SPECIAL SECTION: MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT The Passing Zone’s Cure for Boring Meetings: Comedy, Chainsaw Ballet, Juggling and Fire

Combining comedy with juggling has allowed John Wee and Owen Morse to avoid getting “real jobs” and instead tour as The Passing Zone.

BY PHIL SONNEMA CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

HEN WAS THE LAST TIME JUGGLERS COMMERCE: How did The Passing Zone start? showed up at your company’s meeting? WUnless you’re employed by Ringling Bros. and JON WEE : We started working together in ’88. At that Barnum & Bailey Circus, it’s probably been a while. time, each of us was in college. When we got to being Performers Jon Wee and Owen Morse, together known friends, we started thinking,“Maybe we can do this year- as The Passing Zone, have the cure for monotonous cor - round and avoid getting a real job for a while.” porate gatherings. Combining comedy, chainsaw ballet, OWEN MORSE : So far, it seems to have worked. juggling and fire, The Passing Zone is a unique act that WEE : [laughs] Yeah, haven’t gotten a real job yet, and has performed for a wide variety of audiences from it’ll be 20 years this summer! Prince Charles to companies in China. Wee and Morse, based in the Los Angeles area, met at Q. What does a typical performance by a juggling convention in 1986 and formed The Passing The Passing Zone entail? Zone in 1988. Over the course of their careers together, they’ve won 18 gold medals from the International WEE : It’s comedy and a lot of outrageous juggling and Jugglers’ Association, performed on The Tonight Show, related stunts. We throw sickles and machetes and torch - appeared in feature films such as The Addams Family, es and bowling balls and chainsaws around the stage. We did a private show atThe White House and were the fea - do a piece that we call“The Chainsaw Ballet”—so we’re tured act at the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in wearing tights and glittery ballet outfits [to the sound Montreal—twice. They’ve opened for A-list comedians of] classical music. We do a choreographed dance with too, including Bill Cosby and the late George Carlin. running chainsaws. One odd but exciting thing is we Lately, opportunities in keynote speaking at corporate juggle three people from the audience. We hook them events have really taken off. The Passing Zone has been up to some cables and we swing them around the stage tapped to give some life to events for companies such as dressed up like astronauts. Microsoft, eBay, Kodak, Firestone and Old Navy, just to name a few. The Passing Zone has also achieved 4 Q. You play a lot of corporate events. Guinness Book World Records in a sport called “jog - How does your show benefit those audiences? gling”–it’s juggling while running—to top off their list of achievements. MORSE : It turns an often dull, boring talking-heads pro - The crucial part of The Passing Zone’s act is the inter - gram into something that people really get excited about. play between Wee and Morse. COMMERCE magazine WEE : Definitely. There are a lot of keynote speakers or caught up with the talented duo to banter about every - comedians or people who do corporate presentations to thing from juggling chainsaws to David Hasselhoff. try to liven things up. [Our show] is definitely one that continued on page 78

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continued from page 76 people will remember for a long time. We realized years WEE : Yeah! It was really a neat honor. There are not ago, as we started doing more and more corporate events, too many movies where the two leads need to juggle that basically every meeting and every event is about peo - together, so having that gig come along at all is pretty ple coming together and trying to learn how to perform great. Also, the fact that it is the climactic scene of the better together. That’s the gist of what we do. We talk movie was especially neat. The casting director saw us about collaboration and trust and working together. on The Tonight Show, and they were casting the movie at the time, so they gave us a call. We went and audi - A choreographed dance with running Q. That’s a simple, tioned, and talked over some ideas with them. We fig - chainsaws is one of the signature effective visual metaphor. ured out that with a fat suit and the right makeup, we acts during performances of could pass for [actors Christopher Lloyd and Raul The Passing Zone. WEE : Yeah. Rather than Julia]—no pun intended. getting a speaker who stands up and talks about Q. Besides juggling ability, what does the importance of working Jon bring to the show? together, we get up there and show people that MORSE : Jon is an excellent performer and he’s very when you do have trust quick-witted. So besides his juggling, he brings his per - and preparation and trust forming ability. It’s top-notch. and execution, not only WEE : I thought you were going to say that I’m handsome. will you have amazing MORSE : [laughs] That’s really far down the list. results, but you can also have a blast. [Our show] is Q. And how about Owen? What does he very entertainment based, bring to the table, Jon? but people get the message that this is more than just WEE : Owen’s handsome. [laughs] We have gotten fun and games. lucky in our partnership. We have different kinds of strengths. Owen is the guy who builds most of our Q. You had a props. He does all of the sort-of behind the scenes com - nationwide television puter stuff that I know nothing about. Plus, he’s a better audience on America’s juggler than I am. He does all the hard stuff and I get to Got Talent. What was make the jokes about it. that experience like? MORSE : It’s a nice give-and-take sort of arrangement.

WEE : Yeah, we were on the first year of that show and Q. Talk a little about the Royal Command we ended up finalists on it. It was a heck of an experi - Performance for Prince Charles. ence because, first of all, having your talent judged by David Hasselhoff is a pretty humbling experience. MORSE : That was a cool one. We got to meet Prince MORSE : Right. [laughs] That’s what it’s come to. Charles after the event and shake hands. We chatted WEE : But it was a little terrifying to get on national tel - a bit. evision and have 2 minutes to do something and won - WEE : He sits up in his fancy little box seats and you der if the judges are going to rip it apart or decide that have to go give him a bow before the performance and they like you. Before the show even began, [Hasselhoff] after the performance. It was a little stuffy. And the audi - was saying that he hates jugglers. So we’re thinking that ence response was very delayed because the whole we don’t have a chance whatsoever. But, we became the audience looks to [Prince Charles] to see if he’s laugh - judges’ choice to move on to the final round. They all ing at [the jokes]. And if he’s laughing, then everyone said that they had seen a lot of jugglers up there and dis - else starts laughing. liked most of them, “but you guys came along with MORSE : It felt like we were performing in a time something cool and really fresh and you changed our machine. [laughs] Everything was delayed by 3 seconds. minds about juggling.” We were proud of representing WEE : It was also like a time machine because you real - jugglers well on television. Then we lost a $1 million to ize that we now are officially royal court jesters. [laughs] an 11-year-old girl. We’ve got royalty standing there, saying,“Amuse me, jug - MORSE : We’re trying to walk that one off. [laughs] glers!” And we come out and amuse them. It’s the way it’s supposed to be, I guess. I Q. You also did the juggling scene between Gomez and Fester in the movie adaptation of For more information on the The Passing Zone, please The Addams Family, right? visit www.PassingZone.com.

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