← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
Blue Man Group’s Founders on Closing in NYC
00:32:12
We hear from the founders of Blue Man Group about their final New York show.
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- [00:00]
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Phil Stanton
Listener Supported.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here on today's show for our edition of Silver Liner Notes. We'll discuss the 25th anniversary of Dangelo's album Voodoo. Kay Sahoney will be here to talk about her new graphic memoir, this Beautiful Ridiculous City. And we'll talk about Caribbean Food without the Meat with cookbook author Lloyd Rose. His latest is titled Island Vegan. That is our plan. So let's get this started with the legacy of the Blue Man Group. Anyone who's seen the show will recognize this PVC percussion. You'll also be able to visualize the three inquisitive and speechless men who are blue playing it. This recording comes from a Blue Man Group performance earlier this month. But the musicians you hear in that clip aren't just any Blue Men. They're the group's three founders, Matt Goldman, Chris Wink and Phil Stanton, two of whom are my next guests. More than 30 years after inventing the Blue Men charact and launching the show here in New York City, they've returned to the stage at Astorplays for one more performance before Blue man closes its doors this weekend. Its first show was on November 17, 1991. The final show is this Sunday. Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton are here with me. An exclusive radio interview. Chris was meant to be here too, but he's under the weather, so we're wishing him well. They're here to reflect on Blue Man's origins and legacy and take your own Blue man memories. Welcome to the studio.
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Matt Goldman
Hi.
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Phil Stanton
Thank you for having us.
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Alison Stewart
We're so happy for you to be here. Listeners, talk to us about the Blue Man Group. When did your when was your first show? Did you end up on stage? What questions do you have for its founders? Have you found yourself a Blue Man? Have you been inspired by Blue Man? Have you ever found yourself been a Blue Man? I should say. Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433 wnyc. You can join us in conversation on the radio or. Or you can text us at that number as well. 212-433-9692. This is for both of you. What is it like to be back on stage in Blue Man?
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Phil Stanton
Well, I mean, I have to say it was pretty, pretty fun.
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Matt Goldman
Yeah, it really was. I was worried, you know.
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Alison Stewart
Were you really?
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Matt Goldman
Well, you know, the thing I was worried about most is because we had like, you know, I knew 150 people in the audience, you know, I didn't know what that would be like because our, you know, the Blue man, there's of course. So I mean we really are interacting with people. It's not a pretend here. It's not acting like we're interacting with people. It's really, you know, it's very real. So I didn't know what looking into like my 17 year old son's face would be like.
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Alison Stewart
That's amazing.
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Matt Goldman
And all the other friends and family who were there, so.
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Phil Stanton
Well, I'd have to say that the ratio of number of hours of rehearsal to number of minutes of stage time was embarrassingly lopsided. Not in our favor. You would think that it would all come back to us right away. But the precision and the drumming and the acting, it took longer than anticipated, let's put it that way.
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Alison Stewart
Phil, what came back to you the fastest?
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Matt Goldman
The fastest? Well, I have this one little thing that I've never really taught other Blue Men and it's the ability not to blink. And I thought, well, I'm not going to be able to do that. But it was like it came back really quickly. I know that sounds really weird, it's such an idiosyncratic thing to talk about, but yeah, that was it for me.
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Alison Stewart
What came back to you the fastest?
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Phil Stanton
Nothing came back fast. Nothing came back fast. I was. The day, the rehearsal, before the second show, we actually did two shows. The whole thing for me was greatly motivated by my own 20 year old son, Ryas. And he said he was going off to England for a semester abroad. And he said, dad, you gotta do a show before I go. So called Chris and Phil and said, I know this is sort of ahead of schedule, but we gotta do a show no later than January 9th for rye. But even then everything was new and an adventure, which kind of is the character. So as long as you stay in character. And the fact that it was discovery at every moment really plugged us into the earliest, earliest days of Blue Man. And then. But by the second show, the rehearsal before the second show, I noticed that I was looking out into the audience, into the theater and my hands were Just playing the music. And then that those neural firings, those neural connections were like, oh, yeah, this is how it used to be.
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Matt Goldman
I never really got to that point, but I tried. And so when I would look up trying to play, I would hit a wrong note or something.
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Phil Stanton
But, well, your parts are a lot harder than mine. Mine are so much easier.
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Matt Goldman
You're so kind.
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Alison Stewart
We're gonna get Chris in here. He couldn't come in because he wasn't feeling well. But we found a video of Kurt Loder, MTV News, interviewing Chris in 1988.
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Phil Stanton
Yes, funeral for the 80s.
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Alison Stewart
There you go. Let's take a listen.
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Kurt Loder
It's a beautiful afternoon here in Central park, and yet one group of people on hand today is feeling kind of blue. They're a collective of artists who call themselves the Blue Man Group. And their leader is right here. Chris. Why so blue?
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Chris Wink
Well, it was actually an accident. A rock and roll genetic engineering accident made us this way. But we thought it was pretty interesting because afterwards, what we realized was after this accident, our skin was blue. But also, we became interested in all different kinds of music, not just one kind, not just new wave or hip hop or heavy metal or reggae or. We became interested in all those things and more Turkish music, Japanese music. We became this sort of genetic permutation. And we became interested in everything. And we were no longer nationalistic or single minded or single catego. We sort of decided we would mix everything. And it was this interesting thing that happened. It was so interesting, we thought we'd tell everyone about it. They don't have to be blue to think this way, but we thought we'd share it with the world.
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Alison Stewart
So let's bring me back to 1988. How long had the Blue Men existed, or at least in your mind, until that point?
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Matt Goldman
Oh, weeks, maybe.
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Phil Stanton
Well, we would consider that event, the funeral for the 80s in Central park in May of 1988. Right. We would consider that the actual start.
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Matt Goldman
Now, we didn't even have an idea that we would go on stage at that point. I just thought it was sort of a. I don't know, A happening is what we kind of called it.
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Phil Stanton
Yeah, I mean, there were so many ways into, like, the antecedents and how it started. But really, you're right, Phil. It was weeks before where we got.
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Matt Goldman
We just did some experiments.
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Phil Stanton
We got bald and blue for the first time. And we literally just put the makeup on and went and stared in each other's eyes. And it was a powerful moment, though, because we knew that there was something bigger than Us. And it wasn't us. So we could subjugate our ego completely because it wasn't us. It was this like, character, this being. And so we knew we somehow stumbled across something special. Now, when you're bald and blue in your living room and then you go up to the roof of your building for a shoot, if you then say at that moment, oh, you know, this is gonna lead to sold out shows all over the world and platinum albums and rock shows and, you know, 22 appearances on the Tonight show and Grammy nominated and on and on and on. You know, they would take you, put you in a room with very soft walls and lock it.
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Alison Stewart
Lock it.
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Phil Stanton
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that would have been nuts. But, you know, little by little, thing by thing, that's what actually happened.
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Alison Stewart
I'm speaking to Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton, two of the founders of the Blue Men group. The show, which started here in New York over 30 years ago, is ending its run this Sunday. Our phone lines are popping. Let's take some calls. Let's talk to Adam. Hi, Adam, thanks for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
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Adam
Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys. First off, I just want to say thank you. I've seen this show twice. I can't believe it's been 30 years, because I saw it about four or five years in. That means I'm old. But as a drummer, as a drummer, I really appreciate the creativity of what you guys do and just the rhythms that you've come up with, and it's just so fun and interactive. My question is, were you guys performance artists? Also, how and when did you incorporate the marshmallows and all the other bits that you guys do, which might be fun to watch, but they're incredibly difficult. And who can stuff that many marshmallows in their face at once?
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Matt Goldman
Well, how did we come up? Well, performance artist.
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Alison Stewart
Were you performance artists first?
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Matt Goldman
Right. I had just moved to New York not to long before we started on Blue Man. Really, I moved here to be, I thought to kind of be a normal career as a stage and theater, theater and film actor, you know. But I also came here with a lot of curiosity about the city. And I wanted to find where is that edge, that unusual place where. Where you can express in ways that are not so conventional. And I don't know, I just happened to meet Chris on this catering job, my first job I got in New York, and we just started exploring the East Village and what was happening down there. And then Matt had. You had known Chris for a Long time, yeah.
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Phil Stanton
Chris and I started to go to school together when we were 12. And we were two of nine new kids in a group of 100. So we were already outsiders. So I think that might be sort of the part of the antecedents of Blue men as outsiders. But I think to your question about performance art, I think in a way we're anti performance art in the same way that we're anti clown. I think that the skill stuff is kind of like a nouvelle vaudeville. You know, we studied all different forms of performance and entertainment. And, you know, vaudevillians used to spin plates or swallow fire or whatever to gain the respect of the audiences. And so we thought that that was a tried and true and great mechanism vehicle. So that's where the catching in our mouths stuff. It just happened that people used to throw stuff at Phil and Chris in catering as they walked into the kitchen. So they developed the catching side really well. And I just happened to be a pretty precision dart thrower and thrower in general. So our skills just were predestined, let's just say, to that. Throwing and catching. And while the catching looks impressive, I think Phil will be the first to admit it's really the throwing where the skill lies.
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Matt Goldman
Here, here. Yes, that's true.
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Phil Stanton
Yeah.
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Matt Goldman
No, pretty quickly it became a way for us to put all of our interest into one pot. You know, it's not only acting. I'm not even sure I saw it as acting initially.
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Phil Stanton
Years in, I had to convince you.
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Matt Goldman
That you were acting because it was such an unusual character and just so much fun to inhabit, too. But it was a way for us to put all of our interest in one place.
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Phil Stanton
Well, the real thing was we wanted to make a show that we ourselves wanted to see. And we just trusted that if we wanted to see it, we would be attractors for other. We also. We wanted to do something that hadn't been seen before. We wanted to. You know, one of the main things was, like, if you had ever seen a bit or a joke or a piece before, then it didn't make it. And that's not always an easy thing to do, is to go into the cracks. So. And we also wanted to speak up to our audiences. You know, we had really been ourselves offended by the lowest common denominator that, you know, so much of books and media and movies and everything was just lowest common denominator to sheer numbers. And we thought, you know, people are smart.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah.
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Phil Stanton
And they have good taste. And, you know, if we talk up to them, we can also get, you know, I mean, at the time we were trying to fill 300 seats, so we weren't talking about tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands a year, but 300 seats. We figured if we talk up to our audiences. And so the show's very layered and that's why there's science in it and there's comedy and there's music. And of course, music and humor being the international languages. So that's, I think, why we attracted people from all over the world. Besides the fact that we don't speak so much, There's a lot of language in the show. That's the funny thing. Oh, it's great for people from other countries because we don't speak. There's so much English in the show. Right. But I think because of the humor, because of the music, which also has influences from all over the world and then all these other influences, I think, you know, people felt. And then it was multi generational. We didn't ever write a show for little kids. We wrote for adults. But we found that three generations of families, you know, the grandkids, the adult kids and the grandparents, and they could talk about, they would tell us. We spent the whole holiday season talking about. All of us had different takes and different impressions, and that's why they came back over and over again.
- [15:14]
Alison Stewart
We're talking about Blue Man Group with two of its founders, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. This text says I've been a huge fan since seeing it in 1993. I've seen the group five times at Astor Place. I even volunteered to Mash Bananas when I was young. I'm most happy to say that I introduced Blue man to my wife and just last week to my daughter. Thank you for creating such a wonderful, inspiring show. Let's talk to Shayna. Hey, Shayna, thanks for calling, all of it.
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Shayna
Hey, Allison in the Blue Man Group, thank you for taking my call. I just have a little bit of a funny story, I guess that happened 23 years ago when I was 2 years old. So my family decided, let's go to the Blue Man Group and go see this show. And again, I was two. So during the performance, at one point, I think y'all were making a mess or something with either paint or smashing something. And as a two year old, I was told, you know, don't make messes and everything. So I thought in all of my great ideas to scream at the top of my lungs, hey, knock it off in the middle of your performance. And apparently, according to my mother, you all turned to me and stopped the show and, like, pointed at me real quick. And then Usher came by and was like, hey, guys, I'm sorry you have to leave. So we got kicked out of this show because of me being a silly little two year old child yelling at y'all. But just thank you for all you do. And apparently my parents enjoyed the show a lot up until that point.
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Rocky
So.
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Phil Stanton
I remember that show, Shaina, and we were so upset that you guys were kicked out that, you know, disciplinary action was taken. I just want you to know that retribution was had on your behalf.
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Matt Goldman
Thanks for that story, Shauna. Thanks.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Greg. Hey, Greg, thanks for calling, all of it. I understand you have a relation to the blue Men.
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Kurt Loder
Yes. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Hey, Phil and Matt. I was a blue man for six years, actually. I kind of have a unique Cinderella story. I started working for blue men as a crew member at the Astor Place theater when I was maybe 19 years old. So this was circa 2009, I suppose. I was a flyjack sub and. Yeah. And then an electric sub. And then auditioned and became a performer and spent most of my time performing in the Boston cast. A little bit New York, a little bit Chicago for a while on a cruise ship, so.
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Matt Goldman
And you were a pretty good player on our softball team, too, Greg.
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Kurt Loder
Thank you. Thank you. Yes.
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Matt Goldman
Yeah, I forgot what position you played, though. Matt and I both played in the Broadway show league for a number of years, but. What. I forgot what position you played. Anyway. That's not.
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Kurt Loder
I think that might have been a different Greg. There was a couple.
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Matt Goldman
Really?
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Kurt Loder
I'm sorry, I don't recall many softballs, but I'm so.
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Matt Goldman
Maybe, maybe.
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Alison Stewart
Oh, well, thanks for calling, Greg.
- [18:05]
Matt Goldman
All right.
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Alison Stewart
Maybe you're a good softball player. One more question before we go to break. Why blue could have been the purple man group. It could have been the green man group.
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Matt Goldman
Yeah. You know, it was really kind of an intuitive choice initially, and I don't think we knew why, but after the fact, there were all these reasons, you know, like so many other colors have specific baggage associated with them, you know, and blue only has, like, sky and water and, you know, it's the blue planet, you know, to put a simple spin on it. But, you know, it only. It's a color that we found you could be either comic or kind of sublime or solemn at times. And it had the ability to surf all of those kind of different moods and emotions.
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Phil Stanton
For me, the blue, it seems like it's the putting on of a mask, but for me, it's the opposite. It's when you take away hairstyle, when you take away features like ears and what have you, when you. You take away the different skin tones that all humans have just over their bones, and maybe what's left underneath is just, we're all blue. And so it's really stripping us down to what's essentially the most human. And I think that's in the best shows. I think what happens is people come in and in the Astorplace Theater especially, it's kind of this neutral zone because you come off the street, you come down into almost like a dungeon like thing, and then you've passed through this corridor of nothingness from where you were to where you're going, and you meet the Blue man, who's also come from somewhere else. And for the first, I don't know, third of the show, you're thinking you're seeing someone very strange and unusual. And, you know, and then I think for that middle third, you start realizing, hey, wait a minute, they're really. I'm watching myself. I'm watching, you know, what's essentially human. And then by the end, you're like, yeah, let's get this party started. Let's get together and have an exalted moment so that the climax of the show with all the music and the dancing and the paper and the craziness, it's like. And that's when the show works. That's all real. Like, that's not, you know, that's not like a fourth wall kind of experience. That's like we're all jumping up and down and we're freaking out because we just had an hour and a half of total fun. And when the show is, you know, just mediocre, then that's, you know, it kind of works.
- [20:52]
Alison Stewart
We're talking about the legacy of the Blue Man Group. It's ending its run in New York this Sunday. My guests are Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton will take more of your calls as after a quick break. This is all of it.
- [21:03]
Progressive Insurance
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- [21:55]
Alison Stewart
A very different media landscape greets this new Trump White House. And some observers see the meek of.
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Phil Stanton
The inauguration as a harbinger of what's to come. None of the CNN anchors pointed out.
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Kurt Loder
That Donald Trump is the first convicted.
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Phil Stanton
Felon to take that office. They didn't point out that he was twice impeached.
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Matt Goldman
Plus, what's the deal with President McKinley?
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Alison Stewart
It's all on this week's on the Media from WNYC. Find on the media wherever you get your podcast. You are listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests in studio are two of the original blue Men, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton. We're talking about the show, its legacy. It started here in New York over 30 years ago. It's ending its run in New York this Sunday. Let's take a couple of calls. Rocky. Hey, Rocky, are you there?
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Rocky
I am. I am. Oh, my God, you guys, thank you so much for over 30 years of fun and mayhem. I was very lucky to be one of the people picked. At least you guys were crawling all over the audience to pick people to.
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Adam
Go up on stage. I don't know how you got that strap on thing that extruded bananas. It was just absolute chaos there.
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Rocky
I don't know how I functioned because.
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Adam
I was laughing so hard.
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Matt Goldman
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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Alison Stewart
Let's go to Robin calling in from Long Island City. Hi, Robin. Thanks for calling all of it. You're on the air with two of the Blue Men.
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Robin
Oh, hi. I actually knew Chris and the others. They wouldn't remember me, but we worked at Glorious Food. And Chris would come in like you guys mentioned and asked me to stand 20, 30ft away from me and I threw things into his mouth and he practiced what became the Blue Man Group all the time at our cater waiter thing. So we all couldn't believe that. What happened to you guys? You did your own thing. It was amazing. I became a professor. You know, we were all actors and performers who worked in catering, but Chris and Phil and Matt, you did your own thing. Everybody was so amazed at what you accomplished.
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Phil Stanton
Well, thank you. And since you're bringing it up, we should mention this isn't just any catering place. This was Glorious Foods. Jean Claude Nedelek was one of the great chefs in the world. He cooked for presidential inaugurations and the Kennedy weddings and you either went to one of the other catering many, many, many other catering companies in New York or you went to Glo Glorious Foods. And so Chris was a captain of the catering teams and Phil started his thing there. I became an honorary member. And I just have to tell the quickest story because Jean Claude, he was so supportive of not only Chris and Phil and myself, but you know, Jon Stewart was an alumni of their so many, so many amazing, talented people. And Jean Claude and his partner Sean, you know, really fostered and created an environment where people could thrive. And when we, Jean Claude used to make the Jello for us. So we had a 90 pound jello mold that we did a little magic trick. Someone disappeared and later in the show their head showed up inside of the Jello. And when we got the run at the Oster Place theater and he just did it because he just made it for Chris and Phil because they, they were friends. And when we got to the show, our so called producers at the time, they were short lived, said we can't do the Jello because it's too expensive. It's $100 a night and that's just too much money. And so we told Jean Claude that and he said, and I do a pretty good Jean Claude.
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Matt Goldman
Yeah, you do, you do.
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Phil Stanton
He says, well of course we are going to have to make the Jello for you because we only want you to be successful. And for three years he did it $1,000 a week.
- [26:20]
Progressive Insurance
Wow.
- [26:21]
Phil Stanton
He made us this Jello for gratis.
- [26:24]
Alison Stewart
That is very cool.
- [26:27]
Matt Goldman
Eight of those big Jello things a week.
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Phil Stanton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we had to go pick them up in a taxi. We left them in the trunk a few times, but we did it. And Jean Claude. So of course the day we took over the show was just three years in. We said, okay Jean Claude, we are going to make this right. And to this day Jean Claude and we all have remained friends and he even benefit for us gratis. I mean it's all crazy. It was a crazy world.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Lisa. Hi Lisa, thank you so much for calling, all of it. You're on the air.
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Rocky
Hi. I'm going to add my voice to all the people calling to say thank you. I have tremendously vivid memories of seeing you in the East Village sometime. Must have been like maybe very late 80s. I don't even think you were the only people on the bill.
- [27:19]
Phil Stanton
That's right.
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Rocky
And you, you made me laugh so hard. I think I've laughed at you harder than anything in my Life. I mean, there was such a shiver of electric shiver in the room because nobody had any idea what was going to happen. It was just. It was so incredible. And I can't tell you how many times I've thought of how funny it was. And I guess if I sort of had a question for you beyond my thank you is you definitely create that electricity with a little bit of danger. And I'm just sort of curious about that in your.
- [27:56]
Phil Stanton
Well, that's a great question. That's a really astute observation because for anyone who's been to the show, we cover the first four or five rows with plastic. We give ponchos to the people in the front. There is this sense like anything can happen because frankly, anything can happen because there's technology, there's paint flying off of drums, there's banana coming out of our chest. Like, there's a lot of things. But at the same time, we really want to take care of our audience. If you notice, when people participate and they come on stage, we're really caring for them. We're connecting with them. It's about relationship. So your observation is so right on. Because we want to create the sense that we're all in it together. But life is dangerous, right? We're often living on the edge and we're connecting with new people and all of the audience and the Blue Men are all connecting together, and it's a potentially explosive combination. So that's something we really, really wanted to. And with humor and the sublime and the freaky and the dark and the humorous and loud music and soft music, all these contrasts, these are all things that we tried to get into the night.
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Alison Stewart
Okay, tough question for you guys. Matt, you sold your share of the Blue man Group in 2010. Yeah, I believe in 2011. 2011. 2011. And then it was sold to the Cirque du Soleil. It's been everywhere. It's been Vegas, Orlando, Shanghai, I think, of last year. There's merch. There's all kinds of stuff. How are you feeling about what it became?
- [29:36]
Phil Stanton
You know, that's a fair question. There's so many ways into that. I'll answer it by these closing days at the Astorplace Theater. First of all, there's several people who are still working there who were there on opening night. In fact, Larry Heineman, one of our very first musician, was there years before opening night. He was our first, first, first musician. He still does shows at the Astroplace Theater. Amazing. Same with one of our stage managers who was originally a light Board operator who got her master's degree while she was a crew member at Blue Men. The list goes on and on. And what it became was a community who connected around the original. Original mission, which was to inspire ourselves and our audiences, perhaps do just a little bit of social good a little, and have a good time doing it. And that's. We didn't. We weren't much more bombastic than that. We were happy. We didn't. Had no idea we were going to make a living from it, let alone, you know, have. Do a little bit better than a living. And then. But the community, these callers who've come in, who've connected on this level, to me, that's what it's become. Has Cirque maintained that same vibe all the way through? Well, you know, how could they? And they're not even really Cirque themselves, really, anymore, because they're two bank buyouts, hence. But the core, the themes that love, that connection, that inspiration, I think that's.
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Matt Goldman
Yeah, I agree with that. There's something that continues to live through the communities. And that's one of the things that I'm most proud of, really, is the places that we opened shows, we really left a tight community of largely artists behind, you know, and there's so many that still collaborate. And, you know, there's a whole contingency of former Blue man people in this one area, upstate New York, you know, and they all. They all produce these shows together and create bands together. And so that's really satisfying. I'm. I still think Blue man has a long way to go. I think that the character is very universal, or I would say, because it's so universal. And I think the theme of kind of exploring our humanity, asking the questions, what are we? What's essentially human? I mean, that's what the Blue man is there to ask through humor and through music and satire. But I think the character can go a lot further than it has. And I do think that it lives beyond us. And I would like to see that vision, you know, I'd like to see it still progress over these years.
- [32:50]
Alison Stewart
Let's go out on Jane from Port Washington. Hi, Jane. Thanks for calling, all of it.
- [32:55]
Rocky
Hi, thank you for taking my call. I am the grandmother of a young boy with special needs. It's called Jacobson Syndrome, who just loved the Blue man group so much. We went twice. The second time because of all the water that was coming off the drum. He made me go out of the good seats and go into the bad seats. But anyway, he has gone on now to be 17 years old, just about to be 18. And he is a real master drummer because to a great degree. Yeah.
- [33:29]
Phil Stanton
Wow.
- [33:29]
Rocky
He's real. He's even taking timpani drum lessons. I mean, he just loves the drum. He's been taught by my son, his father, and I just am so proud of him. So thank you for all you do and I'm so sorry to see you go. I hope you'll come back.
- [33:46]
Matt Goldman
Thank you.
- [33:46]
Phil Stanton
Thank you. And thank you for sharing that great story.
- [33:50]
Alison Stewart
Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton, they are original Blue Men. Blue Men ends this Sunday. Thanks for spending time with us. Really appreciate it.
- [33:58]
Phil Stanton
That's great. Thank you.
- [34:00]
Matt Goldman
Thank you.
- [34:03]
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