The Men Inside The Blue
Dan England
For Fort Collins Now
9:19 a.m. MT Apr 15, 2008
Occasionally, even on his days off, Kirk Massey will find spots of blue body paint in the nooks and crannies of his body.
That’s just how the character is. He’s played a Blue Man for three years. He’s been in some different cities and is a touring member of the show that will play in Loveland on Wednesday, April 16, at the Budweiser Events Center.
“It really sticks with you,” Massey said in a phone interview. “When I’m on stage, once I get the Blue going on, I don’t really think about it, I just become the Blue Man. I don’t separate myself from it anymore.”
Good thing, too, because he’s expected to live up to a persona that was created in 1988 by Phil Stanton, Matt Goldman and Chris Wink and debuted off-Broadway in 1991. The show is so big now that the Venetian in Las Vegas redesigned a theater for it, and it has permanent homes in New York, Orlando and Boston, in addition to the touring show. The group also still appears in commercials, though it’s mostly known for its commercials for Intel.
That’s a lot of blue men to fill those roles, and yet, when fans go to a show, they expect to see a silent, tall, athletic guy who is really good at drumming on pipes (there’s more to it than that, obviously). Massey wanted the silent role because he said his “weird accent” (he’s right, it’s hard to pinpoint) made him nervous, but he was really good at facial expressions, and he played in a drum line and exclusive drum corps groups to boot.
Massey had the musical background and studied acting as he went on, but others join the group with just the opposite credentials.
“Many of them have the acting skills,” he said. “We’ve actually had some performers go to drumming school before. For me, I’ve always wanted to do something with music and acting since I was a little kid. So this was perfect.”
The touring show is drastically different than what you see in Las Vegas, Massey said, though Loveland fans can still expect much of the same music, the drumming bits and the look of the show. The touring show takes a tongue-in-cheek look at what it means to be a rock star. The band even downloads a “rock concert manual” at the start of the show. The show does incorporate vocalists and resembles a rock concert in some ways, although it’s still the Blue Man Group.
Aside from the touring show, the Blue Man shows have evolved through the years, but not all that much. The formula works. The group founders work closely with all shows to make sure the product lives up to their vision, almost like a franchise owner making sure its cheeseburgers match up to the ones advertised on TV.
That’s why Massey can perform with a blue man he hasn’t played with before after just one rehearsal.
“It’s a collaborative work,” he said. “But once we get it, we take ownership of it and make it our own.”
The guys who try out for Blue Man are hired for a reason, Massey said, so transitions aren’t difficult. It usually meshes once they’re on stage together.
“Everyone is Blue Man,” he said. “But there’s still a lot of you inside. It’s your own Blue Man too.”
To Go:
• Blue Man Group
• 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 16
• Budweiser Events Center in Loveland Tickets are $49 and $75
• Call 619-4112.
