Where in the world am I today?: Vacationing in Peru
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and building of props for “The Hot Dog Show” in the last few months. Back in January or so when I got the green light from the Pacific National Exhibition to proceed with this new show I had a ton of ideas for the show and over the time I’ve had to research things, test things and consider the logistics many of the ideas have evolved into the place where I’ll take them out and debut them in front of an audience coming up on August 22.
There’s been a lot of satisfaction in seeing the ideas materialize, and although some of the original ideas had to be scrapped due to challenging logistics, the place where the three super stunts that Willie will perform in the show has evolved to is very exciting indeed. I know of course that over the course of the 17 days of the PNE that things will continue to evolve, but I’m feeling really good about where I’m at with everything as I move towards the WORLD DEBUT!
I’ve taken quite a hands on approach to building things and have, when ever possible built props myself. The chair featured in the image that accompanies this post is a bit of an exception. I don’t know how to weld and it was more time effective to walk into a machine shop with my idea and have them create the prop for me, but, the upholstery of the chair… That’s something I was able to tackle myself. I was giddy with excitement when it all came together because it looked EXACTLY as I had imagined it and is going to put a smile on my face every time I pull it out of my case to perform the routine.
I think there’s a certain pride in ownership when you build these sorts of things yourself that connects you a bit more to the prop and provides a resonance in your performance that simply buying something off the shelf or off the internet can’t provide. Certainly in those instances when time is a limiting factor or the require skill set doesn’t exist, it’s easier just to buy something pre-made, but I’m loving the feeling of ownership that’s grown as I’ve put together the props for each of the bits in the show and highly recommend ‘making the time’ to have this connection to the props you use in your show if you can manage it.
