Monkey Lab is the first piece that Rob Voisey and I created under the moniker Elevator Machine Room. It is a ‘spoken-word opera’ in the storytelling traditions of Robert Ashley’s operas, Laurie Anderson’s performance art, and Ira Glass’s This American Life. Its artistry relies not only on the content of the story but also on the telling. Many of the methods and structure parallel musical composition. Plot, pacing, and inflection relate directly to form, tempo, and timbre respectively.