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Show Mi me artisttiQvers al I the perforWiHEbases ; x r . .-, I I7'IJ I I J I " -. . rf 'd c - illv 1 . .' . ' 1 "I would hold a director's I coffee cup to be in a show," said Joe Pitti, mime and all-around performer. Pitti has immersed himself in theater. He is a technical theater major who deals with the art of stage managing manag-ing and related skills at the "University of Utah but has also been a singer, actor, dancer, director and choreographer. choreo-grapher. He feels most comfortable in pantomime the art he has practiced and refined since he was a Long Island teenager. Pitti returns to his roots when he presents "Doodles "Dood-les A Mime Show" at the Egyptian Theatre at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 10. Doodles Dood-les is the name of a two-member mime touring group (Pitti and partner Darlene Casanova) which premieres with the Park City program. The first act of the show is called "It Goes Without Saying." It's a series of one-man vignettes about the extreme highs and lows of human emotions. "We're all trying to find the happy medium, the center," said Pitti. He has done the material before. Chiefly, it is condensed conden-sed from a show he gave as part of the University of Utah's Lab Theatre Series. When another act dropped out, Pitti put his program together in two weeks. The second act, "Love Expands," is done with Darlene Casanova, a modern mod-ern dance major at the University. And Pitti said it has a distinctive dance-mime dance-mime style as if to reflect both players. It is a piece about relationships that Pitti hopes will have people thinking over their own lives. "But I want the feeling in performance to be energetic. ener-getic. I certainly don't want anyone in the audience with their shoulders hanging down." Casanova is a New Orleans Or-leans native. "There , is a real kinetic energy between us," Pitti said. - v Pitti,. acts ..as Ufis own director, which he finds no problem. "I can see myself out of my body. I try to visualize most of the performance perfor-mance in my head." And in addition, he tries the work out on friends before taking it to the stage. Pitti was born in Brooklyn, I - - - ":.-:;;:.-.rrrr:;.;;.:.-. - Joe Pitti proposes a toast in "DoodlesA Mime Show," appearing Dec. 10 at the Egyptian Theatre. moved to Long Island, and started mime at the age of 12 in junior-high school. By age 17, he was doing one-man shows. He found it easy to find places in New York to perform, including museums mu-seums and street shows in Central Park. "It depended on who you knew," he said.' "And the more you're seen, ' the"mOTeAvorfe yeu-;get." It also helps if you perform a lot for free. In the early 1980s, Pitti said, he was invited out to Utah by the area's "main mime," in his words Gregg Goldston. Pitti came to teach a workshop for two weeks and stayed. "I fell in love with all the space." In addition to his activities on stage and behind the curtains, Pitti has performed perform-ed in commercials-from Taco Bell to furniture stores.' Perhaps his most unusual performance came in a segment of "Prime Time Access" dealing with schizophrenia. schizo-phrenia. In a mime segment, Pitti illustrated aspects of the problem. For the future, Pitti will stay in Park City past Saturday's show. He is choreographer for Park City Performances' "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown." He performs the same duties for "As You Like It," to be done in the University's Babcock Theatre. Later this spring at the University, he will direct a Student Advisory Advi-sory Committee version of "Alice in Wonderland." He also directed a production of "Alice" back East. The "Doodles" show will also be presented next week at the Stoi&West Tjjeajre pn Decembl6 and1 J7T Kt hopes it wnl be theMirst lf many touring shows for the troupe, and he is looking at possible dates in Colorado and Washington. ; Tickets for "Doodles" this weekend are $5 general admission, $4.50 students and seniors. |