The Family Business

Publicity shot from the flea circus.

I'm performing my show The Acme Flea Circus 5 times this summer as part of the Chicago Park District Night Out In The Parks Program. (see here for all the details. )
The shows are all free, so it would be great if you came out! I've got 4 more!

My first show was today. (Not open to the public-- it was part of a camp program.)

POP QUIZ

 My son came along because of the following:

A) my wife was working, and had an appointment, so I couldn't leave him with her.
B) we're trying to save money, so he's not going to camp every day.
C) I wanted him to see what I do.
D) ALL OF THE ABOVE

If you guessed D) ALL OF THE ABOVE you would be correct.

On the drive to the show, I realized that this is the first time that he was going to be helping me do a show. Yes, he's seen my show multiple times but he hasn't been in the business (backstage, setting up, striking, etc.)

Shows in the Chicago parks this summer.

He's never really expressed an interest in performing, other than glibly. He loves acrobatics, and he loves to do tricks, just not in front of people. If we were waiting in line, and I said, "Let's do a trick for these people in line." he would demur.

 I've never wanted to push him into performing if that's not what he wants to do.  I have a friend who is also a performer, has a son born around the same time as AA, and that kid was born wanting to perform. (he has been on a soap opera, in an opera at BAM, just booked a national commercial, and is currently in an HBO series with James Franco!)

I think he'd be good, as he loves to pretend, he's very cute and photogenic, and he can be quite funny.  But he has to want it.

Anyway, he agreed to help out today.  His big job was to be the house manager.  He had to go open the door to the room, kick down the doorstop and say "Ladies and Gentleman, the house is now open."  He confided to me that he was a little nervous about it. We went over the ground rules (watch the show quietly, he has to do what is expected of him, he can't ruin the show for other kids by saying what comes next, etc.)

Trying on the hat for size.  It could work!

He did well, opening the door perfectly, sitting quietly.  I explained to him that one of the hardest things a performer has to do is wait.  We arrived at 8:45am for an 11 am show.  (an hour to set up typically, and an hour to troubleshoot anything that might go wrong.) He was a little restless but mostly held it together.  He also asked me a bunch of questions about training the fleas. I told him that I don't tell anybody how I train them, but if he ended up wanting to perform the show after I retired, I would teach him.  He seemed pretty excited about that.

 Before I had my son, I was performing on a pretty regular basis, making an okay and occasionally decent living from it.  I was touring a lot, going to festivals a lot, driving a lot. But that all changed after the baby was born. It made sense for me to be the stay at home parent, and my wife to become the bread winner. I still perform occasionally, but not as often. And that is an itch I would like to scratch.

I have a weird fantasy of us putting together a show and going on tour together. Maybe do the Summer Fringe Festival Circuit? We'd make a good team I think; I'm so big, he's so little, he can be very bossy.   (I am not sure what my wife would do in this summer touring fantasy.  Run the box office?)

Anyway, that probably won't happen, but today was a nice start. And who knows? If I can teach him to run the sound system and do all the sound cues it could still work out!