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Warning: Audience Participation Makes Your Nose Bleed [Guest Post by Prince Gomolvilas]
posted by Prince Gomolvilas on Fri, Jan 25, 2008
in Jukebox Stories
I generally despise theater shows that require audience participation. If there’s even the slightest chance that someone will be pulled on stage, I will make sure to sit in a difficult-to-get-to spot in the audience. If I am unfortunately in an aisle seat and thereby an easy target, I will not look approaching performers in the eye and I will scrunch up my face as if I were contemplating murder.
A Chicago man who claims that the Blue Man Group attacked him on stage was not so lucky. He says that during a matinee performance of the inexplicably popular experimental theater extravaganza (I mean, they’re also in Vegas--Vegas!) the blue actors shoved an "esophagus cam" down his throat, which subsequently gave him nightmares and nose bleeds.
“The Blue Man Group's Chicago general manager said the stunt is just an illusion,” reports MSNBC. But, c’mon, really, the sight of a gang of blue bald guys is not an illusion. And that’s enough to send anyone into fits of delirium.
Now, I do think the man’s half a million dollar lawsuit is a bit ridiculous, but, hey, this is America.
Speaking of theater shows that require audience participation, someone asked me the other day about the audience participation in Jukebox Stories, and I told him that “audience participation” is a misnomer. Nobody is required to be assaulted on stage or hold a big inflatable penis while a woman in a clown suit thrusts a huge inflatable vagina at it (this actually happened at a show I attended!).
Last time we were at Impact, the audience got to play bingo for prizes. Everybody loves bingo, and everybody loves winning free stuff. We also asked people to pull story and song titles out of boxes to determine which ones we would perform, and that just requires sticking your hand in a hole. And Brandon has been known to give select people lap dances, and all they had to do was sit and enjoy the ride.
In the upcoming Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam, we’re implementing a new game more intriguing and mysterious than bingo--one that may just involve bloody murder. But it does not require us to traumatize any audience members. (‘Cuz we don’t want to get sued, goddammit.)