Hanging Up the Suit

It's Saturday afternoon. I slept in today (until just before 11am), made fliers for a cabaret I've been working on with a friend, sent some emails, zoomed around on Facebook, listened to NPR and got a greasy burger and fries.

And, for the first time in nearly three months, I did not think about Slim Goodbody.

Closing this show was a little strange. After my final performance in Cherry Hill, NJ yesterday (with a great crowd of students and teachers), I packed up, got in the Honda, turned on All Things Considered, and drove home. No fanfare. No tearful goodbyes to other cast members. No drinks after the show. I didn't even wind up calling the office. It felt like any other day on the tour, except that, in the back of my mind, I knew there was some sort of "finality" to it. Since it was not being "marked" in any other way, I decided to stop en route and get myself an ice cream cone. A small indulgence, yes, but one that seemed to make the end seemed tangible. (And very fitting, as I always tell the kids that "we don't need a lot of ice cream every day.")

Now, this is not the end of my time with Slim Goodbody. The company has asked me if I will job-in for the rest of the "semester" for the occasional show here and there (should they overbook and whatnot). And there have been some rumblings about possible work in the future. All of which are extremely, extremely tentative. However, it means that the suit is staying in my apartment a little longer, and that, at some time in the future, I'll receive a new batch of props and set pieces. So, despite the fact that the paychecks will stop coming, I am not really done.

To be quite honest, I'll be glad for a break. Slim has mostly been great fun, but it's also an exhausting job. In the five weeks I've been performing the show, I've put over 8,000 miles on the car, performed the shows 40 times, eaten far too many sandwiches made at Wawa, received dozens of hugs from kids, had profanities screamed in my face by staff members, performed on four hours of sleep, drunk countless cups of coffee, broken down in tears twice and laughed so hard I cried once. This job is truly not for a lightweight: it takes a huge amount of energy, focus and stamina to make it through even one day. And while it is something that I have really enjoyed (car accidents and profanity-screaming contacts notwithstanding), I certainly need time to recharge.

In closing, I want to share one memory from this tour that I'll certainly carry with me for a while. About a week back, I has an incredible Musical Health Show with a bunch of wonderful K-2s in Audubon, NJ. It was easily one of the best shows on the tour. The kids were so excited that they creeping up into my playing space!! And, after the show, a very timid first grade boy came up to me while I was packing up. "Excuse me, Mr. Goodbody," he said. "Can I tell you something?" I knelt down and smiled, waiting to hear about the time he bruised his joint, or which vegetables he thinks are the best. "When I grow up, I want to do what you do."

That is why I do this job.

An Open Letter to Teachers from Ethan

(Please note: this entry does not necessarily represent the view and opinion of the Slim Goodbody Corporation. The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone, and I take full responsibility for them. Further, the statements made apply only to a tiny number of teachers I have met. In my five weeks on the road, the vast majority of the teachers I have encountered have been courteous, friendly, helpful, attentive and clearly enthused by the performance. They are a joy to work with, and perform for. However, a small handful have been less than pleasant, and it is these schools, and these teachers, that have prompted this post.)

Dear Teachers,

Of late, I have had the privilege of visiting your elementary schools as a performer of the Slim Goodbody assemblies. Thank you for inviting me into your schools, and for taking time out of your class periods to bring you students to my shows. As a practitioner of Theater for Young Audiences for almost two years now, it brings me great joy to see the wide-eyed faces of my audience members, and to be a part of their introduction to live theater. The arts are, and always have been, a civic necessity, and I continue to find it inspiring that our schools find room in their ever-shrinking budgets to include cultural events in their students' lives.

However, I need your help.

As a performer for young audiences, I am always concerned with helping students learn about the appropriate way to attend a live theatrical event. This behavior--attentiveness, responsiveness, alertness--is something that my interactive shows cultivate. Students are encouraged to be active audience members (at times literally, when I am asking them to participate), staying engaged in the show and helping me provide them with the best theatrical experience possible. And, most of the time, this behavior is excellent. However, when I encounter disrespectful and disruptive audience activity, it seems to be connected to a common thread: staff members who disengage during the performance. And it is this activity that I wish to bring to your attention.

Now, please understand that I have the greatest respect for your profession and the demands placed upon you. They are not unlike my own. We both work long hours for relatively low pay and expend huge amounts of energy trying to enrich the lives of students. What you do is truly a labor of love, and that is indeed something to be commended. And I too would love to discover a full hour in my day where I could chit-chat to my colleagues, send text message, make phone calls, eat a snack, and generally relax and disengage from all that is going on around me without the challenges of students. However, my assemblies are not the place to do so.

I have seen that your students clearly look up to you. They follow your lead, and take behavioral cues from what you are doing. Your attention sets an example for how adults are expected to behave in a theatrical situation. Which means that, when you are engaged, focused and playing along, so are your students. You are giving them the tools they will need whenever they attend cultural events throughout the rest of their lives. However, teachers who ignore the performance, chat with each other, play with their cell phones and eat during the show set a model that this kind of behavior is acceptable. It is not. Not only is it distracting to the performer, it also shows a lack of respect for the work and art on display. And that, I am sure, is not the message you wish to send to your students.

I know that my presentation is no Broadway show, but I am a unionized professional with a degree, extensive training and experience (commensurate with many of those actors performing on Broadway) and, while I certainly have no delusions that I will be treated as though I am performing at the Palace Theater, I do ask for a basic respect for my artistry, time and talent. The foundations you lay for your students about responsible audience membership will transfer from their Slim Goodbody presentation to their first experience in a theater and beyond. Your simple choice to remain engaged will set the tone for my presentation, keeping your students focused and attentive throughout and allowing me to give my best possible performance. Help me create lifelong arts patrons by modeling the best behavior possible for them. We will both be doing a world of good.

Ethan

Call tomorrow: 7:00am, Brooklyn. Time to close down this tour.

Kid quote of the day: When we were discussing the glories of whole grain oats, a small kid in the front row stood up, jumped up and down and told me: "I LOVE oatmeal!!"

Tired

I'm afraid there's no excuse for my lack of blogging over the last week (!), except for sheer exhaustion. If there is one thing that this tour has taught me, it is that Slim Goodbody requires a stamina that borders on super-human. On a rough day, I wake at 5am to ensure that I'm down at the car by 6am. Then I drive two solid hours to my first school, where I set up and perform two shows. After tear-down, a stop (or two) for lunch and another drive, I arrive at my third school, set up, perform, strike and drive home. Usually I'm back by 4pm; sometimes earlier. Then rinse and repeat, five days a week.

(Oh, and did I mention that the show is extraordinarily physical and high-energy? Yeah, that plays a part too.)

As such a grueling pace can take a toll on one's body, mind and sleep quotient, I've come up with an ingenious solution to ensure maximum alertness on the road, as well as minimum interruption in my day: "the in-car nap."

It works very simply. Should I find myself tiring while driving from, say, Franklinville, NJ to Brooklyn, NY, I plug the search term "7-Eleven" or "Wawa" into my GPS. As it searches, I assess the situation in the back seat, to ensure props will not be crushed by a reclined captain's chair. When the GPS returns my destination, I swerve off the road and into the parking lot. There, the parking break turns on, two windows crack open, the seat crashes backwards and I black out. For at least a good 20-30 minutes.

Afterward, revived (but a tad bleary-eyed), I stroll inside for a soda and a hot dog (at 7-Eleven, I add extra jalapeños, just for a little more kick!), pop in the car, blast my iPod's "Energy Playlist" and start a-crusin'.

However, that doesn't stop me from crashing around 10pm every night.

Call tomorrow (um, today): 12:30pm, ExtendedStay America in Amherst, NY. My last big out-of-town show (and last chance to power nap during a six-and-a-half hour drive back to Brooklyn).

Kid quote of the day: As they were leaving, my entire audience sang the "Decision Reggae" song from Lighten Up!... in Jamaican accents.

Flow

Like some of the other ones, this post requires a little bit of explaining:

Since high school, I've always found inspiration in Mihaly Csikszentmihali's concept of “flow.” "Flow" roughly equates being "in the groove" -- it's the experience of being so absorbed in your activity that time and space disappear, and you completely lose yourself in the joy and wonder of whatever you're doing. You reach an “ecstatic state” where you are oblivious to technique, able to improvise and living in that dangerous place of extreme creativity. It's almost a higher state of being, one that comes through practice, technical mastery and, ultimately, a certain amount of surrender. Flow is also an intrinsic motivation -- a "high" if you will -- that makes you want to keep doing whatever it is that you're doing again and again. It's ephemeral, but extraordinary when you hit it.

And today, for the first time, I "flowed" with Slim Goodbody.

It started as a exhausting day. The school was a two-and-a-half hour drive from home, and my arrival time was early enough that Slim Goodbody Corporation was obligated to give me a hotel, but I opted to pocket the per diem and sleep at home. So, come 5:30am, I was on the nearly-empty roads, driving towards Pleasentville, NJ, blasting early-morning NPR and chugging Cinnabon coffee.

And when I arrived at the school, it appeared that nobody knew I was scheduled. After some finagling with the gym teacher, nurse and principal, we got a performance schedule, and I started set-up. Turned out I had a show for kindergarten through second grade first, and then third through fifth grades afterward. And both shows were, by specific request of the nurse, Musical Health Show.

(Have I mentioned here that older kids don't do well with Musical Health Show if they don't have to look "cool" in front of the kindergartners? Well, they don't. There's a reason that Lighten Up! exists.)

So, with a good first show out of the way, I readied myself for what seemed was a train wreck in the making. I started to think through some script changes (like I did the last time this happened), refreshed on my little diaphragm add-on, grabbed my sweatpants, consulted with the PE teacher about extra "Champions Challenge" feats, downed a Coke and said a prayer.

And, as I strutted out and saw the glazed-over eyes of fifth grade boys and girls who were "so totally above this," I let it all go.

First, "Coach Slim" came out. Next, the script turned into an outline. After that, I started throwing in extra facts, things I know are true, and are things a fifth grader would care more about. I pointed out people in the audience who were zoning out, spoke directly to them and made them pay attention. The energy level went down, and the whole show turned into more of a conversation. And, guess what? It worked. The show was nothing like any other show I've done, but it worked. I was completely in it, and the kids were in it too. Excitement build during participation activities. I got fifth graders to call things out during the shows! And I was so enthused, that I drove all the way back home in one shot, with no extra caffeine at all.

If my mission is to get the information contained in the script across in an entertaining and educational way, this may have been the most successful. And it's made me think that, in future shows, the way to present this whole thing is to just let it come out. I was starting to get sick of doing Musical Health Show, as it's all almost I've done for the last thee weeks. But, after today, I'm excited to get that sucker back up on its feet, and I am (almost) excited to get my next fifth grade audience!

Call tomorrow: 7:15am. We're off to Levittown, PA!

Kid quote of the day: During the "flow" show, I asked the audience if junk food had a lot of nutrients. After a resounding "no," a third grader in the front row complained, "But it tastes so good!"

Adirondack Audiences

Perhaps the part of New York State (besides the five boroughs of New York City) that I have the most experience with is the Adirondacks. First, I performed as Cohan at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Then, it was Poe at a historical house in Elizabethtown. Then, Theatreworks toured to Turin, which is just outside of Boonville (the home of Slim's Restaurant, where I lunched on decidedly not-so-healthy fare). And, today, it was two show west of Adirondacks park, but still within listening region of North Country Public Radio.

The audiences in the Adirondacks are wonderful. Before and after the shows, they are the most gracious and grateful hosts, so thrilled to have arts at their disposal, and glad to be able to chat with the performer behind the show. I have never had audience members thank me for my performance with such sincerity and honesty anywhere else. It is always a complete joy to perform for Adirondack folks.

However, they are also the world's most silent audiences.

Today's performance in Remsen was no exception. Remsen is a very small, very spread-out, very rural town. (So tiny, in fact that the GPS isn't entirely sure if it exists.) And the audience was perfect: the teachers played along, the kids (excepting a few snarky sixth grade boys) were engaged and active the whole time, the space was beautiful, the show started on time and I was well taken care of by everyone I met. But, maybe they were a little too perfect, as it was all I could do to get anybody to make a noise! I was performing Lighten Up!, which starts with a rap number and includes, naturally, a call-and-response. The first time I asked my audience to sing back to me, I got something approximating a whisper. By the end of the number, we were up to a good, solid "inside voice." Then, when I got my volunteers up onstage, I could barely hear them talking. After three tries, I just gave up trying to get them to be much louder. Staring down this silent-but-attentive audience, I figured I was bombing, so I threw as much as I could at the performance, and closed out the show in a puddle of sweat.

Afterward, the school nurse popped behind the backdrop. "I just wanted to thank you," she said. "For 50 minutes, nobody threw up! We're so far away from any theater, that our kids always love having anything come to the school. Thank you so much for coming all this way. You are really doing an amazing and important job."

That, coupled with the dozen-or-so kids (including one of my sixth graders!) who came up to me directly afterward, either to say thanks or tell me all about their health knowledge, made me eternally grateful to be performing in the Adirondacks. I'll drive anywhere for you guys!



Call tomorrow: 8:00am. The show's in Clifton, NJ, which the GPS says is 25 minutes from Brooklyn. A thing of beauty.

Kid quote of the day: (This one is from the first show of the day, in Calcium, NY, near Fort Drum) "Does XRBOT had metal cells?"

LATE!!

7:00am
My first of four alarms goes off. I roll over, still a little exhausted from the mounting week, especially in light of the prior day's three-show day, and adventures in oil-changes. Plus, I don't have to be on the road until 8am.

7:46am
My eyes shoot open, as I realize what has happened. I need to be on the road in 14 minutes!! Into the shower, make coffee, pack the bag like a maniac and race out of the apartment, sound equipment and props in tow.

8:06am
I'm in the car and driving. I have about 15 minutes of leeway to make sure I'm at today's performance an hour in advance, as I am contracted to be. I'm driving up to the base of the Adirondacks, a lovely area, but a long drive. I pull onto Flatbush Avenue, as directed by the GPS, and start praying.

8:17am
I've gone two blocks.

8:21am
I'm screwed.

8:33am
I make my way to the BQE, through "secret" back roads, and start racing towards the 'Dacks.

8:46am
The BQE is at a stand still. Appears a trucker jackknifed, and is blocking two of the three lanes in front of me.

8:54am
I'm really screwed.

9:06am
I finally make it to the NY State Thruway. It has taken me a full hour to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx. My commute, by subway, to the Bronx Zoo is only a half-hour longer. I crank up my driving mix (which starts with Rascal Flatt's "Life is a Highway"), and start cruising. And praying.

11:14am
I've made good time, flirted with speeding tickets and (according to the GPS) shaved 17 minutes off of my estimated arrival time, but I'm still scheduled to be 25 minutes late. And I'm stopping for food. You see, if I don't eat, I'll pass out, and we can't have that. Pizza Familia quickly heats up my pizza slice, serves up a salad, tosses me a Coke and rings me up in under three minutes. Things are looking up.

12:15pm
I'm officially late, and about 25 miles from my destination. I've called every number I can to alert the school of my impending tardiness, but nobody's answering. And I can feel my blood pressure rising.

12:38pm
I follow the GPS to the purported school location. It does not exist. Deer in the surrounding forests shake as they hear my primal screams.

12:42pm
I'm in a Stewarts Shop (Upstate gas station chain) asking for directions. Turns out the woman behind the counter knows about my show, as her son is expected to be in the audience. "Aren't you starting pretty soon?" she innocently asks. I decide not to answer.

12:48pm
I arrive at the school, pull my stuff from the car, and start lumbering towards the school. My prop box falls open, and my suit falls into a puddle. Birds flee the area in fear.

12:49pm
Coleen, my super contact, appears in the parking lot. Turns out she got my message, and is ready to fly into action. She must to have magical powers, as we unload, put up my set, check sound, and clear the auditorium in under 20 minutes. I ask her if she'd like to come on the road with me, after briefly considering a marriage proposal. She politely declines.

1:16pm
The show starts. One minute late. And it is an awesome, awesome show.



Call tomorrow: 6am, Syracuse, NY. I'm off to Calcium and Remsen, NY. WOOHOO!!

Kid quote of the day: I asked if somebody can name a grain, and a precocious kid told me that oatmeal was a grain. I acknowledged him and told him he was absolutely right. And then he told me: "Oatmeal's on my brain, so it makes me smart."

Ethan, the Dancer

Today was the second three-show day so far on this tour. I'm wiped, although it's hitting me a little late in the day. Maybe the glass of wine with my second dinner helped the crash along (and, yes, since this tour started I'm eating two dinners almost every night after I perform; it's one of the parts of this experience that makes me feel like an Olympic athlete).

Anyway, today's first show was at a lovely Friends school in a quaint town in South Jersey. This was, actually, my second visit to this town, having performed in a giant gymnacafetorium (with the world's worst acoustics) the last time. The room was intimate, the stage had a working traveler and well-placed teasers and I was certainly pleased to have such an attentive crowd (except for an annoying fourth grade boy in the back row, but I won him over by "volunteering" him for an activity). And, after the show, the contact came up to me, all smiles.

"You were wonderful," she told me. "Where did you study?"
"NYU," I said, with a semi-exhausted smile. "My degree is in Theater and Middle Eastern Studies."
"Oh," the contact said, turning away sheepishly. "I meant, where did you study dance"

DANCE?!

Anybody who has ever been in a dance class with me, or witnessed the shamefulness that was every "demos" dance presentation in college knows that I have two left feet... at best. Despite nearly nine years of modern dance in Minneapolis (where, mind you, I was a member of a youth dance company and had a piece that I choreographed for myself performed in a new choreographer's evening!), I have turned out a moderately-stunted dancer. My standard line at auditions is, "I look really great in a chorus, and I can tap up a storm." So, you can share my surprise when, time after time, principals, teachers and PTO presidents inquire about my dance training and then proceed to compliment it.

(Tangentially, I am always curious what part of my performances qualify as "dance." I do a few bell kicks, the occasional chaîné turn, the Robot (!) and some really "white" hip-hop. Regardless, it seems to be working)

Despite all this confusion on the audience's part, however, the repeated compliments are really boosting my dancer ego. This is indeed an unexpected result of the tour: along with my rapidly-raising stamina, endurance and cardiovascular health (and mounting credit card bills as I buy the food I need to replace the calories I burn), I may come out of this thing believing, at least the first few calls, that I am actually a decent dancer. Which, while a complete shock, is something I am willing to accept wholeheartedly.

Call tomorrow: 8am, Brooklyn street. Off to Hartford, NY and other points north.

Kid quote of the day: During the "Champions Challenge" section of Musical Health Show, a little boy got so excited that I picked him to join me onstage that he completely forgot his name. He didn't even recognize it when teachers prompted him.