The New York Times: After 17,800 shows and 82,150 gallons of paint, Blue Man Group is hanging up its bald caps at the Astor Place Theater for good on Sunday. It arrived there in 1991, when George H.W. Bush was president, cellphones were rare and the World Wide Web was two years away. (The group’s first profile in The New York Times existed only on paper.) In the generation since, the trio of hairless, earless, silent, blue-and-black clad performers, who spit paint and sculpt marshmallows, gobble Twinkies and drum in primary colors, unexpectedly became a culture-infiltrating sensation.
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This is the first I’ve heard that they’re closing, seeing this headline is a bit of a shock to me. Blue man group feels like one of those things that’s just always been around and always would be. I wonder if they’ll still do tours, and how much longer the blue man group will exist. They’re such a different and enjoyable form of entertainment. I remember when I went as a little kid. I thought it was weird at first and was kinda confused but I really enjoyed the experience. I hope their legacy lives on for a long time.
I wonder what will replace that space. I feel like when something has been running for this long, it’s difficult for something to come along and occupy that space and be successful. But maybe it won’t matter to anyone and some other show will come along and succeed.
Also wow, that’s a lot of paint. I wonder how much they’ve spent in total on paint over the years.
Okay so I have never seen the Blue Man Group and I know they will still have shows touring but their New York City show is closing. I don't think I realized how long this show has been running for me in 34 years. It's really long for a performance art production to be running. You know that's like longer than I think Phantom of the Opera and so that's just a lot of time. The show also performed just under 18,000 times and used over $85,000 gallons of blue paint which is insane to think about like how much money and time was put into this show. I mean I can't even wrap my head around how much pain that is over 34 whole years. I mean that's crazy. I'm glad that this show is still performing because I grew up always hearing about the Blue Man Group so I think it's really amazing that they are still going to be performing even if it's not in a big city like New York I think that these performers are very dedicated to the art they are creating so I think it's great that they can still do that in some form.
The Blue Man Group is truly iconic, and I am sure that many will be sad to see the performance leave New York. The show they have put on over the years has changed, but its ability to connect with the audiences has clearly remained. There is definitely something special about the power of three, just one blue man would be strange, two would be too personal like a duo that is separate from the audience, four would be to many, but three is the perfect number of strange blue men. It is always a scary thing to leave a home and to me that is what the Blue Man Group is doing by closing their New York show. It feels like an end, but I know that the other show locations will continue to delight audiences. I think we can take inspiration from the blue men and find more whimsy in the world looking at the things we see every day and putting on a new perspective.
This is actually devastating news. I didn’t know before reading this that Cirque Du Soleil, not only filed bankruptcy in 2020, but also owned the Blue Man Group. I’m glad to know that they’re not ending their shows for good, but it’s really sad to know that they’re ending in NYC, where they started. There’s a level of “freak” that’s dying in New York, which is best talked about by Wink, who says that the idea was to jumpstart weirdness in people. Not only have they offered mounds of laughter to the audience, but as an artist, I feel like a huge part of culture is dying. In one of the most monumental cities in the world, there’s no more chance to witness weirdness (in a consensual setting–believe me there’s enough weirdness in NYC). Overall, I’m really saddened by the news and I hope that they get a reunion or something in the future.
Unfortunately, I have never seen Blue Man Group in performance before but I have seen some of their shows online. The wild and experimenting narrative they put on is captivating. It is sad to see that they are closing one of their performance spaces. Luckily it is only one of their performance locations! The full body paint blue definitely transforms the performers from being actors into otherworldly creatures that freely experiment and learn in their performance. This also reminds me of the brief stint of Blue Man Group appearing on different Tv shows like Arrested Development and the trials and tribulations of Tobias Funke and the difference between the blue man group and the mental health group. It's incredible that they were successful enough to have a performance venue in New York for so many years and it is unfortunate that they are closing due to troubles with their or their parent company.
The first blue man group production that I got to see was their off Broadway show so it saddened me to hear that it was closing. I had no idea it had lasted such a long time throughout history and some of the ideas that got the group started. What really interested me was the idea that it really became a thing because it was a group. Being able to work with others in such a ridiculous and comical manner turned the group into an event rather than just one weird person on a stage. Their stage show allows for everyone in the audience to embrace their inner weirdness if only for one night and experience such an interesting form of interactive theater. I hope I get the opportunity to see one of their performances in the future even though it won't be in the venue that started it all.
It’s always crazy that I cannot fully grasp how iconic the Blue Man group was and continues to be. I think that since it’s closing in New York after 34 years of being in production, it’s an insane thing even to comprehend because we know all of the shows that have been going on in New York for such a long time, wicked Phantom of the opera Chicago’s name a few that come to my mind. Still, I remember the Blue Man group being iconic from childhood. I have seen them increasingly on social media in the past couple of years, but I’ve never once been to a Blue Man performance. However, I still have so much impact because it was in many TV shows I watched as a child. I have been exposed to the Blue Man Group so much that it closed in New York, and this opportunity that Taurus can’t see anymore because it’s not there, and the Blue Man Group will still be touring around. It’s still iconic in New York and will no longer be the significant thing that people come to.
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