups working on aerial, clown shows and more. We love filling the space with artists! And we can’t wait until we are able to offer an affordable venue again.

If you have any info on any inner city property thats cheap and over 8000 sq ft, let us know! We’d be happy to shack up with like minded folks as well.

Hi all- welcome to our new website!

We’re really happy to present this comprehensive and evolving site. We will continue to add and grow making this the go-to place for all things Fools.

Ever on the road working or exploring the world, the Fools can be hard to pin down. You’ll find our studio in Calgary where we launch much of our work, but you won’t always find a Fool there. Our new website can keep you in the loop of our shenanigans and new work development no matter where we are or where you are.

Look for blog updates of new shows, regularly updated pages, soon to be added video, calendar and database.

As we build and grow our virtual world, we not only can let you into the mysterious process of a Fools show in development with notes and photos of progressing work, or let you know where and when one of our shows, events, stilt walkers or instructors will be, we can also build a record of the past 20 years of Green Fools Theatre work, artists and audiences.

At present most of the photos on this site begin with the advent of the digital camera, other ole fashioned photos will be scanned in with time. But if you have any photos from any Green Fools event or performance- please send them our way! We would love to include them on the site and/ or in our records.

SEND US YOUR PHOTOS OF FOOLS PERFORMANCES AND EVENTS!

We look forward to hearing from you!

See you soon,

The Fools