Blue Man Group, the dialogue-free, three-blue-faced-persons show combining music, mime, art and audience participation — not to mention a whole lotta Cap’n Crunch cereal, PVC piping and marshmallows — is ending its historic run in Chicago, it was announced Friday.
The last show is set for January 5; tickets for the all the remaining performances are available at Blueman.com.
“Blue Man Group is unlike anything else in the world and is undeniably one of the most recognized and successful entertainment productions because of the hardworking cast, crew and creative team. It was because of them that these shows captured millions of hearts night after night, and we give our utmost thanks,” said said Jack Kenn, managing director of Blue Man Group, in Friday’s announcement.
What began as street performances in New York in the late 1980s featuring a trio of friends with their faces painted blue, the official full-on production bowed in 1991 at that city’s Astor Place Theatre. Resident productions soon followed in Boston, Las Vegas, Berlin and in Chicago, where it opened in 1997.
As revealed in an exclusive story published by the Sun-Times in October, the company made history by holding casting auditions for the first time ever at the Chicago location. Being a Blue Man is like “… riding a unicycle and baking a cake all at the same time,” Scott Bishop, a veteran Chicago Blue Man told the Sun-Times at the time.
The company will be remounting a residency in Orlando in April with the opening of a new Blue Man Group production in a new state-of-the-art theater.