-A performance group out to rock your world, blow your mind, and unleash your spirit... He's their captain in Las Vegas.

Blue Man Group's Kalen Allmandinger is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon, joining you from the Blue Man Group theater inside the Luxor on the Las Vegas Strip.

It is here where our guest has performed for the past eight years.

A good Midwesterner, as he describes himself, also a lifelong musician, he was born in Iowa and studied acting at the Chicago College of Performing Arts.

After graduating, he became a Blue Man, and it's a position he's held for 25 years.

Kalen Allmandinger, Blue Man Group Captain in Las Vegas, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Hello.

Thanks for having me.

-What does it mean that you are a captain?

-Being a captain basically means that-- I guess it's a bit of a leadership role within the cast.

So I'm one of the eight full-time Blue Man performers that we have in the production here in Las Vegas, and we all do an equal amount of shows.

We perform as a different combination of three in any given show from within that cast of eight.

-It would have to be, because you don't have any blackout days.

(Kalen Allmandinger) That's right, yes.

We have shows every day of the week, at least one show, and more during the holidays, and sort of flex up during those busier times.

And just as the captain, besides those regular performance duties, I also help to facilitate kind of communication between the cast and our management and sort of act as a de facto kind of director if we do projects outside of the normal run of shows.

So, you know, we do a lot of collaboration with local performers or entities, or we'll do television appearances in Los Angeles.

You know, things like that.

Corporate events.

And a lot of those fall on my shoulders as this, within this sort of leadership position.

-It's a leadership position, yet at the same time, it is so important to your brand that no one is identified, correct?

Like, if we were to show a picture of the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas, we would not be able to just show you by yourself?

-Yeah.

I mean, you know, we try, we try not to.

It's kind of part of the ethos of the show itself or the character.

The process of putting on all the makeup and getting into that costume and embodying the character, there's always three of us together, and we try to avoid the individual.

It's really about a group, collective experience, both between the characters on stage and then hopefully a connection that we can make with the audience as a whole.

And so we think about it in those terms, and there's less of, less ego.

-What drew you to this role originally?

I mean all the way back in college?

-Well, I played drums since I was a little kid-- I think probably around two years old.

I was always banging on things just sort of naturally.

And my grandfather was a drummer, not by trade, but he worked for TWA his whole career.

But he played in jazz combos with friends, and he started the Joliet American Legion Band, which is a concert and marching band still going today, when he finished his service in World War II with another fellow service member.

And so he was always involved as a drummer in music and, really, kind of I looked up to him quite a bit.

And he gave me my first snare drum and encouraged my playing all the time, so I got a lot of inspiration from that.

And so anyway, I was a drummer just naturally my whole life.

And then I studied acting in college at a conservatory in Chicago.

And while I was a freshman there, one of my fellow classmates saw an open call notice for Blue Man Group.

And he had seen the show in New York, knew what it was, and said-- He knew I was a drummer and that I kind of, I guess, physically maybe fit the role.

And so he encouraged me to go check it out, which I did.

And as a freshman, they said, you know, good job, but finish school.

And if you're still interested when you're done, you know, keep in touch, let us know then, which I did.

And in the meantime, the show opened in Chicago and I got to see it, and I thought, oh, my goodness.

Definitely want to keep in touch and give it another shot.

So I went to a callback stage of one of the open calls that they were having in Chicago the summer that I graduated, and that's when I was flown to New York and finished the audition process and got hired, eventually.

-Going on to perform in how many cities around the world?

-Off the top of my head, I'm not sure.

-You haven't counted.

-Yeah, yeah.

But so all of them here in the States.

So that's New York, Boston, Chicago, Orlando, and here in Las Vegas.

And then I opened international productions in Berlin, London, and Tokyo and got to kind of see those, get them started.

And I stayed for about a year in each city.

And then I've done a few different tours all, just all over the world.

And North America, kind of a domestic tour.

-Any memories of those international trips and opening the show of how people reacted?

-Oh, yeah.

It's-- That's one of the fun parts about the character being nonverbal.

We have voice over and written elements of the show, but it's pretty minimal.

And so those have to be translated into different markets where English isn't the primary language.

But the character, we can perform it anywhere.

You don't have to really learn a new script or have local actors, so we're able to tour around pretty easily.

And more importantly, the character, because it's nonverbal and because it's so music based, it's sort of the international language, right, you know?

And it's easy to-- -It's accessible.

- --present.

It's accessible, yeah, no matter where you are.

And it's incredible to see how different cultures respond.

It's always pretty fun.

It's, you know, it's a good family show.

We get all ages here.

And I mean, as far as cultural differences, it's, you know, one thing that pops to mind when I think about that is the way-- When we were in Tokyo, I remember-- You sort of get used to a certain shape of, the arc of the show, which includes the audience's response to things.

You know, you do it so often that you start to notice patterns in the way that people react to things.

And there's a certain way a laugh can build and die out, and you're just sort of aware of it as a performer.

You don't want to think too much about it, try to be present.

But you know, you're aware of how, how it dies off and dies down, and then that kind of informs how you go on to the next bit and so on.

This is a very boring, technical way to talk about this.

-No, it's not.

I think it's fascinating.

You are accustomed to a certain response, and your body reacts, probably, to that subconsciously.

-Yeah.

-Anyhow.

-And then so in Tokyo, I just noticed the laughter, in particular, would often, as opposed to, like, if you were to describe it as a wave that would kind of build and crest and then slowly fall off, it was much sharper.

It was like a compressed radio wave or a high frequency wave.

-It could be a little jarring.

-Hahaha and then sort of into silence and back to attentive viewing, you know, let's see what's next.

So that at first, yeah, it was maybe not jarring, but just noticeable.

But it didn't, you know, the overall effect was largely the same.

People just love it, and they're fascinated by the character, I think partly because we don't say anything.

So it's sort of a lot of unanswered questions that can have the effect of drawing people in and making them curious.

-When you read quotes from Blue men about the character, there seems to be an admiration for the character.

Do you feel that?

-Can be, yeah, absolutely.

This is an analytical way to think about it, too, but the character is a bit of an outsider.

You know, we don't really talk about exactly where he comes from, if he's human or alien or, you know.

That doesn't really matter.

The point is that we're a group of three, and there's this group of the audience.

And there's something that's different about us, and the character is constantly investigating that difference and trying to find similarities and moments, opportunities to connect and share something so that we can kind of be one group at its most basic kind of concept.

Even between ourselves, sometimes there are moments in the show where two guys have one idea and another has a different idea, and he's trying to catch up.

And, you know, comedy and drama ensues because of that.

But there's this representation of being a little bit on the outside and trying to figure out how to get in.

And I think that kind of resonates with people sometimes.

And we've gotten sort of fan mail or just letters from people who have seen this show over the years, and when you start to see patterns about that, like you said, people who are intrigued by this character.

And it can be for a wide variety of different reasons.

That's one of them.

We've had some shows for deaf and hard of hearing people, and we've gotten a lot of mail from them over the years saying how even though they're deaf or hard of hearing, they can't hear everything in the same way, they can still sort of feel the show.

It's a visceral experience.

The music we make, you might not be able to hear all of the crisp detail, but you can-- It just travels through the seats up underneath you, and you really feel it.

And even just through the air, like, the percussive sort of pulse of that sound moving through the space.

I think that really connects with people.

Whether you're hearing or not, you know, I think that's one of the things that grabs it, that can grab anyone, just in a really visceral way.

-Last question: Did your grandfather, who introduced you to the drums, ever get to see you perform?

-Yes, he did.

Yep.

He lived outside of Chicago, and I did a number of shows there.

-What did he think?

-He was super proud.

It was great to see him out there in the audience, yeah.

-All right.

Well, we are going to stop now, and you are going to show me a little bit of what you do.

-Yeah, you ready to play some drums?

-Yes.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Teach me your ways.

-Okay.

So this is the center PVC instrument.

It's the highest voicing of the three.

So there's this center cluster.

It's also how we call the characters: center, left, and right.

So this is the center instrument, this is the left, and that's the right.

Left is the bass, right is in the middle, and center is high ♪♪ as opposed to... the low ones.

And they're all arranged differently.

That one is a bit like a piano keyboard on the bottom octave and more like, I think, maybe an accordion, this one.

That one is like a black widow spider's web.

It's a mess.

And this one is high in the middle, and it goes lower as you go out.

And the notes are mirrored in these two rows.

So we could play the same thing if we start there and then to the pink and orange.

And they're color coded, which makes it easier to learn patterns as you're picking up these songs.

If you'd like, I can teach you a song.

-I would love for you to teach me a song, yes, and please be patient with me.

But the color coding certainly helps.

-Yeah.

So we'll start on the first row on the outside, this pink one.

-Okay.

-It'll be two hits here, and then we'll go up to the white.

♪♪ -Okay.

♪♪ -Uh-huh.

And then we're going to kind of do the same pattern, but we're going to start incorporating other notes.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, da, da, but always come back to the pink.

So pink, pink, white, pink, yellow, pink.

Very nice.

♪♪ Skip up to the green and then down to the yellow.

-Pink, pink, white, pink, yellow, pink, green, yellow-- -Pink.

- --pink.

-And that's the whole thing.

Does that sound familiar?

-Kind of.

-Pink, pink, white, pink, yellow, pink, green, yellow, pink.

-That's it.

-Okay, all right.

♪♪ -An old TV theme song, right?

-I like it.

Yes, I'm trying to place it, though.

-I think it's called Peter Gunn.

It's like a spy show or something.

[vocalizing] -See, I know that, but this doesn't sound like that to me.

-That's it.

Well, you're just getting started.

-Okay.

♪♪ -Nailed it.

[laughter] Good job.

-Thank you.

We have run out of time.

Let's wrap this up with an attempt at doing this well together.

-Let's do it together.

I love it.

-Okay.

-Like this: One and two and ready and go on pink, pink, white, pink, yellow, pink, yellow-- pink!

You did it!

I didn't think you'd get the colors right.

Good job.

-Kalen Allmandinger, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you so much.

It's been a lot of fun.

♪♪♪