Since many of our Rhode Island au pairs will be attending the Blue Man Group performance this weekend at the Providence Performing Arts Center, I thought you might enjoy reading an article that was published in last Sunday’s Providence Journal. It may give you a little more insight about the show that you are about to see….which should be very entertaining!
Actor Peter Musante had been kicking around Los Angeles after graduating from UCLA, auditioning for TV, commercials, and musicals. That’s when he saw a casting call for Blue Man Group, the innovative show that features mute, bald men slathered with blue paint. He’d never seen the long-running show before, and showed up for the audition on a whim. “The way the casting director was talking about the character got my attention,” said Musante, a 28-year-old San Francisco native. “I had a blast at the audition”. That led to a call back in New York and an offer to join Blue Man Group’s first-ever theatrical tour, scheduled to play the Providence Performing Arts Center March 4-6. “I never looked back,”, said Musante, who’s been with the company for four years. “it’s the greatest job in the world.”
What Musante actually does is a little hard to describe. “As a Blue Man,” said Musante, “you’re doing every art form you can imagine in an hour and a half.” The Blue Man (there are four on the tour and three on stage at any time) is a “completely blank slate,” said Musante. “He resembles a human but has no knowledge. He is experienceing everything for the first time. One Japanese critic said watching Blue Man is like watching a newborn baby.”
The show, which has been in Boston for years, is all about the relationship Blue Man develops with the audience. He has to figure out what the audience is about, and somehow through facial gestures and eye movements, communicate with the fans. He starts with some drumming, and gauging the audience reaction, improvises other routines such as making sounds on homemade instruments, or dragging a patron on stage, painting him up and throwing him against a canvas to make a work of art.
Musante said the show reflects a lot of what’s going on in pop culture, or “screen culture,” as he put it, meaning computers, cell phones and the like. “The show has evolved over the years,” he said, “to take in what are current phenomena.” Musante, who is now based in New York, was calling from Austin, Texas, where the show had stopped for performances. He’s been on the road since September, and plans to stay with the tour for the foreseeable future. “Most shows don’t take in the audience that much,” he said. “They treat it more like the fourth wall.”
The show got its start in New York around 1990, and opened at the Astor Theatre in 1991, said Musante. Right now, there are five Blue Man troupes with long-running gigs in major cities across the country. And there are shows in Berlin and Tokyo, as well as on the newest Norwegian cruise ship, The Epic, which sails the waters of the Caribbean.
As for the blue makeup, Musante said that’s not as complicated as one might imagine. It takes about a half hour to get into costume. A vinyl skull cap is glued in place to cover the hair and ears, then gobs of bright blue theatrical grease paint are smeared on the actor’s face. Over the show’s 20 year history, there have been dozens of Blue Men like Musante. “It’s like a family,” he said.
Blue Man Group plays at the Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset Street, March 4 – 6. Tickets are $38 – $65. Call (401)421-2787 or visit ppacri.org