Even if you’ve never seen a performance of "STOMP," you may have heard one.
The group has been putting on stage shows for more than three decades, using trash cans, oil drums, brooms and other common items to make music. They’ll be performing Friday and Saturday at Chandler Center for the Arts as part of their current tour.
Andrew Patrick, a performer with "STOMP" and resident director for the North American tour, has been a part of the group for 23 years. Patrick joined The Show to discuss at what point he realized this was something he wanted to do with his life.
Conversation highlights
When did you realize this was something he wanted to do with your life?
ANDREW PATRICK: Well, my mom actually bought me tickets to see "STOMP" in Providence, Rhode Island, when I was like 17 years old. And I went to see it with one of my best friends. And, you know, I was, I was really blown away by it because I grew up, acting, dancing and playing the drums. So it's kind of the perfect show that I had seen for myself. You know, so it kind of lit a fire to me to try to get there one day. ... A few years later ... I went to New York audition and got the gig, so.
Has it been the way of imagined it to be when you were sitting in the audience when you were 17?
PATRICK: I mean, not, not really. ... First of all, I didn't think I'd be doing it this long. You know, I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna go to New York, I'm gonna do 'STOMP' ... then I'm gonna go do "Rent," and I'm gonna do, you know, whatever. But, I fell in love with it deeply ... it's a way of life for me, and it's so much more, is what I'm trying to say, is than I thought it was gonna be for me.
What about it has kept you doing it for so long?
PATRICK: A lot of it's the people that I get to work with. We have some amazing people. They managed to cast people that just really fit in together well with the show and just personalities and stuff, and I get to travel the world. I get to play music every night, which I love. That's my whole life is, you know, music is everything to me and performing as well. And just getting to put smiles on people's faces, and, yeah, just kinda inspire people as well, musically, rhythmically.
How do you try to keep it fresh? Where do ideas for for new songs, routines — where do the ideas for for new ones of those come from?
PATRICK: Well, we have, the creators of the show — Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas — they are based in Brighton, England, in the UK. And they have a theater there called the Old Market, and we use that space to workshop any ideas that they have. I mean, I know sometimes cast members have ideas, but most of the time Luke — who's a genius — he just has an idea, he brings a few of us down, and we'll kind of workshop ... He'll notate it, he's got stuff written out, he has sketches, you know, to where people should be standing. And then sometimes you can get involved ... so then you kind of have a a part of the process, which is really cool.
I don't know where he gets his inspiration from. I know that there's some things that we do like, there's a routine in the finale where we're we're walking on 50-gallon oil drums. And that was based off of a nightmare he had being chased by these, you know, almost monsters that were walking on these oil drums. So he put that in the show.
Have you been in situations where things, even though you rehearse quite a bit, things have gone wrong and you had to figure out how to make that work?
PATRICK: I would say probably daily, yeah. [LAUGHS] I mean I can tell you right now, perfect example. Last night we had opening night here in Montana. I'm in Billings right now, and we have this routine called "Suitcases." And during the routine those suitcases get passed around a lot, and the suitcase came to me and it was completely unzipped. And I was like, "I don't know how what I'm gonna do cause I need to get a zipped that backed up, but I need to play the music." So as I'm playing the music, I start zipping it back up, realizing it's not unzipped, it's broken. So I kind of signal to the crew in the wing, and I see that he's got one ready because someone else has already told him it was broken. So I had to run off stage, grab a new one, and I made it. I came back just in time for a really change in tempo and everything, part of the routine where we jump into a circle and start throwing to each other in a circle. And I got there just in time to make it, cause if I didn't, it would have screwed the whole thing up. That's pretty stressful, but stuff like that happens all the time.
