Zach Buell, a Chicago resident, has been performing as a member of the Blue Man Group for three years. A month before setting out on the “How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.1,” Buell spoke with me for an article previewing his appearance in Everett tonight. Here is a fuller version of that 30-minute interview.
A lot of the group’s comedic bits are delivered with facial expressions and body language. How do you convey that in an arena of 8,000 or more?
“It is a different show. It’s not the same show we do in Chicago or in any of the other cities, and that’s why we wanted to call it a rock concert, because that’s really what we think of it as. … And in that way we sort of pay homage to some of the huge stadium or at least arena rock concerts that we were sort of influenced by. The big bombastic light shows, you know, Queen and Kiss and Zeppelin, bands like that. But at the same time, we are poking fun at rock stars and pop idols and culture in that way. And we’re also making fun of ourselves. So in that sense, it’s a different show. As far as, there still is comedy. At least we hope that people laugh. There is a bit more focus on music, but as far as the comedy goes and the acting and the Blue Man, when you’re in a bigger space, you do have to sort of approach it differently, and you realize that certain subtle things don’t read as they would in a smaller space. You just adjust. You just sort of calibrate it, really. … You do it a little bigger.”
Is it difficult to catch marshmallows in your mouth?
“That’s another thing. It wasn’t anything I practiced before, so it was. It was for a while. You have to practice a lot before it became obviously easier. Now I have, I’m fairly confident about my ability to catch things in my mouth. It’s the throwing part that I always thought, ‘That’s easy.’ But not necessarily when you’re standing in front of 7,000 people.”
What songs will you be playing during “How to Be a Megastar 2.1?”
“We do a lot of original music that comes from our CD, ‘The Complex,’ and which is rock based percussion, heavy music that is some instrumental, some vocals. And we also do some covers of music that we like, and, you know, music from bands that did some of these arena rock concerts that are influencing us for this show. Songs from the Who and Pink Floyd. We do ‘One of These Days’ (by Pink Floyd) and the Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley.’ Rock music.”
You performed in version 2.0 of the tour. How is version 2.1 different?
“We just added a few things. We actually took out — we retired one piece of music called ‘Exhibit 13,’ and inserted a new piece called ‘Rock and Go,’ and a couple other tweaks here and there. Just sort of added a few other little bits here and there. People who have seen the 2.0 version, it’s 80 percent the same, but they would be in for some different things, some new surprises here and there, so we felt it was important to call it 2.1.”
What does your family think of the work? At a party, when it comes up, how do people react?
“You get all types of reactions. Some people are sort of nonplussed about it. They don’t care. Some people immediately want to ask you how long does it take to put on the make up. Some people want to know if I can catch things in my mouth. And sometimes I have to throw down and put them in their place. I’m joking.
“As a friend of mine pointed out, they feel it’s a little like Clark Kent and Superman. We’re in this costume that makes us bald and blue, and when you see us outside of that, you don’t necessarily know what we look like. Which is great. We have this anonymity in our normal lives, but we can be like stars in the show. The ‘How to Be a Megastar’ shows, we are supposed to be the star of the show, the Blue Man character. So when people are actually meeting you, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, you?’ There’s that duality. They’re meeting Clark Kent and finding out he’s Superman.”
What, in your mind, is the Blue Man? An alien? A person from the future? A new species?
“I don’t usually think of it, at least consistently, show to show. I think one of the great things about the fact that the Blue Man character doesn’t speak is it allows people to create these things for themselves, create this back story, create what it is we’re saying to each other. We’re obviously communicating. I’ll change my own story every show.
“And the other great thing, well, being an actor with or without words, when you don’t have lines, you can make up and change what you’re saying and thinking and feeling and what’s motivating you through this performance every time. It can be different. We’ve all talked about it. The character came before we had a full story for the character. The character was created and then we were figuring out what is quote unquote Blue Man, and what is not. That’s sort of up in the air. We don’t feel like he’s from another planet, but he definitely is from another world. He’s not from our world or our culture.
“But one scenario we play with when auditioning and stuff is we think of, say, the Blue Man as part of a tribe that lived on one side of the mountain, and they know that people live on the other side, but they’ve never seen them. One day a team of three daring Blue Men decided to for whatever reason, venture there and visit this other culture that they’ve only heard snippets about. And then when they’re there, they’re just trying to do it right, get things right. They don’t know what’s scared, what’s frivolous to us.”
I’ve seen the fliers and material on the site about becoming a Blue Man; it lists everything from height requirements to a background in percussion and acting. What was the audition process like? How does that work?
“The first thing is we check your drumming, see how competent of a drummer you are. It needs — the drumming isn’t incredibly complex, but you do have to be able to drum at a fairly high level. And then as far as acting goes, it depends on who is auditioning you, that we’ll try different things, eventually trying to guide them into demonstrating how a Blue Man looks, how a Blue Man stands and the fact that we don’t speak, making sure that they’re conveying things through mostly their eyes while just standing in one place. It’s a tall order. Even for most gifted actors, it’s not necessarily something they’re used to doing.
“So we’ll have them tell stories, we’ll have them play games, create scenarios, act them out in other ways, maybe even with words. Then take the words away, stand in a way that the Blue Man stands, limit the physical movement and still try to convey the same range of emotions. It’s tough to do. And the combination of those two things along with an unfortunate height requirement (between 5’ 10” and 6’ 1”) – I say unfortunate because we’ve had to turn away I’m sure some very qualified people – but usually it’s actually the first thing we check. If you’re too short or too tall, we usually don’t get to that point. It’s an unfortunate limiting thing. We’re not restricted to being only male. We have had female Blue Men. And we’ve had female Blue Men audition, but it’s a tall order to find that combination of people, of skills, in one person.”
How did you get into the work?
“Right before I was a Blue Man, I had gone to two years of acting school in New York, at Circle in the Square. … I had been out of school for over a year and had been doing plays off-off-Broadway. … Producing our own stuff for no money, just to do stuff. I was a typical struggling actor, living in New York, teaching artists work as well. And then I had heard about Blue Man before, but I had never seen the show. It actually wasn’t until I made it through all the auditions that I was taken to see it. As part of learning the show, I finally saw it for the first time.”
How long have you been a Blue Man?
“Three years.”
How long do you want to do it?
“I do ask myself that some times. I don’t know. As long as it’s fun. Until I really get sick of it, I guess. It’s been fun. It’s been a great opportunity to be in this company. Touring is a lot of fun. Getting to go all over the world, go to South America, go around the US. Some people, like, say … ‘How can you do the same show for three years?’ I do ask myself the same thing. But it does change a lot night to night. And the main element that changes is the audience, such a huge important part of all the Blue Man work. They are the fourth character in the play for us, really. … Besides the band and us, it’s really who it’s all about and as the audience changes from show to show, our performance changes. It really makes it interesting and fun and keeps us on our toes. And that goes for all the Blue Man productions, the theater production and the concert tour. So that helps a lot.”
So maybe for another decade?
“I won’t say no to that.”
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