Founded by Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton, Blue Man Group is centered on a mute trio of performers. They display themselves in latex bald caps, blue grease paint and black clothing. The theatrical acts of the Blue Man Group incorporate percussion rock music, sophisticated lighting, odd props, audience participation, and plenty of paper.
Normally, the highlight of the production is the front row, referred to as the “poncho section”. These audience members are supplied with plastic ponchos to secure them from paints, substances, different foods, and so much more. These items get ejected, sprayed or tossed from stage.
The Blue Man Group productions are not only energetic, family-oriented and humorous, but they normally occupy thought-provoking modern life lampoon. Much of the humor interrupts the production to ridicule audience latecomers. The Blue Man Group normally performs in Las Vegas.
History Behind Blue Man Group
Wink, Goldman and Stanton conceived the Blue Man Group idea in New York City in the 1980s. The men appeared on the city streets in Blue Man insignia, as they performed for passers-by and staging bizarre events like ‘The Funeral for the 80s’, as well as short bits part of underground cabarets of ‘The Alien Comic’ by Tom Murrin, in “The CLUB” at an experimental theater club known as La MaMa.
The artistic director of “The CLUB”, Meryl Vladimer, viewed their work and bespoke Blue Man Group to produce a full-length production. TUBES, the resulting work, propelled after Meryl persuaded critic Stephen Holden, from The New York Times, to review the show. The popularity of Blue Man Group continued to grow, with an eventual win of a Lucille Lortel Award and an Obie, which piloted the producers to market the show off-Broadway.
TUBES opened at the Astor Place Theatre in 1991. The Blue Man Group production, along with routine appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, allowed the production team to open similar shows and even inflate their various creative concepts into other types of performances.
Several Themes of Blue Man Group
There are several entertaining themes in the Las Vegas Blue Man Group performances. The themes are usually technology and science, with topics like DNA, human sight, fractals and the Internet; information pollution, like when the audience has to select one of three simultaneous information streams to read; self-conscious imitation of assorted cultural norms, like an elegant dinner of Twinkies for an audience member; innocence, as when the Blue Man Group appear perplexed and astonished by usual artifacts of society or reactions of audience members; the Outsider, one of the three men perform in an inconsistent matter than the other two; and rooftops, when the Blue Man Group climbs to the top.
