Where in the world am I today?: Ketchikan, AK, USA boarding the Golden Princess

Somehow one day off between finishing up at the Pacific National Exhibition and leaving to join the Golden Princess just didn’t seem like enough time to really shift gears properly from being a Wiener Wrangler in The Hot Dog Show and the familiar world of comedy juggling as The Checkerboard Guy… Mind you had I been leaving the very next day I would have somehow made it work… It’s amazing what one can scramble to do if you put your mind to it and need to catch a plane to make the next gig happen…

Even better than the return to a world I’m so comfortable in is the fact that I’ll be doing mini 15 minute-ish shows in ‘The Piazza’ of the Golden Princess. This will almost feel like a vacation after the 17-day, 51-show extravaganza that I lived through as part of the Street Stars Program…

As I mentioned a couple of days ago my new The Hot Dog Show panned out more or less the way I had anticipated it would and the performance grew and developed enormously over the course of the run. Doing something so new, watching as it grew and evolved, was incredibly exciting and rewarding. It was also hugely exhausting. Even though my confidence with the show grew daily, I was constantly looking for ways to improve the performance and figure out how to maximize the potential of the show given the limited time that I had to work on it. This proved to be a wonderful exercise in creativity and persistence but it was also a huge drain on my energy, so it’s a bit of a relief to be returning to the familiar territory of a show and character that’s very much second nature.

I think of it a bit like a visit to a museum… I’m good at absorbing the content that your typical museum has to offer for about two to three hours after which I don’t seem to be able to ‘get’ much more from the experience. I need to let my eyes and brain have a rest so that I can process the information that I’ve bombarded myself with. In a similar vein I’ve picked up enough French and Japanese over the years to be able to listen to conversations and pick up most of what’s being said provided I stay fully tuned in and really concentrate. By the end of the day in a foreign language I need a break and all my brain really seems to be able to process is a conversation in English…

I think this week aboard the Golden Princess will be the rest I need from having lived through a pretty intense two and a half weeks with the new show at the PNE. Before leaving I put some wheels in motion so I’ve got a couple of Hot Dog Show related projects to work on upon my return. I did this deliberately as I’d hate to loose my momentum with the new show, but I think that taking a week off will allow me to return to the props, the ideas for retooling things and the video footage that was shot at the fair with fresh eyes. This will hopefully mean that the next round of work on all things Hot Dog will be more productive from having had the break.

Besides, I still really like The Checkerboard Guy Show and the work I do as a comedy juggler, so not only will this week be a nice break, it’ll also be a whole lot of fun!

Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

As I’ve mentioned a few times already on the blog I’m currently in the middle of a run at the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) where I’m performing a new show entitled “The Hot Dog Show” which features me and my six inch tall stuffed Hot Dog partner, Willie The Wiener. My friend Bruce Thorson came by to watch the show the other day and thankfully he saw what was likely the best show I’ve done during the entire run of the fair… Everything just seemed to work.

Bruce used to work a the Edmonton International Street Performers Festival where we first met and became friends, then moved out to Vancouver a few years ago to go to the Vancouver Film School. We worked together on one of his assignments and created a piece called “47 Dutch Lessons on Cassette.” Bruce is a long time fan of the Art of Street Performance and after watching my show, I got an email in which he asked the following three questions. I had to think quite a bit about the answers and as such, thought they might make a great post… Here then are the questions and the answers I gave…

1. – Why would an audience buy into a silly concept like the Hot Dog Show? Well I think more than anything else it’s because the performer (in this case me) appears to enjoy the concept and deliver it with such confidence and bravado that the audience is drawn into the sales pitch because of the dynamic nature of the story and the charisma of the performer. Any good pitch man can sell a sucker anything because people come under the spell of a good pitch and the delivery… There is something genuinely intriguing about watching a good pitch man at work which is why I sometimes like to go up to the Marketplace building at the PNE and watch the guys selling the magic slicer machines, Ginsu Steak Knives or what have you… There’s almost a hypnotic effect, a trance that they’re able to put you into that entices you to buy their product and the most successful pitch guys have built their careers and fortunes on being able to use these techniques to get money out of people’s pockets…

2. – How do I ensure that they do buy the pitch? Well to be honest I’m still not feeling that they do entirely I’m still fumbling a bit with this new show. That being said, a good pitch is a combination of many factors. As mentioned above, confidence and charisma play a huge role in the process and I can state that over the first 10 days of the fair my confidence with the new pitch/new show grew tremendously so that when you came yesterday – Day 11, I was no longer fumbling to get from point A to point B to point C. This is HUGE!

The hypnotic-ness of the show starts at the beginning by getting the audience to unify as a group with some simple exercises like – ‘Everyone clap when I count to three…’ The Call and Repeat game style of this technique isn’t very threatening and eases and audience into unity and encourages them to get behind what ever is to come next. I’ve long been an advocate of the ‘Hype’ style of performance. This style get’s an audience wound up into a frenzy with what ever stunt that’s being sold being representing the climax that they’re all building towards. In many ways this has become so instinctive to me that I don’t even really think about it any more, but the effect is that the audience is drawn in to the pitch and is willing to come along on the journey.

3. – What is the audience buying into? In the end it’s the performer. The audience isn’t necessarily buying the fact that the Hot Dog is a Super Stunt Hero, they’re buying into the fact that I’m going to make this journey a fun one and one that they’re willing to invest a half hour of their life into. If the audience doesn’t like the performer, then no matter how good the pitch is, be it a skill show or a show like the Hot Dog Show, then the audience will likely not want to watch. Likability is everything! The performer can be aggressive, caustic, in your face or calm and gentle, but with out some degree of charm, with out charisma and confidence, forget about it… It just won’t work.

Also, I think as a performer you really need to love your show too… If you loose the love of it, if you loose the joy of being in front of an audience doing what you’re doing then it becomes very obvious to an audience that you’re heart’s no longer in it. I think this is one of the reasons I enjoy watching Glenn Singer’s show so much. He still loves telling that story and it’s a joy to watch him taking such pleasure in the telling of it. 

I’ve got 5 more days at the PNE (including today) and am looking forward to each and everyone of them. I’m still not sure about the future of the Hot Dog Show, but it’s been an awesome work out for my performance muscles and it’s been really interesting being at the center of a show that doesn’t rely on skills and tall unicycles to make it work.

Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

So I debuted my new “Hot Dog Show” almost a week ago at the PNE and have another 12 days of shows to go before things wrap up on September 7th. Bit by bit it all seems to be falling into place. I was more than a little bit nervous about pulling this show off and day one of the Fair things were quite wobbly, but show by show, day by day my confidence with this new show is falling into place and it’s all starting to make sense.

I’ve been describing my experience with this new show at the PNE as ‘New Show Boot CAMP‘ because I get three chances a day to try out new ideas, three chances a day for people to give me feedback. On top of what I’ve been hearing from audience members, I’ve been lucky enough to have the ears and eyes of other performers in this year’s Street Stars Program who have been fantastic about coming by, having a look at where the show is at and where it’s evolving to. I’ve had suggestion upon suggestion given to me and gradually these comments filter down from the intellectual to the practical and more and more the funny is starting to stick to the bones of the show.

Everyday I seem to discover new bits of business and a deeper appreciation of what makes this show work and the bizarre yet very tangible relationship I have with my partner in the show, a six inch long stuffed dog toy shaped like a hot dog that I’ve named William T. Wiener.

Is this High Art? Nope! I certainly wouldn’t describe it as that, but on some fantastic level I’m discovering how to make this show, that has none of the traditional juggling skills that I’ve based my show on for year, work. Better still, I actually appear to be making a connection with my audiences in a way that I never have before. It’s really rather remarkable!

Got a chance to try something new? I highly recommend jumping in with both feet with eyes wide open and enough bravery to get through the first week of the new experience. After the first week it all starts to make sense and becomes a whole heck of a lot of fun well at least this show has for me!

Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Not knowing what was going to happen next… Especially in a performance situation used to scare the crap out of me! I got very very good at knowing exactly what was going to happen next and didn’t stray much from the pre-established script that was working so well for me. The funning thing with sticking with the script though was that my shows became too predictable. I reached a plateau where the difference between my highs and my lows was pretty minimal and the audience reaction to what I was doing was pretty consistent.

Boring!

Around the same time that I became cognsant that my shows weren’t providing the creative spark to really keep me excited about my performance was about the same time that I realized that some of my favorite shows and favorite performers seemed to take risks with out fully knowing that the outcome would be.

I watched these shows with great interest and envied the way that the performers inside these shows seemed to be willing to throw caution to the wind somehow knowing that it would all work out. I had a conversation with Rob Torres at one point many years ago in which I indicated that I thought he knew some sort of secret that he wasn’t sharing with me that made such risk taking less scary.

I’m not sure I fully know the secret (if in fact there is one) but it’s sort of like ‘The Dragon Scroll’ in Kung-fu Panada… The secret ingredient is that there isn’t any secret ingredient. What makes it possible to take these risks and succeed seems to be the simple faith and confidence in your ability to make it work no matter what happens. The greater this confidence, the further out on a limb you’re willing to venture not knowing or having a sense of what the outcome might be.

The bigger the risk, the bigger the pay off. This isn’t an easy path to walk, but your highs will be higher even though your lows might be lower. One thing’s for sure though… Your peaks and valley’s will make for a more interesting adventure.

Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing  in Peru

A few weeks back now I had a gig performing for the Small Ritual Coffee Society, a church based group who were opening a coffee shop in Whiterock. They had hoped to open in time for the annual Tour de Whiterock bicycle race because prior to the start of the race there’s a block party/sidewalk sale and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to launch the opening of the shop. Unfortunately they didn’t quite make the deadline, but having me come out to perform was still excellent public relations to drum up awareness of the soon-to-be-open Coffee Shop.

The person who contacted me to do the gig is someone I’ve worked with in the past and when the budget didn’t quite meet with my standard rates I made an exception and agreed to the performance under the condition that my older son Koji could perform as well.

Koji’s been demonstrating some interest in doing a bit of performing, so I’ve tried to find some opportunities for him to log some stage time and have been encouraging him to work on his skills. The picture comes from an appearance he made during the annual school talent show and I was proud as punch with the performance he put in.

Practice makes perfect as they say, so I figured any opportunity I could come up with to give Koji some stage time would help him develop confidence in front of an audience and encourage him to continue working on expanding his material…

So the big day comes and we drive out to Whiterock and the performance scenario is less than ideal, but I figure this too is a good part of Koji’s education, because sometimes flexibility in these situations is your greatest asset. We do the first show while the main stage is virtually blasting us out – challenging, but we survive. Nachos for lunch to celebrate! Show #2 goes much more smoothly and we don’t have to compete with sounds to actually do the show which is a huge improvement. The client is happy, we’re happy, we get paid all is good!

On the way home Koji turns to me and says –

Dad… I don’t want to say your a slacker or anything, but people pay you a lot of money for not a lot of work… I mean isn’t it like your actually playing???

I turn to him alarmed that he’s learned the truth, hold my finger up to my lips and…

“Shhhhhhhhh… DON’T TELL ANYBODY…”

him. Cheeky little monkey got the joke right away, but also realized that there’s some truth to it too. Find something you love doing and you never work a day in your life!

Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing  in Peru

Years ago a friend of mine gave me a Charles Atlas t-shirt sort of like the one in the picture that accompanies the post. On my shirt there were two great contrasting lines.

“Me as a wimp”

and

“Me as a God”

Each of which was accompanied by a picture of Charles Atlas in two completely different states of muscular development. I always loved this shirt and was sad when it eventually died, but this is taking me a long way away from what I was intending to talk about…

I heard once that the secret of genius is knowing one’s strengths and limitations. By doing things with in certain parameters, your chances of creating amazing work increases dramatically over a more random shot-gun approach.

Knowing who you are on stage why and audience responds to you and what strengths you bring to a performance will increase your chances of successfully deciding what demographic you should target not to mention your chances of success when you hit the stage.

If, for example, you’ve got a show that absolutely kills in a street/festival environment, but doesn’t seem to translate all that well to indoor venues, then think seriously about whether pursuing theatre gigs is really in your best interests.

I was working in the Piazza of the STAR Princess and the GOLDEN Princess back in June and what I was asked to do was basically a mini street show for passengers in the informal setting of the ship’s atrium. Because of my year’s of experience working on the street and working in festival environments, this was second nature to me and I thoroughly enjoyed the shows and the reaction I got from the passengers. By contrast, I’ve heard from various performers who’ve also performed in the Piazza that this is their least favorite venue to work on ships. It’s not that they aren’t good performers, they just lack the performance vocabulary to really know how to make shows in this space work.

Ships are actually a fun venue for me to be playing in because I get the opportunity to perform in a variety of venues. Everything from the Piazza to the cabaret venue to the main theatre. Each venue offers a different set of challenges and opportunities and I love throwing myself at all of them as the opportunity to grow exists when ever I put myself in a new situation. Regardless of the actual venue though I always try to walk on stage with an awareness of my strengths as a performer and capitalize on what I can do for an audience in any given situation.

Taking the time to understand why the audience responds to your performance is critical. Maybe its your breath taking technique, perhaps it’s your impeccable comedic timing, perhaps it’s something as simple as your likability, the charisma you have when you walk out on stage. By all means try to stretch and expand what you’re capable of, but try not to loose sight of what your strengths really are.

Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing  in Peru

I make and effort when ever I step onto stage to give a little piece of myself to my audience. I think this is an integral part of doing a good performance and wouldn’t have it any other way. The cumulative effect of giving a chunk of my soul away at each performance can and does end up getting quite exhausting. I have vivid memories of booking myself a schedule that was so busy a few years back that by about November I was feeling incredibly burn out.

The concept of recharging my batteries was for a long time anchored in taking a break from performances, taking time off, but recently I read a post on my friend David Duchemin’s Blog that seemed to stress an additional element to the recharging equation. Not only do you need to take time off from grinding out performances to let your body recuperate, you also need to feed your creative bank account by exposing yourself to new ideas and outlets. This could be as simple as reading a book, going to see a play, listening to your favorite music, exposing yourself to visual art, visiting a museum, what ever it takes to harness, replenish and excite your inner creativity.

The trip I’m currently on in Peru is a great example of seizing an opportunity to do something mind expanding and completely off the traditional path for me during the summer. Will I come back from the trip refreshed and inspired? Who knows, but I will have certainly exposed myself to new situations, new people, a different way of doing things and a chance to perhaps tap into some of these things and bring them to an audience the next time I step onto a stage be it at a festival, on a cruise ship or on the street.

Many many moons ago now I used to make a pilgrimage to the IJA Juggling Conventions and these served as a fantastic resource for creative renewal. I’ve been looking into a couple of different workshops with a few different performance instructors as another outlet for creative growth. I also realized recently that my two boys Koji and Owen have been wonderful sources of creative energy and growth via the little games I create and play with them…

If you’ve made the choice to put yourself in front of an audience and love the experience of doing so, then you owe it to not only yourself but also the people you’re playing for to make sure your batteries are topped up and you’re able to offer a well crafted and creatively charged performance.