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It started as CD, then became a musical, then a video, and now it's ready to become a movie and TV show. But it began, and will continue to be, a fun way to learn about animal and human nature. What began as a school Earth Day project about how humanity affects the world's natural balance became something much more. I've had many wonderful stories from parents about the impact the CD has had in their household: kids putting down weapon games to sit and listen, making up dances, and listening to it every night before bed. In some cases, an improvement in their singing ability!

The New York Times article below, which appeared shortly after the CD's release, contains more information. Be sure to check out the many links here describing more about what Animal Party is growing up to become!

BRING ANIMAL PARTY TO SCHOOL !

There are many ways to use Animal Party as a way to have fun while teaching about the environment. Students and teachers alike will enjoy singing the songs or acting out the story as one of the characters. Here are some ideas for how you can use the available materials.

Sing some FUN SONGS! - The CD was recorded with students from grades 3 - 12, but has become a favorite all the way through Kindergarten. The CD or CASSETTE can be an introduction that will get them excited to learn, then you can pull out the SONGBOOK and get right to it! If you would like, there are separate LYRIC sheets available for each song so they can easily see their parts. If you want to really rock out, they can sing over the instrumental versions of the songs, Karaoke-style, on the MUSIC / EFFECTS CD.

Make it the PLAY OF THE DAY! - Just like on the CD, you can use the SCRIPT to BE the story with all the characters, acting out their musical adventure. There is also a condensed version available. It can be a small classroom show or get the whole grade up there on the school stage! Everyone can also get involved by making scenery for the many environments. There is always room for the future choreographers in the class to make up a dance or two for the songs as well. Especially the song Flipper Flap!

A Director's script is available, complete with suggestions for how to stage the scenes and ideas for making scenery. You can also order ADDITIONAL SCRIPTS for the whole class so they can work on their lines at home. There is also a MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS CD that the performers can sing the songs to with the whole band. It also contains the sound effects of the environments and animals in each scene.

Top it off with TRIPLE E !!! - Bring in the author/rocker himself for a big 'ole fun show. Take advantage of 20 years of experience working in school theatre as well as 16 as a performing singer/songwriter and 10 as a teacher! You can have Triple E perform the show for you, or you can have him act as himself in YOUR PLAY coming in for the dress rehearsal and performance(s). A further description of EE's performance rates is available upon request.

To request a SCHOOL DEMO PACK for teachers with further details or if there are questions about anything, now or during your rehearsal process, please contact Eric E. Everett (Triple E) through the website EE-MAIL.

Animal Party - The TV SHOW !

As the popularity of the CD grew, kids wanted to know what was next. Since it was already being done as a musical, the next stop was the BIG SCREEN! ( Or whatever size TV you may have) So the first episode of Animal Party (a video-pilot) was created to interest movie studios and TV networks in our animal adventures. It features all the main characters from the CD story and a few new ones to add to the comedic mix-up. It is currently being shown on local cable TV in the New York metro area, but watch for scenes from it on the website in the near future!

Click HERE to watch an exerpt from the trailer for the TV show.

For more information about the show or to get a copy of the pilot episode "Fracas In The Forest" please send an EE-Mail

The following article appeared in the

A MUSICAL LINK TO ECOLOGY FOR CHILDREN By Donna Greene

The Animals are having a party.

The problem is that many of the invitations to the animals are coming back marked, "Return to sender." This is the story line in a new musical compact disc by Eric E. Everett. a Rye resident and a teacher at Rye Country Day School. It is part of Mr. Everett's effort to bridge the musical gap between Raffi, a popular childern's singer who appeals to the very yound, and much of today's popular music, which is geared by theme to teen-agers and young adults. At the same time, Mr. Everett's self-produced CD (Zowie Music and Productions, named after his cat) is an effort to raise children's awareness of the environment and and raise money for programs that protect it. Mr. Everett, whose nickname is Triple E, will donate all profits from the CD to causes supporting endangered species and environmental education.

Mr. Everett, 31, who plays the guitar, has been at Rye Country Day School since 1991, where he teaches theatre and various stagecrafts. Two hundred students, teachers and staff members make up the chors of "Animal Party."

He has writtten and performed two other rock musicals, including "Speaking In Tones," which was presented at Rye Country Day School in 1997 and deals with finding identities and overcoming communication barriers. His earlier CD, "Dreams To Be" (1994), features 13 original songs he performs with the Eric Everett Band, aimed at an older audience than the one for "Animal Party."

Here are exerpts froma recent conversation with him:

Q. How did "Animal Party" come about?

A. "Animal Party" was something I always wanted to do. I always wanted to record with the kids, have them sing some songs. It kind of started out as something for Earth Day to do with the lower school music teacher Anne Bauby. I had had this idea in the back of my head, and then went off on a trip to Africa with my dad, who was there on sabbatical. So I visited South Africa and Kenya, and that kind of experience helped with the story line.

Q. What was your purpose in doing "Animal Party"?

A. There are two purposes. Kids, in my experience with them, are always singing songs they don't understand - stuff they hear on the radio or MTV. I shouldn't say they don't understand, But they don't realize what they're singing about sometimes in terms of sexual or whatever content is involved. It's not like I'm going to hold moral judgement over what they should or shouldn't be singing, but there's just no musical step for them between Sesame Street and Raffi to Metallica and Spice Girls. There certainly isn't a lot. I'm trying to create some rock-and-roll - because that's what they want - that they are going to dance to and have fun with.

Q. How do older audiences react to "Animal Party"?

A. Usually pretty well. because while the songs are aimed at kids, they have humor for adults and it's still rock-and-roll. Even though a lot of the songs have a lot of kids singing on them, the upbeat element is still there. It's not Raffi. And I don't want to pick on Raffi. But even second graders don't ant to listen to him because it's just not cool. And I'm not trying to be cool, but I'm trying to give them something more interesting to sing about than the simple stuff. And I wanted to have a story that has some kind of message to it.

Q. What is your message?

A. The message is helping animals, and there is plenty of need to help them. I'm trying to raise their environmental consciousness, I suppose - to get them to start learning to appreciate natire and the earth at a young age because those are values they can take with them as they grow up. If they learn these things earlier, they are going to hold them dear. And it's important to realize that this generation - all the generations - are going to be affected by environmental issues.

Q. You wrote the music and the lyrics?

A. And the story that kind of connects all the songs. It is a story of Triple E. He has a farm, a cranberry orchard somewhere on the east coast, and he wants to have a party. And he sends out invitations to all to all his animal friends all over the world. And the invitations all come back. So he takes a few of his animal comrades and goes out to find out why all the invitations came back. And in travelling around the world to various places like South America and Antarctica and Africa and varous placces around America, he finds out different things about the environment and what happened to the animals.

Q. These are animals that have dissappeared?

A. Yeah, they disappeared. They've been forced to move. It touches on a lot of the topics such as deforestation and animal extinction and poaching.

Q. Where do you trace your environmental consciousness?

A. My parents' interest or someone's interest that turned me on to certain environmental magazines when I was a kid. But also by being involved in outdoor activities at my grandparents' farm.

Q. Where are the profits going from the CD?

A. I'm going to basically fund organizations that have specific programs for teaching environmental awareness and supporting endangered species, such as the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace. I'm taking the profits and donating them directly. If anyone has a program and wants to get in touch with me, i'd be glad to help out, especially locally.

Q. What was it like performing with the children? Did it take lots of takes?

A. We didn't jhave that luxury. We had the luxury of maybe a couple of takes for each class. I'd gather kids around the microphone and the'd sing, and I did a lot of editing later. The kids' stuff is mostly as it was.

Q. You had said that ideally you would like your story made into a cartoon or video. What does it take for that to happen?

A. It tkaes interest; it takes publicity. The framework is here within the CD, and I'm working to expand it into a script that could be done as a musical or animated movie.

Q. What do you do? Go to Disney? Got to Dreamworks?

A. That's exactly what I'd like to do. But I'm not necessarily just aiming for the top. I'm looking out there for whoever is interested. I'm going to eventually do it.

Q. You clearly found the animals of Africa interesting. Describe what you saw.

A. I did a safari. A lot of people think a safari is just going out and hunting. But it's more like going out and shooting your camera. It was increadible stuff. You get so much more of an appreciaton of what we will be losing when you see it not in the zoo. You realize you're going to losing this wildness, this wilderness, the more we don't care about the land. That's when you start really thinking that you should care, when you see it up close.

That's another reason to promote environmental education - to give kids a first-hand appreciation of it. If they don't go out and go through a forest or walk on a seashore and that kind of thing, then they will never appreciate it as much from there classrooms.