JW: Whats your involvement in Barn activities?

MM: "Michael Menes and Company" did the Halloween show this year, which was about 11 shows I produced over a three-week period in October. There was myself, my neighbor Michael Miclonn and Fritz Grobe (who was very dark and odd and demonic with two diabolos!). Miclonn bills himself as a stand-up juggler, but he does a lot of character work. He's probably best known for his "Late to the Recital" piece, a slapstick routine reminiscent of George Carl, Buster Keaton and the old vaudevillians. He also plays Moto the Hunchback, which segues into "Marvelous Night for a Moon Dance."

 

I'm also excited about doing this two­week workshop there following the Burlington festival with Peter Davison. It's going to be a hands-on approach with fundamental exercises in posture, alignment, flexibility, movement and a lot of basics of how to train in those areas. There will be a lot of work with the basics of training the body and how that adds to performance. Ultimately when someone walks away they have to have something more than that af­terglow of how someone else did it and what a cool person the teacher was.

 

JW: Tell us about where you live.

MM: I'm renovating my house, learning some construction skills as I go and practicing others I've picked up along the way. I rebuilt a chimney last year and got a whole new appreciation for how to stack brick. The studio is unattached, about 30 feet from the house and maybe 20 feet square with skylights and 13 feet of ceiling height. It's mirrored on one side inside, but other than some postcards of Hawaii, there's not much else on the walls. The structure was a big old mechanic's garage. I stripped the whole thing down to its true six-by-six beams and saved just the basic structure. A buddy of mine put in a new floor and I took it from there. It's got a wood stove, and once you get it going it stays warm even in the winter.

 

JW: People who have followed your career are impressed by the new and creative work you keep producing. Where does it all come from?

MM: It seems to me that most jugglers want a good 10 or 20 minute act they can do in a circus ring or on a cruise ship, but that's it. They want a product. I've followed a different path. I'm interested in juggling because I enjoy investigating it, and I enjoy producing variety theatre from those investigations. I'm more process-oriented than product-oriented. I have to have sharp pieces I can make money with, but I don't want to do the European thing of having eight minutes and nothing more. I like to do creative things.

 

JW: That was undoubtedly one reason the committee chose to award you the Founders Award last summer at the IJA festival in Fargo. Did that choice surprise you?

MM: I am deeply honored by the com­mittee's choice, and would like to especially thank Art Jennings for creating the award to honor the spirit of vaudeville. In his words, "it should be given to an act with a beginning, middle and end, to someone who gently lifts the audience up, takes them on a ride and gently returns them to their seat." He has quite a way of stirring emotions, but I think he's very sincere about that.