In a world dominated by artificial intelligence/ alternate reality and streaming video I am happy to say, Variety Arts/ Stage performance is alive and very active at the Peacock Theatere in Frisco, Texas.
If you think Frisco, Texas, sounds like an odd place for jugglers, ventriloquists, magicians, sword swallowers, mimes and performance artists to gather and display their talents.... Well, it’s “other worldly” to a former Texan like myself.
When I was living in Richardson, Texas, during high school, the small town of Frisco was only 21 miles north, but there was absolutely no reason to ever go there. It was ranch and farm land of little use to a budding ventriloquist, future Los Angelan, actor and Tony Award winner, like myself.
Well times have changed. Dallas and Fort Worth have become a metroplex which rivals Southern California for its massive urban foot print. Frisco is ranch land no longer, rather it is the very cutting edge of the DFW juggernaut. When Randy Pitchford was looking for a place to expand his Computer software company, Gearbox, the prairies of Frisco were available.
If the name Randy Pitchford, Gearbox or the computer game Borderland is not familiar, then the rest of this blog may not make logical sense to you. But, if you Google the unfamiliar and connect the dots it makes complete sense.
The Peacock Theater, Mecca for Variety performance, is located in the mind and at the home of Randy Pitchford.
SO, the question is: Why would a computer game mogul care about the world of variety artists? Much less build a place for performance artists to perform?
I am here to try and explain.
Of all of Randy’s credits I did not realize until this last week-end that he worked as a Magician for Wizards on Universial’s CityWalk. This is the Rosetta Stone of the entire story. It is crucial to understanding The Peacock Theater.
Randy Pitchford is a magician.
As Randy was building his company headquarters in Frisco, he was also building his new North Texas home. With the same attention to detail, needed to program a computer game, Randy build his new house. The fact that the Peacock Theater is located at the Pitchford house, is lost in the labyrinth of hidden rooms, secret passages, and built in magical effects that define the home itself. But this is not an architectual review of the property it is about the meta-concept of the Peacock Theater.
Although extremely successful in the digital world, Randy is at heart a magician. As a ventriloquist I am allowed admittance to the world of magic so I can comment objectively. Randy loves magic and can trace his lineage to one of the most celebrated magicians in history, Cardini. ( Magicians will not have to Google Cardini, but laymen are encouraged to do so) . Randy understands LIVE performance, and is now using his good fortune to encourage and promote it. The Pichford Plan is to prove that modern day vaudeville is viable. I have been waiting all of my life and my career for Vaudeville Theater to return to America.
This is only the context for the story I want to tell. In an example of “Variety Arts meets High Tech”, here is how the show down happened.
I am sitting at the kitchen/bar of the Pitchford estate when one of the other invited guests notices I am wearing my Mickey Mouse wrist watch. He says, “I like your watch”
He then proudly shows me that his Apple Watch is displaying a Mickey Mouse Watch face with an animated Mickey Mouse tapping his foot with the seconds.
My analogue watch does not do that.
The owner of the Apple Watch then says...
“And mine will do this”.
He taps the face of the Apple Watch and the animated Mickey Mouse says, “It’s 12:40.”
My analogue watch does not do that.
However, since I am a ventriloquist, and not to be out done by a techno geek, I simply tapped my own watch and it said, “It’s 12:41 - Fuck you”
Fortunately the small audience at the Pickford kitchen bar appreciated skill and understood the context of my come back.
I hope someday to play the Pitchford Circut.
As you were,
Jay
Love it. I'm an old vaudevillian myself...born after vaudeville nearly died. We do a show here that features 30 to 45 minutes of vaud and burlesque after a production of The Drunkard. We've done full evenings of vaud. This makes me very happy indeed.
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