Illustration and Animation of Sam Randazzo

Hey actors, writers, comedians, artists; I’m talking to you!

The Echo Park Time Travel Mart (826LA) has some great opportunities that are perfect for folks interested in improv, comedy, writing and/or cartooning. Ever wanted to play an old curmudgeon and yell at kids through a loudspeaker or shape their wacky ideas into amazing stories? Hidden behind the refrigerated robot milk and dinosaur eggs is a tutoring center that hosts after-school help as well as field trips like Storytelling and Bookmaking.

The Storytelling and Bookmaking field trips consist of a class of kids (usually between grades 1-5) greeted by the storyteller(s) into “Barnacle & Barnacle Publishing” where all the employees are always on the verge of being fired by the cranky Mr. Barnacle. Although, the benevolent Mrs. Barnacle is the complete opposite, she’s out of the office. The storytellers mold the students ideas into a story that will please Mr. Barnacle and allow the employees to keep their jobs. Nobody has ever seen Mr. Barnacle but his booming voice hilariously berates the storyteller and students from a speaker above. Each completed page of the story is messengered to Barnacle by the Hand of Doom, an intern that suffered a horrible book-binding accident resulting in their hand being replaced with a mechanical claw. When a finished page is printed, The Hand of Doom is summoned by chanting, “Hand-Of-Doom, Hand-Of-Doom!” and two brave students are selected to present the page to the claw that reaches out from behind a curtain. While each page of the story is being written, an illustrator draws the characters and situations the class is creating. Eventually, Mr. Barnacle’s heart grows three sizes from reading the great stories and he approves their books. By the end of the morning the kids leave with a fully illustrated and published book that they wrote.

Roles: Mr/Mrs. Barnacle, Storyteller, Hand of Doom, Typist, Illustrator 

There are a bunch of other field trips (like Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Bookmaking) and fun events to participate in. If you’re a writer, comedian, actor or artist and you’ve got some free time during the day; you should really be involved in this.