No Job Is Too Big, No Pup Is Too Small

Before going on tour I made a major life decision: I purchased fifteen pairs of matching crew socks. For basically my whole life I’ve slowly accumulated and disposed of different styles of crew socks. It was frustrating to not be able to locate a match for a certain sock. I’d lose them on the road with shows or in the laundry with my family’s clothes. So since I was starting a new chapter I figured it was time to start fresh with a whole batch of socks that could be paired together. 

As I traveled over the last seven months I’ve chronicled my favorite adventures, foods, and moments, and writing these blog posts helped me reflect on my time on the road. I’ve shared my new finds, but I never explained the day-to-day of working as an actor in PAW Patrol Live! 

So:

My first few weeks:

Getting fitted for my costume and make up felt unreal. I stepped into VStar Entertainment’s Minneapolis costume and puppet workshop on my second day of rehearsal to be greeted by heads of Sesame Street characters, Paw Patrol paws, and an assortment of funky props. I was taken back to a small studio to test out some make up for the show before getting fitted for my costume. This felt like the fanciest thing I had ever done. I sat as different shades of color corrector and foundation were applied to half my face. No five o’clock shadow allowed in the Paw Patrol. Next I was fitted for my unitard, sweats, harness, and hip pads. What’s going on? I had seen photos and videos of the previous cast, so I knew the look of the puppets, but I didn’t know exactly how they worked or felt. I velcroed the hip pad around my waist and then a harness was put over my body and pulled tight to cinch my waist in. “What is this?” I telepathically asked the giant Big Bird that was being built in the far left corner. And that’s when it was time for me to step into “pup.” A team of designers and stitchers gathered around me to make adjustments to my harness and the puppy puppet that was attached to my torso. Rubble, the bulldog with a heart of gold, is the biggest pup puppet in PPL. At 65lbs Rubble is more than half my body weight. I lift four to five days a week, but even then I felt my body was not ready to handle this pup. 

After rehearsing in just the pup’s feet (the puppets come in pieces) in the studio for two weeks we traveled to La Crosse, WI to tech the show and begin working “in pup.” The show itself was being reconfigured to fit an arena setting, so while the design team worked the lights and audio, we ran cardio drills on the dance floor next to the stage with the original PPL choreographer, Jaimie Selke. Our performance director and rehearsal director ran our water bottles to us so we could sip between drills, and it was at this point that I thought, “I cannot do this. I’m going to die in Wisconsin in this dog.” But I didn’t die. We spent hours reworking the choreography in pup, and then the cast would meet to work off the clock in our hotel’s courtyard. It was wonderful. As we moved forward in tech we had representatives from our corporate office and partners at Nickelodeon come out to watch and give notes and a stamp of approval. And then we hit the road.

I love a road trip, and that’s how I describe touring to my family. The difference between a road trip and going on tour is that you’re still working, and your job as an actor/technician/vendor takes priority over your adventures off the clock. To balance this sense of freedom and responsibility it’s important to find routine in your travels. Routines and rules help to keep you in good mental and physical health. PPL was my third national tour and my sixth over all tour, so I took a few of the habits I’d picked up on my previous road trips and put them back into play as we began to hop around the country.

The Routine and Regular

We traveled by bus or plane to get from city to city, and even here there are company rules and personal routines. No pooping on the bus. Ever. If you don’t like reading about poop you really need to close this tab because there will be multiple mentions of poop in surprise places within this entire post. On travel days and personal adventure days I always stopped to taste pralines if they caught my eye. I love pralines (discovered in fall 2015 in Lexington, KY) and they bring me joy. All travel and hotel arrangements were made by the company manager, so all I had to do was show up and get on the bus/plane. We traveled on two busses, Social and Quiet. My Social Bus seat was always the same: nine rows back on the driver side. I would plug in, spread out, and blog. Once we arrived at the hotel my roommate and I grabbed our keys and headed to our room. He always got the bed by the window and I always had the one by the door. My toiletries were always to the left of the sink and his were always to the right. These things are small, but it’s the little routines that count. I also never unpacked. I worry about losing things, so it makes sense for me to leave everything in my suitcase unless I’m wearing it. Most of our hotels had a laundry room, and I would almost always wait until we had in house laundry to wash my clothes. Once my things were dry I would fold them and put them back into my suitcase before returning to my room. Every hotel we stayed in had breakfast which was usually free; sometimes it was too expensive, sometimes there were discounts for us, and in Rio Rancho the servers just let me eat for free because I “seem cool.” I usually ate the same thing for breakfast: scrambles eggs and two semi-toasted English muffins with butter. If our hotel was too far from our venue or a place to buy food the company rented out minivans for us to take on grocery runs/travel to work. Which leads me to another constant: Target. I love Target so much. One time there was a Target right next to my hotel and I went every day even when I didn’t need something. I would shop either here or at Walmart (also always close by) for salads to eat in the hotel or at the venue. Most of our hotels had refrigerators in our rooms or a hospitality room that the whole company could use to lounge. We travelled with a refrigerator, so we could always store food when it was set up at the venue on show days. I usually stocked up on salads to eat between shows. 

One of the first things that happened when we got to the venue was the locating of the poop bathroom. Unless we were performing in an arena and our dressing room is a vast locker room, under no circumstances was anyone allowed to poop in the dressing room bathroom. Our call time for our first performance in a new space was always three hours prior to curtain so we could walk the stage (set up by local union crew members) and note any changes in blocking (due to changes in size of the area and lighting) and check sound. We had certain spots we would check every week (“Number Check”) and sometimes we would use this time to fix any issues that have come up during the run. All of this was done out of pup. On days we didn’t have blocking rehearsal our call time was an hour and fifteen minutes prior to curtain for group warm ups and other notes. If we had an additional show or shows that day (never more than three a day) our call was forty five minutes prior to curtain. 

I had plenty of my own pre show routines I established. I would take my last sip of water an hour before each show so I wouldn’t have to pee during the middle of Act I (it has happened and the process of getting out of pup, running to the bathroom, and getting back in was very scary time-wise.) I always peed three times per show: before getting into my harness (at half hour), at five minutes till places, and during intermission. Every time I walked into the dressing room “Dancing On My Own” played. I don’t know why, but it happened, and it quickly became my song. PPL plays commercials for the audience ten minutes before the show begins. As a cast we collectively loved to hate the Rusty Rivets theme song “Built to Last” and we sang it always. After I was in harness and mic I practiced juggling. I made a resolution to juggle four balls in 2014 and it was time I actually learned. And I did! I had a lot of support from my cast. It took about half of my time on tour for me to get it. I always waited until the very last minute to get into pup. This was so I could pee one last time before having my organs squeezed together by my harness. As I trekked through the back of the arena to the stage I would pull my harness tight like Rose DeWitt Bukater’s mom in that scene in Titanic. Sometimes we played arenas that had ice right beneath the planks on the floor, and that would get me nice and chilly as I walked to the stage to do this sweaty sweaty musical. One time we had a show in a rodeo arena; the floor was dirt and the air was dirt and everything was very very unusual and that’s Texas. When I got to the stage I was able to hook myself into Rubble and get my feet into his feet myself, but I needed help from our local wardrobe crew members to tuck the legs of the puppet into the feet. The local wardrobe and stage hands get the low-down from our road crew, and then they do scene and costume changes for a show they’ve never seen before. I liked to chat with the local crew members before we began, and I always said the same couple of sentences at some point in each city, “I’m ok getting in myself I just need help tucking in the feet,” “I don’t get out I just stand here for ten minutes,” and “Yeah I love it.” Sometimes our locals would hold on to my pup to stabilize themselves as they got up from the floor and I would almost fall. Before waddling to the wings for Places I’d check to make sure my pup tag light was working, my mouth/eyes/ears were all meching properly, and that my detachable shovel was velcroed in nicely. Unlike the rest of the pups, Rubble doesn’t have knees, so I cannot run in pup. I’d do this waddley run thing to get from place to place on stage and off. This bruised my thighs at first (the puppet has a steel frame) but my legs got used to it. During the overture Ryder would say each of our names and we would turn on our pup tag lights and pose backstage as a cast ritual. Then I’d burp and go on stage and start. As I ran downstage I was usually greeted by the smell of funnel cake and popcorn, the sight of dozens of yellow Rubble helmets and light up toys, and thousands of kids screaming and cheering. Sometimes there would be what the employees at Monsters Inc. refer to as a “2819.” We always have security at the edge of our stage to prevent kids from coming up, but sometimes they still get part way up the stage stairs. No child made it up successfully while I was employed, but a few have gotten close. 

During the first scene I always looked into wing two stage left to “look for Mayor Goodway.” I would actually make eye contact with our head of props, Missy. I’d be on stage for about fifteen minutes before waddling off for a break during scene three. This is when a local usually asked if I needed help getting out of pup and I would tell them that I just stand in it for ten minutes before going back on. This would happen and I would sit in my feelings for ten minutes before slowly waddling over to stage left as my friend Dianne on stage would say, “Everyone help me focus,” and chop a pumpkin in half. Then I got into a giant cell phone and talked to my scene partner Kayla about some kind of food as we were pushed on stage. After phone time I sang a duet off stage as smaller versions of the pups were tracked across the stage via remote control. During this time I would always sing my second “yeah” like a la Usher in his hit “Yeah.” By the end of the act I was covered in sweat and fake snow. Fake snow gets everywhere in your life. It’s in my parents’ house now. 

I’d pee at intermission then take a huge deep breath as I ventured back to the stage to get into pup for the second act. During the first scene of Act II Kayla and I always surprised each other up stage. It was always at the same time, but one of us was always surprised. After this scene I would chill backstage for another ten minutes in pup and my friend Bri would come over to my pup station to chat. This was one of my favorite times. I took another huge breath before the final scene of the show: Beach Scene. This was/is the most intense/physically demanding part of the show/my life thus far. There are four songs in a row, all of which are much harder to dance than the rest of the show, and it’s the end. I was also at my absolute gassiest during this scene. One time I burped and it echoed through the arena. After this event I’m almost positive our sound technician turned off my mic every time I wasn’t speaking. I assume this was so because I burped throughout this scene for every remaining performance and never heard an echo again. So anyway the show would end and I’d be amazed that I’m not in an ambulance and I would get out of pup, but half of the time I still had more work to do before ending my day. On three show days the company was provided with lunch. Catering almost always had bread, salad, and potatoes, and I always ate these. But after every performance there was the VIP experience. 

One of the ticketing options for PPL includes the VIP package. After each performance, VIP ticket holders have the chance to meet Ryder, Chase, Skye, and a chicken cheerleader (we just refer to them as “Chicken” i.e. “Who is Chicken today?”) and play with Paw Patrol merchandise. The Chase and Skye you meet in VIP don’t look like the puppy puppets you see on stage—they are large mascots. But inside these mascots are the actors you just watched hopping around for seventy five minutes. For almost half of the VIPs I was inside Chase (my first ever mascotting experience.) And no one will ever know it was me. I’m most likely in hundreds of families’ holiday cards. On VIP days I went from the stage into the VIP dressing room where I took off my grey sweatshirt and sweatpants from the show, and slipped into the Chase body with my sweaty unitard still clinging to me. One of the locals would velcro my feet to my legs as I strapped Chase’s head on mine like a helmet. I slipped into a vest and collar then one of the locals would attach my hands. The elastic that held the right paw to my hand was much looser than that on my left paw, so I held my hand in a sign language Y to keep the paw from flopping. It occurs to me as I write this that I could have asked for new elastic but I think that I was always so exhausted that the possibility of a costume repair never crossed my mind. Anyway, once my Skye and I were dressed we were led to the VIP room where our VIP manager Dixon would introduce us, “Your pups, your pals, and your friends Chase and Skye!” and we’d enter to hug, high five, and pose with anywhere between forty and sixty kids. For the first few weeks of VIP I would smile really big inside my Chase head. I’d come out of VIP with my face hurting. After a while I learned to conserve energy and not smile in the pup. If you took the head off of me, you’d see a man with his head flopped to the right giving major dead-stank face. Every VIP experience I worked had the following: at least one child that would run up to us and just fall backwards, a child that would run up to us for a hug but then immediately turn their back and lean on us, a kid that back in line at the end for a second photo, parents that are my age, a kid that keeps running up to us out of no where while we’re taking photos with other people, and a kid that just walks up and squats and looks up at us and won’t move. One time there was a family walking up to a picture with a child in their arms. The child’s nose was bleeding and his pants were down. Then they took a million combinations of photos and he bled on one of us. And they got back in line for seconds. We had a number of Make a Wish children on tour, and that was always really fun for us! It was always a big family affair and they’re all unabashedly huge fans of the pups. 

I always ended up walking out of the theatre or arena with a group of audience members, but they never recognized me. I was just some man with rosy cheeks and a hat. I didn’t have to sneak; if people asked I was allowed to tell them I played Rubble. But Nickelodeon and corporate did have some restrictions on what we could and could not do. For any news or media coverage, actors in costume could not say anything that wasn’t part of an approved script. As far as our own personal media goes, we could not post anything online that was not Nickelodeon appropriate. If we did, our accounts needed to be made private. I feel like I only post Nickelodeon appropriate things anyway and my account is still private. And we also had to be discreet in hotels. I couldn’t dance around with a glass of moscato singing, “All my friends call me Rubble, I’ll be there on the double.” I wouldn’t do this anyway, but you understand. Once these little kids and their grandmother came up to a group of us at breakfast because retail was wearing their Paw Patrol gear. They were really shy and the grandma told our group that her kids “want to know if Rubble will be there today.” And I couldn’t ruin the magic before they see the show by telling them it’s me. I had just woken up and I didn't shave and I looked pretty awful. I said, “Yes, Rubble is here,” trying to indicate to the grandmother that it’s me, I am playing Rubble and will be there on the double, but I don’t think she got it.

I would work out pretty much every day either before or after our shows or travel. Our hotels always had a gym, but the equipment varied, and this allowed me to get creative with how I worked out. I started tagging a brief meditation period to the end of my workouts. I heard about this app called Headspace while I was on the road, and I was intrigued. I feel that practicing pausing has helped me control the presence anxiety has in my life. I wrote about my physical and mental health routines in more detail in a different post, but I wanted to mention this while writing about my day-to-day on the road. 

The final routine I had was my daily Spanish lesson. After traveling to a number of places where everyone speaks Spanish, and having several bilingual friends on tour I decided I really needed to learn. So every night before bed I had a little Spanish lesson with Duolingo. It’s going to take me a while to be able to communicate effectively, but every day I’m learning. After Spanish I’d fall asleep with my lullaby Rubble. My cast members found him at a venue and kept hiding him in my bag. I refused this gift at first because I didn’t know where it had been. My performance director washed it and then presented it to me. It had been traveling with us for weeks at this point so I finally took it. And I still sleep with him. When you squeeze him he says, “Rubble ready to snuggle.”

My roommate has a Marshall.

Adventure Time

I took many many many Ubers over the last seven months. I traveled almost eight hundred miles via Uber this year. My company had rental minivans at our disposal for grocery runs in more rural towns, but for adventure time we travelled with the strangers we summoned on our phones. Sometimes we would have the same driver multiple times a week/day. One time we were in a place so rural there were no Ubers or Lyfts. One time in New Orleans our driver turned and said, “Do you like rap?” and then played one of his songs. His stage name is JOHN and I can’t find him on Soundcloud but his music was very Walk Into The Club And Survey The Scene Yes I Own This and I was kind of into it. One time an Uber driver asked me why gay guys have a lisp and if I choose to talk this way. One time a driver with a plate that read “ABUELA” picked us up and said, “Thank God I have a pacemaker” when she found out the Paw Patrol was in her car. We love and miss her and hugged her goodbye at the Walmart. Dianne and I were one driver’s first ride. His wife was in the front seat, and they told us about how they adopted a child that was thrown out on the side of the road and now she’s five and has a pet snake. 

I need to talk about Dianne. Sometimes when you go on tour you find a kindred spirit—someone who has the same sense of humor, the same desires, and for me the hunger for adventure. I’d made a habit of wandering around on my own, I love to do this. Dianne loves this too. And then we decided to wander off together often and that is how Dianne was my tour wife. We always said yes to adventure and laughed until we had to stop walking and catch our breath. Dianne taught me to put the improv practice of “yes and” into my life. Because of her I’m no longer afraid to ask for what I want, be bold, and dance everywhere. The stories I’ve blogged over the last seven months were things that we did together, and I am so so so grateful for the tears, farts, laughter, meals, and glitter we’ve shared.

“You should never try to shove yourself in a cubby.” 

-Dianne Kaye 10/10/18

I’ve written about most of my favorite experiences on the road, but one thing that I’ve kind of touched on just a little bit was the LGBTQ+ nightlife across the country. My first week of rehearsals included a night out at a very popular very urban nightclub (Gay 90s, where I also saw my first drag show) but this was one of the only urban gay clubs I went to on tour. Many of the rural towns we played had gay clubs, but they weren’t what I was used to. They were small and dated, and it seemed like most of the people there were on the DL. Our company made up the twenty-something population in these clubs, and every time we walked in we got many looks from the locals. At first I didn’t understand why, but after the third or fourth city where this happened I started to put things together. I grew up in a liberal town outside of a liberal city and went to a school for theatre. I was raised Catholic but sexuality was never mentioned in church when I was a kid. I could walk through Philadelphia holding hands with my boyfriend and it didn’t even cross my mind that someone could say or do something homophobic. I entered my young adult life out of the closet, and I forgot that other parts of the country don’t provide spaces for its younger LGBTQ+ citizens to express themselves and grow into out young adults. I needed this perspective. 

Discoveries

This tour was filled with a number of firsts for me. I mentioned earlier that I attended my first (of many) drag show, made my arena performance Beyonce fantasy debut, and mascotted for the first time. The rest of my firsts were even more active. I was the first on the dance floor at our opening night party and then again at a number of bars and clubs. This has nothing to do with alcohol, it was just the high of being in new places with new people. I never would have done this before, but I’m so happy I can make any floor a dance floor, even if I have to dance on my own first. I also danced on pole and in cage which was great. I missed the pole dancing lesson that was offered to the company but I did take a few silks and lyra classes and thoroughly enjoyed them. I danced the bachata, in wig (and turned it around) in New Orleans and that was great. I rode a mechanical bull for the first time, and I stayed on for ninety seconds which impressed my friends, the DJ, and also myself. I’d like to thank Rubble for the new thigh muscles that made this possible. I paddle boarded on a lake, skated on a river, hiked the second largest canyon in the US, dug for diamonds, caked myself in mud and bathed in minerals, played disk golf, played laser tag and surprised myself by loving it (I am not competitive,) spun cotton candy, held an alligator, got hit by a car (it’s fine,) and tried the following essential foods: oysters, steak, and absinthe. 

Every floor is a dance floor if you believe.

I learned about myself and my body and performing on this tour. When we were in Lincoln, NE author Cleo Wade held a seminar in our hotel that focused on the difference between self maintenance and self care. I didn’t know there was one, and it changed everything. Please read Heart Talk. I learned that if I don’t take care of stress I will wake up screaming. I learned that I can ask for what I want. I’ve had a very difficult time finding shorts that fit me (I don’t have a butt) so I asked the employees at J. Crew if any of the boys sizes would fit me. What were they going to do? Look at me weird? Kick me out? I’m on tour and literally skipping town, so what was the worst that could happen? As it turned out, one of the employee's sons who is my age wears boys shorts. Thanks to this adventure I learned I wear a size 14. I learned that you can pour a packet of Emergen-C in your mouth then chug water to wash it down, I learned about Selena, I learned when I’m actually hungry and when I’m nervous hungry. I learned to juggle four balls, say a number of things in Spanish, how to knit hats, and that if you fart in your pup almost always the smell stays in there and doesn’t disturb your coworkers.

Among these new experiences I lost myself and found myself, and that’s what tour is. This show was bigger than anything I’d ever done. There are so many levels of corporations and outside companies and children and creators that have made Paw Patrol into what it is, and I still cannot believe I was a part of it. There were some moments I was so exhausted I thought I would die, and sometimes I was so exhausted I thought I was high. I had a dance teacher in the Finger Lakes who always used to say, “It doesn’t get easier, you just get better.” And I think this 100% applies to this show. I’m walking away with an increased puppetry/physical vocabulary, and I’m grateful for this. I’ve never doubted my choice to go into this field, but because of this experience I've never felt so sure that this is the right thing for me. On days that were particularly tough for whatever reason, I’d take a step back and thought about the Stephen ten years ago performing in a youth production of State Fair and dreaming about making a career in theatre. On these days I did the show for him. Everyone in the company had these days. And everyone on stage with me was fighting a silent battle, even as we sang about having a “supercool time.” This experience made us all stronger. After one hundred and fifty five performances my thighs have never been this juicy and I have calluses in the strangest places.

On my last night a group of us went out to a bar that overlooked the Chicago skyline. We laughed and cried together, and as we got up to leave “Dancing On My Own” began to play. I’m going to miss this adventure. I don’t want to stop learning about myself and exploring the country. I’m going to miss having everyone and everything at my fingertips. I’m going to miss my tour wife Dianne and her hunger to explore and “yes and” attitude that changed me forever. I’m walking away from this experience with more insight, skills, growth, and memories than I ever could have imagined. My back is ready for some time out of pup, and my mind is ready to dive into a new project. The next morning as I got out of my Uber at the airport “Thank You Next” began to play. I honestly thank God for Paw Patrol, and I’m very excited for that is coming next. 

Our first day

Our last night

I’m happy to report that I did not lose any socks on this tour. Thank you.