On Monday morning, the actors at PlayMaker’s Laboratory began rehearsing for their charity fundraiser.

“My name is Don. I’m an evil scientist (laughter),” said actor Taylor Garraway, who performed the story “Don and the Three Pantomimes,” written by a student at Dixon Elementary School.

PlayMakers Laboratory actors created this scene from her story.

“I worked with her and she was hysterical,” says Brandon Cloyd, Executive Artistic Director of PlayMakers Laboratory. “And she liked it because she knew she had to put music and groove in it.”

For 25 years, the PlayMakers Laboratory, formerly known as the Barrel of Monkeys, has run six-week residencies in dozens of Chicago public schools, conducting workshops with 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders to create stories. has supported Playmaker professional actors then take those stories and turn them into school performances.

Actor Noah Appel, who has worked at PlayMakers Lab for five years, said: “…and to show that their ideas are all good ideas, and to give them the confidence to create their own art and their own writing.”

Performer Marianna Gallegos joined the PlayMakers Lab earlier this year.

“All ideas are good ideas,” she said. “And we can all write. I think it’s really special to know that we all have stories and that we are all related.”

PML will celebrate its 25th anniversary with two fundraising shows at The Neo-Futurists Theater on Monday night. Proceeds benefit arts education initiatives.