Southwestern College was located in the little town of Chula Vista, in sight of the border between Mexico and the United States. They liked old movies -- a 16mm copy of Singing In The Rain was circulating around the classes in the Theater Department. We didn't run up walls like Donald O'Connor, or hoof around in puddles like Gene Kelly, but I figured that Marilyn Monroe's image would help attract this particular crowd, so I modified our Sun Tavern poster with her face redrawn in stark black-and-white from the cover of Norman Mailer's best-selling biography, and it WORKED. I enjoyed making a couple of "Warhol Walls" by multiplying the image in certain locations on-campus, but we needed the posters elsewhere, and I could only indulge myself to a limited degree. After this concert, I retired Marilyn because we needed to advertise our uniqueness and originality, but the two times we recruited her were a lot of fun!
The campus boasted a number of new buildings, including the massive white edifice which was the home of their theater. I've forgotten the professor's name, but he acted like a gruff east-coaster on the outside, yet possessed a heart of solid gold. "Some of these Mime people we get here are really lousy!" he said with a level, challenging gaze.
I was still wrung out by the long journey from Utah, but looked right back into his eyes and told him "Our company will do things you've never seen on a stage before," with an easy confidence which I never lost during all the years I spent with the Mime Troupe. I had variatons of that conversation many times, and gave the same assurances with no reason to regret them afterwards. Our first tech rehearsal in that big theater was a new challenge to me, but the calm technician in charge made everything comprehensible, if not easy (it wasn't). When the dancers finally took to the air after a LONG wait, the professor smiled, and kept smiling whenever we were around.

*A double-exposure featuring Matthew, Georgeio (twice), and Katie onstage in Southern California.

The Southwestern College concert's greatest importance was that it was our FIRST performance in California. It was roughly divided into two halves -- 'serious' pieces at first and Clown's Cabaret after the intermission. The first part wasn't all THAT serious, and we also transitioned into some highly-charged Modern Dance during the second half.
After the emotional climax was finished, and the audience was profoundly hushed, George introduced David Zupan as our fire eater. He was broad-shouldered, short, but muscular, and was assisted by tall, thin David Carrillo on the huge dimly-lit stage while the band played suspenseful music. After a couple of big blowtorch-like plumes of flame, he tried a trick which Jango had suggested when he taught us the basics back in November -- Carrillo brought out a bowl of lamp oil with a flaming coat of lighter fluid riding on top. The upper level burned at a lower temperature, so the effect was stunning when Zupan sipped from the vessel and launched another arc of dragon-breath.
I had spent hours arranging permission for this segment over the previous days. Katie's mother was in the audience, and thought that it was something we didn't need, when we respectfully asked her opinion. As it was, Zupan's final stunt resulted in some of the lighter fluid entering his lungs. He gradually developed a serious pulmonary inflamation which laid him up in the hospital and could have killed him. On occasion, Carrillo continued fire-spitting for us, with a bit more subtlety, but nobody tried the lighter fluid trick again. Katie's mother was correct, and we gradually retired that whole sideshow act.

Simultaneously with rehearsing for previously-booked shows, and lining up schools, we were also on the lookout for new places to play. Street theater had previously worked well for George, but the extreme cold in Aspen discouraged the rest of group to various degrees. When we heard that Balboa Park allowed open-air performances outside the Botanical Gardens, we grasped at the opportunity anyway, and it turned out to be a fabulous way of spending Sunday afternoons. We earned some spending money, made contacts for new jobs, and met some wonderful people.
One person who sought us out in the park was local Mime star Don McLeod -- he had previously led a progressive rock group called the Mime & Music Machine, which toured with barnstorming acts like the early Fleetwood Mac and Deep Purple. He was very supportive of what we did, and continued to make a career in show business with his considerable physical skills long after we lost touch with him.
We all learned to "Do Street" by repetition and practice. My job was to made sure we had flyers of upcoming gigs, and to hand them out to interested parties. If someone was spoke about hiring us, I'd direct them to George or Mark.
We played half-hour sets, with half-hour breaks outside of the Shade House. During down times, I wandered off and juggled on my own, drumming up customers for the next show. I had a touch of white makeup on my face, so that I'd fit in, but wore generic 'civilian' clothes instead of costumes.
Jango's silly routines came in VERY handy as we worked the enthusiastic crowds of weekend visitors. The dancers didn't demonstrate their best moves, but learned a vast amount about comic timing with short routines, punctuated by George's rapidly-improving announcing, and shamelessly stolen National Lampoon jokes. The band's music was solidly entertaining, and they even clowned around a little.The group also made a point of driving the bus down to the Pacific Ocean and enjoying that fabulously warm weather, which lasted all of January 1975 in San Diego.

(Left) The Shade House at Balboa Park from the west. (Right) Pacific Ocean beaches near La Jolla.

*(L to R) Stuart Curtis, Gregg Moore, Matthew Child, David Carrillo, and George Kugler in Southern California.
This was a moment at the beginning of one of our sets where the dancers would leap from the stage and visually
introduce the band as they kicked the tempo of the music higher, and Stuart launched a soaring sax solo.

(Left) 'Classic' San Diego State architecture. The Back Door was downstairs in the 'modern' Aztec Center. (Right)

Tuesday, January 28, 1975 -- Daily Aztec              Stage Review                               San Diego State University

By Randy Schultz (Compare the original article in PDF form)
As the audience begins to filter in, a fine six-member band sets a relaxing mood with light jazz. Then, ever so gradually, two or three mime artists begin to interact with the audience. After a while yo realize that the show you've been waiting to see has already started. The nine performers of the Salt Lake City Mime Troupe (sic), which should be named the Salt Lake City Circus, quickly overwhelmed audiences last week at the Backdoor with an amazing combination of traditional mime, vaudvillian comedy routines, juggling, clowning, song, dance and music. And every bit of it was superb.
The opening set consisted of traditional mime -- some of the best I've ever seen. The mime artists -- Matthew, Katie, George, and David (the troupe is known professionally by their first names only) -- run through scenes depicting an indoor track meet, a boxing match in which the microphone goes down for the count, and Olympic medal winners who suddenly become fighters, then arm wrestlers, and then ping-pong opponents. But the order of the scenes is unimpoertant. They change so swiftly and fit together so well that it is hard to tell where one ends and the next begins. Not only is their mime hilarious, but also very moving. In portraying the classic emotions of love, hate, sympathy, pity, and loneliness they also take a piece of your heart.
The highlight of their mime set occurs in the "Puppet" segment. David finds a puppet, played expertly by Matthew, and humorously manipulates his strings, pretending that the puppet is his friend. In a sensitive and moving scene David gives Matthew his own heart so that he, too, may live. ("Puppet" illustrations below)

Mr. Schultz was very perceptive. His compliments were welcome, and we used them in our publicity for a long, long time, but he touched on a couple of observations which were more profound than he might have known. The members of the troupe DID enjoy the show as much as the audience, but exhaustion was becoming a problem, and could literally "take over" when we least desired it. The bus was suitable for sleeping -- barely, but most of the seats had been removed to make it so, and travel could be tiring, especially if we went north to Santa Barbara and back in one weekend. In retrospect, we were starting to "live for the show," while defering some important personal issues, which would arise in various forms anyhow.

We got a break on tickets, and I watched the concert with Frank Sanguinetti's daughter from Salt Lake.

Nikolai's company was Major League, but Katie's choreography would help our group climb to Triple-A.

So who's Sanguinetti? He was director of the Museum of Art at the University of Utah. I had taken Art History classes from him, even. His daughter recognized my face from the Art Department, and we saw Alwin Nikolai's company perform together. Except for the 48 hours surrounding this event, we never had contact with each other -- moving in completely different social circles. The Mime Troupe joked afterwards about dancing in sleeping bags, referring to the abstract costumes we'd seen onstage, but it was a good experience to see how far Modern Dance had come in bringing lighting, movement, and music together. We were all thinking of ways we could out-do the masters once we got the chance. Lord Lumen had watched the performance too, He and I chatted as we worked -- we'd both enjoyed the isolations which had been pioneered by Nikolais and later-independent Murray Louis. He said words to the effect that we had a a good thing going too -- Nikolais was successful because he reached into himself, but we'd have to find our own way to success by being whomever we were.

One Sunday at Balboa Park a couple of young people who were members of the student government at Grossmont College saw the Mime Troupe performing. They spoke to Mark and George, and we set up a de facto partnership where the Mime Troupe did a series of free lunchtime performances at the Student Union advertising a full concert on the weekend, where we would then sell tickets and earn some much-needed money. The student government built a big raised stage. The splintery plywood floor drew some uncharacteristic complaints out of poor Katie. We recruited a man from their theater department to flip switches in a blind closet while I used whispered cues and hand gestures during the show -- responding to the action based on the music, and shadows on the back wall. We frankly wondered if our gamble would pay off, but the concert was a winner -- David Carrillo sat Matt the Marionette on his knee and greeted Gross-em-out College to wild laughter.

Sometime during our engagement at San Diego State University, Matthew Child declared that the bus needed a name: "How about something like Hobart?" If it was so moved, it was seconded and passed without any objections, or any real parlimentary procedure at all. The reader may ask: "Why Hobart?." I say: "I don't really know!"
HOWEVER -- there was a Hobart Street in San Diego, just off El Cajon Boulevard, near the SDS campus, and if my memory serves me well, we drove down that very street on our way to Road Angel Karen's bungalow. I never asked Matt if there was a connection between the street's name and our bus, though.

Besides school shows, we played a private party or two, at least one bar, plus some recreation halls while we toured around San Diego. Mark Nelson had gone ahead of the company to Santa Barbara. David Zupan was with him, right out of the hospital. People told us the Mime Troupe could actually base themselves in San Diego if we stuck around, but we had other bookings further up the coast. Our marching orders were to tell new prospects that we were heading for Europe, but that we'd be back next year. Road Angel Robbie agreed to accept the Mime Troupe's mail while we were gone. At the right is part of a letterhead I drew for office purposes -- minus Robbie's old address.

( To be Continued in Part IIIc ...)