Blue Man Group at Astor Place Theater. Photo Credit: Paul Kolnick.

Going to see the Blue Man Group at the Astor Place Theater was an amazing experience, especially being one of the first performances I’ve watched in a while. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was a completely non-verbal show with the only dialogue coming from props, not the actual performers. The show was heavily reliant on audience participation which made it very enjoyable to sit through. The group consisted of three men painted blue and dressed in all black. It started out with the silhouettes of each man playing the drums one at a time until they real revealed. They poured paint onto the drums while playing and created works of art by allowing canvases to be hit with different colors of paint.

The men seemed to have come from a different world and were not accustomed to the regularities we live with. The Blue Man Group made references to popular culture with the ‘GiPad’ as a main component and making light of the common lack of personal communication in today’s society. It almost felt like a rock concert at times, with the band playing, high energy and use of strobe lights. I enjoyed the drum playing and making use of pipes as an instrument.

I was not expecting to enjoy The Blue Man Group as much as I did because I didn’t know what exactly it was about and thought it was a little weird prior to actually watching it. The fact that I had so much fun and it was only a dress rehearsal in Astor Place’s small theater made me really consider going to see the big production on Broadway.