Introductions: Blue Tarantula / Announcer

We're back in NYC for the weekend, which is a welcome break. Our shows in Lebanon, NH, were great fun! One of our audiences clapped along for every single number, which was both cool and odd at the same time, as the rhythms are a tad complicated in our salsa and blues numbers. Anyway, the kids were wonderfully refreshing, the crew brought us deep-fried apple turnover goodness as a between-shows snack and our load-out (which involved a freight elevator) took less than an hour. We did get stuck in bad traffic on the way back, and were reminded that it is important to check our clearance when you are in a tall vehicle, as we passed a Greyhound bus with its top ripped off after what appeared to be a too-close call with a bridge. Word to the wise.

Anyway, with the tour winding down, and a little free time on my hands, I thought I'd present my final character-and-a-half introduction. Meet The Blue Tarantula (and, by default, the Announcer):



The Blue Tarantula is the scary creatures that mysteriously appears in Max's room. Ruby tries to convince Max to take a nap to distract him from playing SuperBunny (his favorite radio show, and my Announcer bit). Max isn't having it, so Ruby offers to read him one book, which, after some negotiation, winds up being the Blue Tarantula. Max gets scared, but decides to reread the story himself, and "allows" the creature into his room by opening the book. Madness ensues as small kids laugh, cry, scream and pee their pants. All is well with the world.

So, yeah, I also didn't know that these guys were part of my contract when I signed on. My contract made no mention of any spidery stuff. In fact, at my fitting, I was only told I would be playing "the tarantula head puppet." Thus, you can imagine it was quite a surprise on the first day of rehearsal when Jana, our music director, started playing the underscore to the Blue Tarantula song, stared at me expectantly and said, "You know that this is your song, right?" After my first day crash course, Jeff's notes to make it "more spooky" and composer Carol Hall's advice to "sing it just like I wrote it," I think we've developed something fun and a little scary.

And then there is the head and legs. The head sits on a Styrofoam head form which has a long stick in it. (The eyes, as you have read, have taken a bit of a beating while on the road.) The legs are pool noodles covered in black fabric that are operated by Lydia, Leigh and Leah. All of this appears over the wall that opens up behind Max's bedroom set, and looks like the monster is climbing over his head and into his bed. I love puppeteering the head, creeping up slowly over the wall to get the kids to scream and then ducking down really fast, as if the spider noticed the audience and had to hide. Tracy told me my tarantula is one of the most lively they have had. I guess that summer at the zoo was good for something, right?

Oh, and the announcer? Well, he's super-nasal and super-1950s. Sounds about right for SuperBunny, huh?

Kid quote of the day: During Blue Tarantula, a little girl cried out to Max and Ruby, "Save yourselves!"

Call tomorrow: Nothing until Monday, and we don't know yet. We're headed to New Haven!