Running South to Tucson

My time in Tucson has been spent with my friend Mark McMahon. Casa Marco’s pad was out on the very furthest reaches of East Tucson out on the end of Speedway. I rolled with this rig and slept in his front yard. We’d hike Saguaro National Park. That’s a favorite place. The coyote and javelina […]

Even When I Look Back I Still Don’t Get It…

Looking too good…. I’m not sure when it happened. I think they slipped them into a five pack. I’m talking about my polka dot bikini briefs. I don’t think I was brought up to accept things like this. I do remember when men’s fine clothing consisted of such things as: gabardine, linen, silk, and merino […]

The Land Yacht… When Dreams were Big and Fuel was Still Cheap

I found my Streamliner in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was the ultimate. I mean it was the full fantasy. In 1974 I was on the back lot at Circus Vargas. We had jumped over from St. Louisto see the show in Springfield, Missouri. They’d come off a mud lot and the trucks and trailers that […]

The Road that Never Ends

Pulling off a national tour means you need a reliable vehicle. Here I am installing my fourth motor into my ’67 Ford. I did all my own work. The first few rebuilds were not so good, but they got better and lasted longer with practice. Note the camper shell. This shell was scrapped and a […]

Worth a Try

I find some of my earliest material from my show embarrassing. I would have preferred to have come out of the starting blocks with a perfect beginning. My first few years consisted of a wide range of elements. There was juggling, magic, mindreading, sketch comedy, puppetry, water-spitting, springboard acrobatic stunts, and handbalancing. I tried […]

Street Show as Heart Song

My career in show business spans almost four decades. For many years I have presented somewhere around 300 performances per year. That’s a solid number. Some years I didn’t do that many shows and in other years it is likely that I approached as many as 750. There were a chunk of years that I […]

Sometimes I Played for Elephants

Touring a show by truck is a different experience from flying to an airport, renting a car, staying at a hotel, and getting all your meals in restaurants. I arranged my pickup truck to fit my show equipment and everything I would need to eat and sleep while traveling. To travel in this […]

Street Performing as Spoken Word

Dana Smith Harlequin Street Theater from 1978 My approach to street theater has placed particular emphasis on words. It is the power of the spoken word when combined with visual elements, and situational moments that can be one of the most effective tools when building a successful show. In the vernacular of the […]

The Great Romance of Street Theater

Developing an efficient way of stopping pedestrians is not so simple. It is a trial and error process. Eventually each act finds something that does the trick. Some acts are incredibly skillful at gathering an audience. There are all kinds of street shows. People present all kinds of skills. Some people work silent, others talk. […]

Finally the Finale

I wear two hats now. One is performer, the other is author. Closing a show with a routine that will thrill the audience is an essential ingredient to good street theater. Without this climactic stunt not only will the show fall flat but so will the audiences response to putting some money in the hat. […]