Monroe Kennedy is an impressive kid.
He loves art, he can make anything out of cardboard and he created his own board game. He attends a fully immersive school where he speaks and learns in Mandarin Chinese.
Monroe’s latest achievement? The popular Story Pirates podcast turned a story he wrote into a song. It debuted on the podcast last fall and is also featured on the Story Pirates’ just-released fourth album, “The Strawberry Band.”
Oh, and did I mention that the kid from Golden Valley is just 7 years old?
When Monroe heard the news Story Pirates chose his story, “I was surprised and happy. I listen to (Story Pirates) every night before I go to bed. I like all the stories that kids have written.”
Story Pirates was founded in 2003 by 10 Northwestern University graduates who decided to merge improv with music and theater to create shows based on original stories written by children. It’s grown to include a cast and staff of more than 200 actors, musicians, teachers, puppeteers and technicians.
Before the pandemic, Story Pirates performed shows and taught creative writing workshops in more than 150 elementary schools and community-based organizations each year in the Los Angeles and New York areas.
Over the years, the group has gone international, thanks to a SiriusXM radio show that evolved into a podcast that has been streamed more than 35 million times, the third-largest audience of all kids and family podcasts in the world. Each podcast features a song and story inspired by a child’s writing. (Jon Stewart is a big fan and the podcast has hosted special guests like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Billy Eichner, Bowen Yang, Claire Danes and John Oliver.)
“When we started, there was a genuine feeling of wanting to work with the writing of kids,” said Story Pirates creative director Lee Overtree. “We had the pretty sincere feeling that kids’ writing is the best writing in the world. It’s unfiltered in a way that adults aren’t capable of doing. Kids receive the world in a very authentic way and express themselves with so much truth and humor and curiosity.”
When the pandemic hit, Story Pirates went digital, with a variety of new online programs. Monroe was a fan before COVID, but his interest grew during isolation. He joined Creator Camp, a Zoom class that fosters creative writing.
“It was such a wonderful opportunity,” said Monroe’s mom, Morgan. “It’s a core part of what we do now.”
During one class, the kids were prompted to write about an idiom. Monroe chose “once in a blue moon.” He had never heard the phrase, but that didn’t stop him. “I just started drawing a picture and thinking about what it should be about,” Monroe said. “Then I wrote a few words and then I sent it to Story Pirates.”
Here’s Monroe’s story, which sounds like something a young Prince might have written, in full: “Once every blue moon, everything the moonbeams touch turns blue. It lasts for one whole week, and it’s a joyous time for celebrations. They have blue fireworks, they paint their face blue and they celebrate our place in the universe. Then, it just stops. The town wakes up and everything fades back to its own color.”
Overtree said Story Pirates gets about 1,000 submissions each month. He sent a batch to songwriter Ellen Winter for possible songs.
“ ‘Blue Night’ really stuck out to me,” Winter said. “He set a scene so vividly and captured this event and experience. It was like a party I wanted to go to. It seemed so cool to me, I wanted to explore that world. Plus, I felt a kinship because ‘Blue Moon’ was one of the first songs I learned on the piano.
“There was a lot of wonder in Monroe’s writing and I wanted to capture that. The verse is groovy and moody and the chorus is like the party. I thought this was the song that would play over the loudspeakers (during blue moon week),” Winter said. (Seriously, it’s a catchy and surprisingly contemporary sounding song. It lodged itself in my head after a single listen.)
Winter said one of the things she likes most about Story Pirates is that it never talks down to kids. Overtree echoed that sentiment. “We live in a world where things that are made for kids are often very top down. Instead of creatives and grownups trying to figure out what kids want to see and hear, we let the kids tell us what they want. It’s a world where kids aren’t just consuming entertainment, they’re conceiving it. That makes things more entertaining and we believe it helps them learn better.”
Each night, Monroe falls asleep listening to the Story Pirates podcast. Outside of his own episode, his favorite is from May 2018, “The Story Pirates + Wow in the World: The Mixed Up Sensory World of Synesthesia.”
I asked Monroe to tell me more about the board game he created. “It’s a dragon game,” he explained. “You collect food. Also, things get stuck in goo. You go back spaces and have battles and other things. It’s also very hard.”
Does he know what he wants to be when he grows up?
“I do not know. I have thousands of choices.”
Any more stories in the works?
“I’ve already written another one.”
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April 16, 2021 at 05:57PM
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MN 7-year-old’s short story is now a song on a hit podcast - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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