“Break a leg!” Yeah we’ve all heard that one before, right? An old expression that means “I hope you get lots of applause and must then repeatedly bend at the knees in order to bow for your adoring fans!” Something to that effect anyway.

Because wishing a performer “good luck” is actually bad luck don’t ya know?

Twenty some years ago when I started working professionally I found out that you should never say either before a dance performance. The operative term is “Merde!” and with a smile if you please so as not to be confused with “I just slipped on something looking remarkably like shit onstage so watch your step there…”

But in the busking world we wish each other “HEAVY HATS!”

Passing the hat is of course another often heard saying. The “hat line” is the set up where a busker primes the audience to consider the worth of what they’ve just enjoyed so far for free. Does the spectacle compare with other forms of entertainment like a movie? Will you watch right up until the big finish and then walk away? Maybe stay for the next act? Tell your friends? Come back tomorrow?

The hat signifies that even though I may look like a panhandler in fact I have a fine arts degree. I choose to bring my art to the street. I can be nine feet tall or sit like a statue waiting for a coin to drop. I travel the world with other street performers who can contort themselves while juggling flaming stuff and then miraculously make that stuff disappear. My friends have trained for years to master the ancient and esoteric forms of chalk, balloon and face paint. I may delight you with a two minute song and dance or a one ring circus act sweated out over the course of an hour. In this digital age I bring us all back to that tribal feeling with a shaman’s gift for making a meal out of every moment.

And speaking of meals can you please drop some money in the hat so I can pay my bills? Appreciate it.

Make no mistake that show business is serious. Art investigates the power of performance as a tool for critical thinking and political action. Great art pays attention to context, so that it can be art plus education, art plus social justice. Local conceptual artist and Governor General’s Award recipient Ian Baxter declares “Art is all around us” and who are we to argue?

Utilising gallows humour the creased and weather beaten itinerant troubadour punctures reveries. Or is that punctuates? For while we survive on the fringes we live in the spotlight.

People think I’m being melodramatic if I identify as a “starving artist”. I used to think it was kind of romantic when my wife and I first got together but now with my three sons (cue TV theme song) growing like weeds it ain’t so funny anymore.

“If you’re good at something never do it for free.” So says Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. But the Joker doesn’t get asked to do freebies for charity all the time does he?

Anyone who gets to follow their dream is lucky. But just because you regard what I do as frivolous doesn’t mean it is worthless.

Theatre is like building a house. From initial drawings down to that last finishing nail to hang a family portrait and make a space feel like home. Creating a sense of community by inviting everyone over for a block party, but after a few weeks tearing it all apart as if it never existed.

Except in our collective memories.

Something shared. Something spiritual.

What’s that worth?

What’s your hat size? Mine’s 7 ½…