No Plans for World Roller Derby Week? Make Some

July 11, 2017
By Amanda Halm

Put on your party boutfit. Roller derby turns 82 this year and we’re celebrating in a big way during the inaugural World Roller Derby Week (August 13-19). Join us at two exciting events in Chicago or come out in summer and fall to donate at one of our Red Cross roller derby blood drives.

How much do you know about roller derby? Here’s some trivia: Chicago is the birthplace of roller derby and the sport is one of a just handful invented in the U.S.

If you’re in Chicago (or… need a good excuse to visit), celebrate the big 82 and World Roller Derby Week at these two events.

Celebrate Roller Derby’s Birthday and Birthplace

Happy Birthday Roller Derby. Join roller derby skaters from across the Midwest at Coliseum Park for a skate and cake. Junior derby skaters will serve cake to passersby and we’ll honor original players. Athletes, fans and families from roller derby are encouraged to attend. Sunday, August 13, 12:30-2:00 PM, free.

Time Hop. Travel back in time and into the future at Fleetwood Roller Rink. This jam-packed double-header explores the past, present and future of roller derby. Saturday, August 19, 2-6 PM, adults $15, youth $5. Midwest All Stars’ home teams will play the first game under the classic 1970’s rule-set, while wearing commemorative uniforms.

The second game showcases young, emerging talent from the Midwest JRDA member leagues in a regulation level-three junior game. Artistic and speed skaters will put on an action-packed show at halftime.

Can’t be there in person? Be there in social. Catch the action or give a shoutout at #TimeHop2017.

Nationwide Roller Derby Blood Drives

The 4th Annual Make ‘Em Bleed derby blood drives roll out again this year, in partnership with Brown Paper Tickets and The American Red Cross. They will be going on coast-to-coast and for the first time, rocking the Midwest with a blood drive in Chicago (home of our newest office) on October 29.

Roller derby athletes will offer autographs, photo opportunities and more, making these community service events the most popular blood drives of the year in many of the cities they occur.

Summer is a difficult time for the Red Cross to get blood donations and they could really use your help. Make ‘Em Bleed roller derby blood drives have collected more than 900 units of blood over the past four years–enough to have helped save up to 2,700 lives.

To pre-register as a donor visit the Red Cross, tap “Find a Drive,” and enter the sponsor code, Derby.

There’s still time for your league to join this wonderful effort. Email derbyblooddrive(at)gmail(dot)com if you’re interested. And catch all the inspiration at #MakeEmBleed.

Make ’Em Bleed Red Cross Blood Drives 2017

Wednesday, July 26 (Pottstown, Pennsylvania): Rockstar Roller Derby from 2-7 pm at Ringing Hill Fire Company, 815 White Pine Lane.

Saturday, July 29 (San Jose, California): Silicon Valley Roller Derby from 10 am to 4 pm at Silver Creek Sportsplex, 800 Embedded Way.

Saturday, Aug. 5 (St. Petersburg, Florida): Deadly Rival Roller Derby from 5-7 pm at The Slayground, 4033 35th St N. (donors asked to sign-up here.)

Friday, Aug. 11 (Woodbridge, New Jersey): Dirty Jersey Roller Girls at a time to be announced at the VFW Post.

Sunday, Aug. 13 (Chicago, Illinois): Roller derby athletes from across the Midwest for the inaugural World Roller Derby Week, a public skate-and-cake blood donor pledge event at Coliseum Park, commemorating the public debut of the sport at that location in Chicago in 1935.

Friday, Aug. 18 (Santa Cruz, California): Santa Cruz Derby Girls from 9 am to 3 pm at Santa Cruz Strength, 151 Harvey West Blvd Suite D.

Friday, Aug. 18 (Livermore, California): Quad City Derby Bombshells at a time to be announced at Asbury United Methodist Church, 4743 East Ave.

Saturday, Aug. 19 (Chicago, Illinois): Roller derby athletes from across the country for Time Hop at Fleetwood Roller rink. This bout is also a public pledge to donate event where roller derby athletes will skate in the style that the sport made its debut in Chicago 82 years ago, in 1935. A limited number of tickets are available online through Brown Paper Tickets here.

Thursday, Aug. 25 (Santa Rosa, California): Resurrection Roller Girls and the Sonoma Roller Derby; at a time to be announced at the American Red Cross, 5297 Aero Drive. Both leagues have teamed-up for this blood drive in competition for which league can attract the most blood donor registrants, in competition for the Brown Paper Tickets cup.

Saturday, Sept. 9 (Hollister, California): The Faultline Derby Devilz from 10 am to 4 pm at the shopping center at 580 Tres Pinos Road.

Saturday, Sept. 23 (Poteau, Oklahoma): The Leflore County Maidens of Mayhem from 10 am to 4 pm at the Red Cross Bloodmobile at 1914 N. Broadway St.

Sunday, Oct. 29 (Chicago, Illinois): Roller derby leagues from across the Midwest at from 10 am to 3 pm at The American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois, 2200 West Harrison Street Chicago, IL 60612.

Sunday, Oct. 29 (Phoenix, Arizona): Arizona Derby Dames from 10 am to 4 pm at 2517 W. McDowell Road, Suite 118.

Saturday, January 6 (Poteau, Oklahoma): Leflore County Maidens of Mayhem Roller Derby Team from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1914 N. Broadway St.

Saturday, Jan. 13, 2018 (Tulsa, Oklahoma): Tulsa’s Roughneck Roller Derby from 12 to 6 pm at Rhema Bible Church,1025 W Kenosha St, Broken Arrow, OK.

Saturday, February 10 (Santa Rosa, California): Resurrection Roller Girls and the Sonoma Roller Derby from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the American Red Cross, 5297 Aero Drive.

Saturday, August 18 (Chicago, Illinois): Many Midwest leagues – from 10 am to 3 pm at The American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois, 2200 West Harrison Street Chicago, IL 60612.

Saturday, August 18 (Romeoville, Illinois): Join roller derby leagues from across the Midwest from 10 am to 3 pm at a location TBD.

How will you celebrate World Roller Derby Week? Let us know in the comments.

Roller Derby >

The Mid-Week Beat: 147 Years of the Musical!

August 28, 2013
By Jimmy Berg

This week on the Mid-Week Beat, we pay tribute to the art of musical theater because, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a musical? Okay, maybe some of you don’t but even the most ardent detractors of the art form will admit a love for at least one musical, be it West Side Story or Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

We can trace the roots of “musical theater” back to ancient Greece, where music and dance was incorporated into stage comedies and tragedies, but the modern Western “musical” as we know them, gained prominence in the late 19th Century with the basic structural elements established by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and by Harrigan and Hart in America. The first modern “musical,” which is generally defined as a theatrical work that is enhanced by adding dance and original music to help tell the story, was The Black Crook, which debuted in New York on September 2, 1866. The show was five and half hours long and ran for a record-breaking 474 performances.

That record was broken in the late 1800’s by a series of long-running, family-friendly comic opera hits by Gilbert and Sullivan including 1878’s H.M.S. Pinafore and 1885’s The Mikado. Gilbert and Sullivan revolutionized musical theater by creating examples of how to better integrate music into theatrical pieces so that the lyrics and dialogue advance the story and make it more coherent. Their works would influence many composers of subsequent musicals by the likes of Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein II and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

American composers like George and Ira Gershwin, Irivng Berlin and Rodgers and Hart would eventually take away Britain’s dominance in the musical theater world by replacing the operatic and theatrical styles of the 19th century with a modern approach more fitting to 20th century sensibilities. They began to incorporate popular musical styles like ragtime and jazz and, by the 1920s, the focus began to shift away from the plot and more towards star actors or actresses, big musical numbers and popular songs. Many of today’s “standards” were written during this time period and the careers of early Broadway legends like Fred Astaire were launched.
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Arts >

Spit Take Saturday: Anjelah Johnson at Just For Laughs Chicago

June 15, 2013
By Julie Seabaugh

just for laughs Welcome to Spit Take Saturday, courtesy of Brown Paper Tickets’ Comedy Doer Julie Seabaugh and her professional comedy criticism site The Spit Take. Julie’s goal with the site is to “elevate the public perception of stand-up comedy to that of a legitimate art form, and to enable comedy criticism be taken as seriously as that of theater, film, music, food, even video games. No a**-kissing. No bias. No mercy. Just honest, unfiltered, long-form reviews written by professional, knowledgeable comedy critics.”

Every week Julie will select an entry from the site to be included on our blog and hand-pick some related events happening that week that she feels all you comedy lovers out there will appreciate.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to this week’s Spit Take Saturday!

Threats of a torrential derecho kept some Chicagoans home instead of braving the storm and put a damper on the Just for Laughs-branded pedicabs that shuttled fans around the city. But they didn’t stop eager Anjelah Johnson fans from lining up with their umbrellas and galoshes outside The Vic Theatre, the former vaudeville venue on Chicago’s north side, to snag good general-admission seats for the former MADtv cast member’s Wednesday night performance.

Nashville-based opener T.C. Cope had an undeniably energetic stage presence, but it wasn’t enough to compensate for his dated material. Large, stagnant chunks devoted to Tickle Me Elmo, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and a SeaWorld drowning that happened in 2010 made it feel as though Cope hadn’t read a newspaper or been online much recently. He showed versatility with his Luther Vandross impression and preached the efficacy of R&B as an aphrodisiac, but somewhere along the line he meandered, reaching the halfway point of Toby Keith’s “Angry American” before it became difficult to remember how the joke began in the first place. The crowd seemed to like Cope well enough nevertheless, though perhaps Johnson’s younger, hipper fans weren’t his usual audience.
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Comedy >

Non-profit of the Month: One Tail at a Time

March 30, 2012
By admin

After spending some time with different animal shelters, foster programs and animal help clinics, I ran across this organization in Chicago: One Tail at a Time. They are a non-profit foster program that is a no-kill, all-breed dog rescue program. This is their mission statement:

One Tail at a Time…serves to lower euthanasia rates in the greater Chicagoland area and provide education on the humane treatment of companion animals. The rescue concentrates its efforts on dogs that are in danger of being euthanized, or those that are physically and/or mentally deteriorating in a shelter environment, works to rehabilitate them, and then matches each dog with a permanent home. Focused on keeping pets as a part of our family, One Tail at a Time offers fosters and adopters continued support and education on how best to keep dogs happy, healthy and part of the family.

What is very unique about this dog foster program is they pay for everything a person needs (food, medical, dog walkers, daycare, etc.) to ensure that all the dogs in their program are well taken care of. They don’t just go out and pick the best of the best animals from the shelters for quick adoption turn-around, they find the best in all dogs and try to give as many of them as possible a chance at a better life. If, for some reason, the adoption isn’t a good fit, they will take the dog back into their program. In fact they prefer it! This allows them to ensure that the dog finds the best family possible. Even if a family can no longer keep the dog years after the adoption, One Tail at a Time will take the dog back into their program and find it a new, happy home.

A current foster for One Tail at a Time, Juli Zagrans, stated: “I’ve been volunteering and fostering for OTAT for about 2 years. I’ve had 17 of their dogs in my home and consistently work with this organization because they make doing the right thing easy. It was started by a group of friends with a vision that they could offer something to the Chicago rescue community, and they have. They choose quality over quantity, and once an OTAT dog, always an OTAT dog.”