BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Melbourne’s gathering their paint cans, hubcaps and supermarket carts for the latest performers stomping into town.
The cast of “STOMP” is stopping by the Maxwell C. King Center for a 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. performance on Sunday, Dec. 11.
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The percussive performance was meant to come to the Brevard-based performing arts center Nov. 9-10, but the production was rescheduled as Hurricane Nicole tore across the state instead.
Now, the smash-hit sensation, which grew out of U.K. street performances, is giving voice to the unsung household and industrial objects on the Melbourne stage in the universal languages of rhythm and laughter.
One of its longtime stars, who has been part of the cast since 2016, can attest to the fact that the show, penned as an anthem for buskers and band kids, is built for everyone.
“We do call and response, we have a conversation with the audience rhythmically, and it’s fun for them to whether they’re, you know, a 10-year-old kid or a teenager or you know, parents or grandparents,” Jordan Brooks said. “Everyone can have the same conversation with us at the same time and really enjoy it.”
The characters wordlessly communicate through drum and dance and make beats “out of anything we can get our hands on that makes a sound,” co-founder and director Luke Cresswell said in a statement. This includes matchboxes, wooden poles, brooms, garbage cans, Zippo lighters, inner tubes and more. You can even hear Brooks riff on a paper coffee cup and a box of Tic Tacs in the video above.
Brooks said “STOMP” is a show that relies on sounds everyone from Paris to Orlando can understand: Applause, laughter and music.
“There’s a lot of moments in the show where we bring in a lot of humor, and the next thing you know, everyone’s laughing. Everyone’s applauding and all that is contagious,” he said. “So the moment one or two people laugh from a joke that we did on stage, without any words, with just rhythms and miming, it’s cool to see that translate on such a universal level.”
Brooks has played everyone in the show—from rock steady Potato Head to comedic sidekick Ringo—before arriving at his current role as the highly engaging Sarge.
“I prefer to perform Sarge, just because he has so much opportunity to interact with the other characters on stage and to interact with the audience. And there’s a lot of control, especially with Sarge’s relationships,” Brooks said.
And while the blueprint of the production remains the same, a lot of the scenes have an element of improv to them, so no two shows are the same.
“There is a lot of give and take on how the shows might change a little bit from night to night, mainly in those solo moments, in the moments of transition and how we can react in real time if another character is bringing something new to the show that we haven’t seen before. So it’s a whole lot of fun to switch it up,” Brooks said.
His ability to navigate both these choreographed and loosely improvised moments throughout the show is a talent born out of regimented marching band training and a spontaneous busking background.
“Marching band is an art form that is really near and dear to my heart, and I still teach, and it’s fun to also let loose on stage because for “STOMP,” it’s more about bringing whatever your unique voice is and to actually look a little bit different and be a little bit different than the other people on stage,” said Brooks, of how the two musical philosophies and practices coalesce in the production. “So it’s fun to explore that because each one of us brings in something entirely new and entirely true to ourselves.”
Brooks draws on all types of experiences in the role, too. In addition to touring the U.S. with the Santa Clara Vanguard and the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps while studying at Berklee College of Music, Brooks has also performed in more unconventional concert halls.
Namely, the New York City subway station.
“So I joined the show in 2016, and it was in New York City, and I was in kind of like a rock band at the time, and we would try to go busking on the streets every now if we had some free time. We’d go to Union Square, Penn Station, Central Park and it’s really tough to kind of try to get an audience engaged that’s not expecting a show, or might be on their typical commute to and from work,” he said.
But the moments he and his band could connect with people, whether they were taking a stroll on a date or just in the mood for a song, taught him how to captivate audiences wherever and whenever, earning him stamps of versatility and authenticity in his musical passport.
“There’s a lot of that energy within (”STOMP”) because everything we do on stage is authentic. Everything that you hear from the audience is a sound that’s been created on stage. It might be amplified so that the listeners can hear it in the in the audience, but it’s not manipulated with any sort of electronics or anything like that,” Brooks said. “It’s just exactly what’s happening on stage and we’re being authentic and true to ourselves and really trying to create these different sounds and bring out these different colors of just everyday objects.”
For more information on “STOMP” and to get tickets, click here or call the King Center box office at 321-242-2219.
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