82,150 Gallons of Paint Later, a Blue Man Group Farewell

[mahatmakanejeeves]

82,150 Gallons of Paint Later, a Blue Man Group Farewell
Over 34 years, the show gave Fred Armisen a drumming gig, “Arrested Development” a hilarious story line and more. Now the cultural sensation comes to an end in New York.

By Melena Ryzik Photographs and Video by Vincent Tullo
Jan. 30, 2025

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.

They achieved this — along with shows in more than a dozen cities across the globe, multiple concert tours, three studio albums, a Grammy nomination, many TV appearances, a book and one indelible sitcom story line — without changing much about their approach. Throughout one of the longest runs in Off Broadway history, they remained proudly on the silly side of performance art. Even without a narrative, they also connected viscerally with audiences, earning a legion of megafans. “We love the idea of a show that is sublime and ridiculous,” said Chris Wink, one of the founding performers.

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Blue Man Group, which has been owned by Cirque du Soleil since 2017, is not disappearing: long-running shows remain open in Boston, Las Vegas and Berlin, and a return gig is planned for Orlando, Fla. But closing the New York production, where it all began — along with another decades-old production in Chicago — is the end of a chapter. (In a statement, a spokeswoman said Cirque du Soleil was proud of Blue Man Group’s track record, and that it made the “difficult decision” to shutter after “we re-evaluated our current standings.” After declaring bankruptcy in 2020, Cirque du Soleil, the Montreal-based live entertainment behemoth, is controlled by private equity firms.)

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Veteran Blue Men Wes Day, with red bottle, and Bhurin Sead, with yellow bottle, use an audience member volunteer as a canvas.

The Blue Man vision influenced other artists. Fred Armisen, the comic actor and writer, was a drummer in the house band for the Chicago show from 1997-99, his first paying job as a musician. “It really changed my life,” he said. Not just because of the steady money, or the practice in what he called “relentless drumming,” cued by, say, an airborne marshmallow. The material was wordless, abstract — but not cynical — and yet the audience was giddy.

“It was, for me, a new way of being funny,” Armisen said. “The idea of just doing something for fun, or for the hell of it or for who knows why — that also implanted in me.”

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Melena Ryzik is a roving culture reporter at The Times, covering the personalities, projects and ideas that drive the creative world. More about Melena Ryzik

A version of this article appears in print on Jan. 31, 2025, Section C, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: 82,150 Gallons of Paint Later, a Farewell. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[underpants]

1. A friend of mine was a huge fan of theirs.

From street performers to that. Amazing.