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 […]

Life as Transition

My beginnings as an entertainer started in 1974 with the Royal Lichtenstein Quarter-Ring Sidewalk Circus. I am on the left and Nick Weber the shows creator is on the right. After a year long national tour with the circus I struck out on my own. Sold my motorcycle and bought my 1967 Ford pickup and […]

Complexion of Change

Our stories are in part understood by our finances. We see people on the way up, on the way down, remaining where they are, stuck where they are, ending up where they are because of where they’ve come from. I was in a campground in Montana, down to my last hundred dollars when a backpacker hiked […]

Changing Arizona

Tonight in Tempe. Street shows at 5th and Mill Avenue. Four shows today. I played this space first in 1992. It has been on my schedule since. Tempe Festival of the Arts has been happening since the 70’s….. Lots of […]

Changing Places

“At the same time there was a solitude to this place of a kind that was rare. Beyond this last gasp of farms the road began weaving through boulders and ridges and ran higher up off the immense and flat bottomlands. Noel took a dirt track off the highway and rolled amidst the boulders and […]

Quick Change Artist in Slow Motion…

Take your tambourine and your guitar string and move on down the track Don’t like the way that you comb your hair the way you drawl you all And if you’re not out of town before sundown you won’t get out of town at all… Get out of town before sunset by Buck Owens The […]

Plane Change

I woke up at 4 in the morning. I’d slept backstage on a sofa in a portable building at the Ohio State Fair where I’d been working as emcee/stage manager on the Main Street Stage for twelve days. By the time I woke up the stage, sound and lights had been struck. Everything was […]

Life Changes

With A Dream In Your Heart You’re Never Alone Hal David On Tuesday night I found out that I still knew my way to San Jose. I got a front row at The Magique Bazarre staged at the Improv on Second Street, downtown, where I’ve been away so long. Wednesday night I drove into […]