Pete Michaels is coming to
Stitches Comedy Club this weekend, but he won't be alone.
He'll be joined by his motley crew of dummies, including the sassy black
kid Woody D; Krelmin, the alien who's come to earth in search of fun;
senior citizens Papa and Mr. Johnson, both of whom are enchanted by the
ladies; Milo DeVille, the undisputed psychic king — or should that be
queen? — of Hollywood, and the Little Tenor, a pint-sized version of
Luciano Pavarotti.
You'll quickly forget they are made out of wood and plastic.
"With ventriloquism, if it's done right, you get hooked into the
illusion," says Michaels, one of the leading ventriloquists
in the country.
"That's what we are striving for, two people having a conversation. And
the longer you do it, the better you become and you tend to believe it
yourself," Michaels says. "I have lines coming out of a puppet and I'm
like, where did that come from?"
Michaels was always interested in puppets and he remembers having a Danny
O'Day dummy when he was a kid growing up in Staten Island.
"I treated him like a teddy bear," he recalls with a laugh. "I always
liked the look of the ventriloquist's dummy as a puppet. It was so
different, the mouth could move, the eyes could move."
But it wasn't until 1978, when the movie "Magic" came out, that Michaels
got serious.
"Magic" was a thriller starring Anthony Hopkins as a lonely, unstable
ventriloquist who becomes the puppet of his evil dummy, who looks and
dresses just like him.
"I saw the movie and I thought, wow, that is the coolest puppet I've ever
seen," Michaels remembers. "Immediately after I saw the movie I went to
this magic shop and asked the owner if he had any books on ventriloquism.
He said, 'You just saw that movie, didn't you?'"
He read the book from cover to cover and in 1979, he got his first dummy,
whom he named Gitch, his own childhood nickname.
"I'd sit in front of the mirror for hours watching my lips as I did
dialogues," Michaels says.
But there is more to being a good ventriloquist than not moving your lips
when you talk and beyond that, making yourself understandable without
moving your lips.
"That's the first thing you work on. Then you've got to make him look
alive, like a separate entity," Michaels explains. "At first, audiences
look at the ventriloquist to see if he's moving his lips, but then they're
looking at the puppet."
They've got to believe, on a certain level, that the dummy is doing his
own talking and thinking.
"The third thing is the relationship between you and the character. It's
acting, and you're playing two different roles."
Michaels must know what he's doing. He was chosen to teach Oscar winner
Adrien Brody ventriloquism for the 2002 movie, "Dummy."
Michaels will be appearing Friday and Saturday.
While those shows will be more adult-oriented, Sunday's show is for kids
and Michaels will be toning it down to a G level.
The 4 p.m. show is a benefit for the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic.
Comic ventriloquist Pete
Michaels
Fri. at 9; Sat. 8 and 10:15 p.m.
21 and over. $13
Comedy for Kidz
Pete Michaels
Sun. 4 p.m. Ages 14 and under $10
Lancaster Host Resort
2300 Lincoln Highway East
299-5500 for reservations
www.stitchescomedy.com