Accomplice: New York

This past weekend I started the new acting gig. I can best describe the project as part street theatre and part game/scavenger hunt. My job is to spend the day at a particular location waiting for groups to come through looking for their “contact”. I have to fool them, ignore them and mess with them a little and exchange information to send them on to their next destination. It’s like I get to do a bit of my old routines, try new material and play a character I have a free hand in experimenting with as long as I keep tight to the format.

I see about eight groups a day on Saturdays and Sundays. What this amounts to is that I do about 16 fifteen minute acts a week. This is more than I’ve ever done on stage as a stand up and the kick is that I’m actually getting paid to do it. At the end, the cast regroups at the final destination, a bar in SoHo, where we can meet the groups that stuck around to get loaded.

I happen to favor film as a career choice but at this point, I'll take any role I think I can do, especially if they’re willing to toss me some green paper. So I stand on my corner watching the locals watch me and wonder what the hell I’m doing there and why I carry on every 45 minutes or so with a bunch of strangers. I was told by the actor I’m replacing that I’d get to know the locals and the patterns of life on the corner. People have already started to notice the new guy and I’m noticing the regulars, too. There are a bunch of old timer’s who hang around all day, the psychic who sits on her front stoop and the handsome couple who thought I was tossing rats into the street one time. Don’t ask. I got to watch the NYPD tow a car away and later, I got to watch the couple from New Jersey stand impotently in the space wondering what happened. I let them hang a moment before telling them that they were too close to the hydrant so they got pinched. The guy started to argue that he left plenty of room until I reminded him that I was not a guy with a tow truck. As I stood there waiting for the next group, I was bumped into by Moby who looks like a little hipster douchebag up close.

The show is actually a bit of fun when the groups want to be entertained and it’s a real drag when they don’t. I can’t imagine shelling out good money for something and being intent on not enjoying it but there’s always one in every bunch that stands there with a face like it’s a big inconvenience. So I ignore those guys and focus on the audience that wants to be there.

If anything, I hope to have a lot of material based on the kinds of people who pass through. There were two Canadians I singled out for the purpose of telling them that the only things most Americans know about Canada are Rush and hockey. They laughed when I told them I thought Canada was a satellite of the old Soviet Republic somewhere south of Spain. Then there were the two German girls, one from Frankfurt, to whom I thanked for her town’s major contribution: The Frankfurter. The other was from Hamburg. So I said to the group, “You know what I’m gonna say here, right?” The group uttered something about hamburgers and I said, “No!, That’s where the Beatles got their big start, you amateurs!”

And so begins the new chapter On The Road To Hollywood, Vikings. Here comes that wind gust!

www.accomplicetheshow.com


Tommy