Why, and Why the Name

Punches, Then Flowers is here to document the kind of war stories that live performers tell each other over beers. Tales that often include awkward moments, foolish accidents, technical mishaps, indifferent-to-angry audiences, atrocious facilities and occasionally mortal peril. A couple good stories involve them all.

The name was inspired by certain moments as a cast member of a comedy theater in Amsterdam. In particular, these were the shows we did away from the comfort of the home theater, when hired by companies or schools or event planners to do customized shows on their turf. Sometimes these shows rocked. Rocked the huis.

Sometimes, these shows' only contact with rocks was to suck them. Frantic travel due to crappy directions. Weird spaces unsuited for performance. "Audiences" more suitably called "disinterested onlookers," giving golf claps to the fourth-dimension hurdle standing between them and the buffet.

Doing this kind of custom show in the States usually ended awkwardly, with the metaphorical cab fare, averted eyes and held door for the private dancers we were. In Holland, though, there was one difference.

No matter how dismal the show's reception, afterward the Dutch would give us flowers and invite us to eat with them. Even while continuing to tear the show apart, true to Dutch form. "Oh, thank you so much for coming. That was really not very funny. Not at all. Please, come! Won't you sit? [Dutch equivalent of "Boy howdy"], that was not the least bit amusing. What can I bring you?"

It was the wildest sense of cognitive dissonance. Seventy minutes of cold shoulder ending in flowers. (Granted, Holland is practically lousy with them, so it's a bit like Tunisians being free and easy with the sand. Still...)

The life of a performer is a lot like that. Long stretches of disinterest or disapproval, punctuated with the occasional moment of gorgeous reward. Punches, then flowers.

But heavy on the punches. Flowers by the stem, punches by the bunch.