Hazardous Material

Well, the excitement of my final day is behind me and I enjoyed a relaxing day of downtime today. How was my plan executed after my blog on Sunday? I leapt into the day with full force arriving hours early to formulate my plan for the attack upon the two shows. "Chaos should be pre-planned to maximize implementation." I warned the questioning eyes scoping the paper I was sketching upon. I had two shows and many "open spots" to inject improvisation and/or "quotes" or references. I wanted to use every opportunity. The first show, a matinee with 50% of the venue filled, was a lower than lackluster family audience which I ignored (rightfully so judging by their attitude or lack thereof) in order to WILL them through my version of KOOZA. I hit my marks and had a great time offering my co-workers a "who's who" of references from the beginning of the show. Some references even preceded our soft opening in April 2007 and took the one person in the au...

Usually I write my blog about the previous day. This time...all eyes are ahead. Today is my final day with my show KOOZA and sleeping was restless last night. I awoke early thinking of promises I made to people and seeing them through at the last minute. I have more to follow up on, so I will make this blog brief as well, but here's my plan for the day. I have coined the term, "Satisfactory Sunday" to denote, as an artist, pulling all of the energy that's left from a 9-10 show week and harnessing it UP to a satisfactory level for the last two shows of the week. As artists of Cirque du Soleil, we are not only skilled to a world class level, but expected to put out the most energy we can on a consistent basis. Again and again. Past the point of exhaustion and beyond a normal performers comfort zone. This has made me stronger and inspires me for the future...but NOT the point I am making now. Today I will not be doing a "Satisfactory" job. I will do a "Sat...

Well yesterday marked my final "Date Night" performance with KOOZA. I spent the day with a strengthening performance choice. Last month I did the pre-show with only the help of a ticket. Let me explain. The "Obnoxious American Tourist" character has five different props. What I found over the last few years since creating this character in 2007 (2006 really cause most of the work was done in my audition in March 2006). More props = More material easily utilized in creating a scene. Less props = More need to improvise and actually create with less. Doing the pre-show with only a ticket requires more effort than a cell phone and camera to distract and use to get out of situations etc. Yesterday I did both pre-shows using zero props improvising all material. Result? I was more engaged with the audience around me and the other performers because I couldn't hide in the props. (My co-hort Jimmy pointed this out.) Other goals I've had in the past during pre-show? 1...

After our success in showing our Swedish friend Tijuana, "How could we follow it up?" we thought to ourselves. What else could we offer to show the experience of America? Granted Michael has been on tour throughout the U.S on and off since 2007,but sometimes touring life leaves details of real life out of the mix. "Guns!" we gleefully exclaimed. There are few guns in Sweden and arms of the pistol/handgun variety are often banned because they are not used in hunting for food. With that we told Michael we would take him on an "All American Adventure" the following day and he immediately got excited about what we may have in store for him. We met up at high noon and hopped onto our trusty white steed (in this case a rental Dodge Caliber). Reading the wind and tracing tracks, as our ancestors may have in the old west, we made our way to Walmart an American treasure of infamous reputation like that of and Wild Bill Hickock. Rushing to the hunting and fishing se...

I haven't been to Tijuana since 1998. Today I went with my girl and Michael the pickpocket from KOOZA. I remember walking over the border and having food and beers and buying leather beer holsters and seeing how dirty everything was. Today our goal was relaxation and the joy of introducing an entertainer from Sweden to a California classic: TJ. Now Monday is not the "party day" for twenty somethings to guzzle tequila and hit the strip clubs and the whole beheading on the Texas border has people skittish. But really. What has ever happened in Tijuana? More Mexican drug wars happen in Arizona than in Mexico! Everyone will be happy to know TJ is the same. Monday was quiet. It's hard to NOT look like you don't know where you're going when you are the only backpack wearing Caucasians on the streets and every street vendor is beguiling you with sunglasses and pictures of Homer Simpson as Scarface. The first thing our Swedish friend noticed was how "interactive...

(This is a repost from Twittamentary.com the Twitter site dedicated to the upcoming film about Twitter.) People come to see my show with Cirque du Soleil, "KOOZA" and they Tweet before,during, at intermission, and afterwards. I am one of the three clowns in the show and we often read what people are Tweeting about the show for a laugh. The show is phenomenal so most comments are positive. We also use audience members in our act and our volunteers sometimes tweet their experience or post pictures on Twitter. It's weird, to me, randomly picking a person out of 2,500 people and when you've sent them back to their seats and the show has finished, reading their Tweets or knowing their names! (I'm still adjusting to this- I like the anonymity..) Recently someone who was watching the show put up on Twitter how incredible it was during the show. We read it and saw his other Tweets were entertaining and passed it around. This guy has a small group of friends, (under 30 fol...

Lately, I have been choosing one skill a day to work on or try to learn. You Tube is very helpful for this practice. This can be as simple as learning to tie a strange knot (which I know sounds like a barrel of fun) or twirling a hat which can always be used to attract the victim of your love. (Note the word,"hat" not "cat". Twirling a cat may attract the wrong KIND of person. Practice with discretion.) Origami roses are useful. Or making Alexander Hamilton appear to be smiling or frowning on a $20 bill (as taught to me by Portugese Magician and Balloon Artist, Sebastian Ricou). A friend from my high school recently told me she still remembers the bouquet of balloon flowers I made her for her birthday almost twenty years ago. These little skills are flourishes to add to any situation for quirky fun or used in theatrical productions to add a nuance to any scene or character. FACT: The reason people enjoy great actors like Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando are the choices...