Daniel Packard: The doctor is in—and he’s hilarious!
By Susan Page, July 28, 2006

Daniel was seven years old. Since I happened to be at his home when I was preparing to leave on a long car trip with my own young son, Gabe, Daniel’s mother began sorting through his toys to find some car games for Gabe. Daniel objected. “Now Daniel,” his mother said, “Gabe has a long, boring car trip ahead of him. Let’s just share some of your games.” Without hesitation, Daniel responded, “Well I have a long boring life ahead of me! This isn't fair!”

Daniel was born a comic. But he realized early that there could be a great deal more to comedy than making people laugh. I interviewed him recently to find out more about his unconventional journey to his present-day mix of comedy and meaning, all to glowing reviews. “Dr. Phil meets Robin Williams,” raved the San Francisco Chronicle. “A brilliant, fearless, ruthlessly funny, sociologist/psychiatrist of a comic,” says the Vancouver Sun.

Susan Page: What are you trying to accomplish with your Live Group Sex Therapy Show? Is it really about sex? Daniel Packard: The show is more about sexual politics than sex. While the show is sex-related, it is not dirty or vulgar. It’s a clean show about a dirty topic. My goal is to create a fun, funny environment where women can learn things they didn’t realize about men. I use humor as a tool to get people to laugh and open up.

SP: Does the show appeal more to men or women?

DP: Both. Women love the show because they gain insights about men that most men won’t share. And men love the show because I put into words all the deep truths they’ve been wanting to tell women for years, but haven’t been able to say. Men find it cathartic, because the male point of view is heard less often in general conversation.

SP: It sounds like the opposite of man-bashing.

DP: People are tired of the same old news: men don’t get it. This is a new direction, and people find it exciting. I tell the other side of the story.

SP: So for example, exactly what kinds of topics might we expect to hear discussed?

DP: For singles, we discuss where all the good men are hiding. For married folks, questions like: How do you get the spark back? How do you get more foreplay? How do you give less? We cover a lot of topics in the whole show, and I encourage the audience to bring questions with them!

SP: Clearly, you were funny from the time you were a small child. When did you first think about becoming a professional comic?

DP: It was pretty much destiny. I was the typical class clown. When I was 16, I snuck into a club and performed for three people. Two of them were drunk. I was hooked. The feeling of being up there is addictive. For me, being on stage is about connecting with people. Making people laugh is a very wonderful feeling. When I am up there, I’m being heard, I’m being validated. And so is the audience. We are saying to each other, “I’m going through this too! I get it! I understand.” It’s cathartic for the audience when you unleash a truth they were not aware of, and they explode with laughter. They are laughing with other people in the room, so a feeling of community is created, a feeling of being in an “in” group with a shared understanding. 

SP: When and how did you realize you did not want to be a conventional “stand-up” comedian?

DP: I was doing fine as a comedian. Then one evening, I fell off the script and I found myself just being the old, funny me. I did an eyebrow raise and got a bigger laugh than from anything I’d said the whole evening. That was an epiphany. I realized what mattered was being in the moment. The next week, I gave away all the jokes I’d spent five years creating. My cronies scarfed them up with pleasure. I started over. I felt compelled to explore being in the moment as thoroughly as I could. Who are the experts at being in the moment? I studied jazz improvisation musicians. I studied martial arts. At that time, I actually turned down offers to come down to LA and get into movies and the comedy circuit. I had an inner drive to follow this new direction and see how far I could reach.

SP: Did you study improvisational theater? 

DP: Not very much. In improv, you are still playing a character. What I wanted to do was discover who my true self was and allow that to come out on stage. Those two things are very different.

SP: Were there other resources you used to explore this new direction?

DP: My university degree was in mechanical engineering, and I used the training and discipline I learned there. I studied everything I did. I recorded every performance and then dissected it. Why do people laugh? How do people respond when they are challenged? What makes people comfortable and free? What makes them uncomfortable? How can I challenge people without scaring them? I was deliberate and systematic.

SP: If you were already hooked at age 16, why did you study engineering? Why not drama? 

DP: Because I was a good Jewish boy and my parents were good enough to send me to college. I wanted something to fall back on if the comedy didn’t work out.

SP: Are you glad now that you did that? 

DP: Very, because it gave me more freedom to pursue my comedy career. If I didn’t have a back up, my life would have depended on “success” in performing. I never had that pressure. I was able to follow my personal direction with greater abandon and less fear, knowing I had a back-up.

SP: Was going off in this new direction scary for you?

DP: Extremely scary. I was trying to create interaction. Learning how to do this was gut-wrenching. Comedy is already hard, and now I was trying to be funny, be myself, and get people to interact with me. So it was triple scary.

SP: Did you try this in a lot of different clubs? 

DP: I was extremely fortunate to find a venue where I could push this direction, week after week. The owner of a club was an ex-punk rocker. He didn’t want slick performances, he wanted virtuoso performers to go up and break what they did wide open. He wanted you to fail. I’d go on stage each Sunday with a new hour of material. The goal was not to get laughs, but to crack open my soul in front of people. People started to come each week and see what I would do next. Without the usual pressure to be funny, I could just focus on being myself. It was beautiful and awful, but with a space to fail over and over I finally broke through and found my voice. It was a bizarre voice, but a voice nonetheless. And with the voice down, then comedy just came flowing out like water.
Then I had a breakthrough. I was getting pretty good at talking from my heart, but I was having trouble allowing myself to commit fully to talking with a crowd. Three days before a major theater festival, a woman I was very close to dumped me in a very confusing way. I was an emotional shipwreck. I simply turned to the audience and said, “I have nothing. I’m devastated. Can you help me get through this?” The audience said “yes,” and they did. Everyone became involved. I was afraid to jump with the crowd artistically, but I had my legs cut out from under me and I just kind of fell in the crowd, and they caught me.
Several of the reviews from that show were like, “Daniel Packard’s character is so real. It’s as though he is actually going through a breakup up there.” That breakup was the best thing that ever happened to me.

SP: Is that how you settled into this theme of men and women?

DP: No, that’s always been there. It’s the main thing I care about! I’m naturally curious about it. It’s my passion, and a perfect fit for what I do, because somewhere deep inside, it’s everyone’s passion.

SP: So after all this hard, deliberate work, where do you consider yourself to be on your journey now?

DP: I’m definitely beyond apprentice and into the craftsman level. Like a musician, my craft ripens and matures as I evolve, as I become more confident and mature myself. My work is always taking on more levels of complexity and nuance. 

SP: Do you have a positive feeling about relationships? Are you hopeful?

DP: Yes! I want to put people in a better position to find the person they truly love and then to reap all the benefits of that love. Love is God’s way of saying, “Sorry about all the other crap.” I think women have beliefs that get in the way of allowing them to receive the love they deserve and of giving love to men. I want us all to love more freely.

SP: You have performed in many other countries. Are audiences with different cultural backgrounds very different? Do the issues change?

DP: For the most part no. “Sexio-economics” is based on genetics. A woman has one egg, and men compete to get it. So women put up walls to protect themselves. Wherever you go, women are safety-based, and men are competition-based. Women put up walls, and men try and fail to get through the walls. We live in a culture that judges males, and women buy into this. When you are judging, you are not going to connect. So women are successful in keeping out the jerks, but they keep out the good men at the same time. Women need to realize that the horny guy and the good guy are the same guy! So don’t judge him! These issues are the same the world over!

SP: Which is more important to you, your “message” or laughs?

DP: I most want people to have a great time, to laugh, to feel wonderful. It’s all about having a lot of fun. Maybe we’ll all learn something along the way, but the main thing is to have fun in a way you never have before! Laughter is inner jogging! It’s good for us all!

Daniel Packard’s Live Group Sex Therapy Show, produced by Iguana Productions plays this Friday and Saturday evenings, July 28 and 29. Doors open at 8pm and the show begins at 9pm. The location is the new nightclub at Hidalgo 79 called Foreplay Lounge. The nightclub is part of the Hotel Doña Uracca. 

Admission is 150 pesos, which includes one cocktail. Reservations are available at Galería Izamal, Mesones 80 (right next door to the Angela Peralta theater). Or, you can reserve a seat by phone or email: 154-0352 or alanjordansma@yahoo.ca. (Those with reservations must arrive by 8pm the evening of the performance.) Seats are not reserved, and seating is limited. 

Susan Page, author of Why Talking Is Not Enough and founder of the San Miguel Authors’ Sala, is Daniel Packard’s cousin.



What’s that play called again?
By Christine Foster

You may ask, “Why should I see a play called Eleemosynary? What does it mean, anyway?”

Fair question. And Lee Blessing, the playwright, wants you to ask it. The play’s youngest character triumphs in spelling bees, and “eleemosynary” is her favorite word. It means charitable or benevolent. In her case, this is the opposite of life with her mother. 

If you like words (and Lee Blessing and producer/director Lola Smith certainly do), then this is your opportunity to head for the Teatro Santa Ana to explore the very quiddity of logodaedaly!  But this extraordinary play does much more than improve your vocabulary. Lee Blessing has been called a “miniaturist,” a painter of words who loves to explore big themes on small canvases.

He specializes in two- and three-character plays such as A Walk in the Woods (nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway as well as a Pulitzer Prize). He mixes and applies humor, tension and wisdom with a sure and delicate hand.

Blessing’s works have also won The American Theatre Critics Association Award, the L.A. Drama Critics Award, and The Great American Play Award. He is the author of over 20 plays and screenplays in all, and he currently teaches master classes in playwrighting at Rutger’s University.

Getting produced, however, is a tough game these days, even for established writers, especially those who like to take chances. As Blessing points out, “Theater in the last few decades has become more and more conservative. Audiences tend to look only for the entertainment value and not for theater’s potential to make them feel or help them find new ways of looking at themselves.” 

Blessing, fortunately, has an amazing facility to do both. His sharp and funny dialogue crackles with insight. Six of his plays have already been performed by The Playreaders, but this is the first full San Miguel production of one of his best-regarded works.

Eleemosynary is written by a man to be performed by women, but more importantly is about everyone who has ever been part of a family. “It’s about all those times,” points out producer/director Lola Smith, “that you asked yourself as a child; Are these really my parents? Was there (hopefully, please God) some mistake at the hospital?” And most of all, it’s about trying to get love from someone too afraid to give it. 
There are three characters: a grandmother, daughter and granddaughter. The grandmother, Dorothea, denied a college education, decides to assert her independence through madcap eccentricity. Her brilliant daughter, Artemis, flees her domination, leaving her only child, Echo, in Dorothea’s care. Dorothea sees Echo as another chance to raise a daughter, this one just as brilliant, but more malleable, and she molds her in her own image. Things come easily to Echo—everything except her relationship with her mother. Her deep sense of abandonment colors her victory as National Spelling Bee Champion as she desperately tries to use her talents to win back her mother’s attention, and her love.

Tickets go on sale August 3 in the Biblioteca’s patio from 10:30am to 1:30pm and at the Teatro Santa Ana from 4 to 7pm every day except Sunday.

Christine Foster is a full-time resident, a freelance writer and playwright, and a photographic volunteer at the SPA.

Theater, Lee Blessing’s Eleemosynary
Wednesday–Saturday, August 9–12, 8pm, Sunday, August 13, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Reloj 50, 50/100 pesos


History of Mexico in 70 minutes

Some 10 years ago, Actors Lab wrote a script, gathered four actors and 330 slides, put them all together, and called the production The History of Mexico. In 70 minutes, it covered Mexico’s past from the Olmecs through blood and struggle to the present day.

This undertaking was commissioned by then-vice president of the Biblioteca Bob Somerlott. He was of the mind that the history of México was too hot, too colorful and too dramatic to be confined to a lecture.

In the ensuing 10 years, The History of Mexico has been presented during the winter and summer seasons to appreciative audiences.

The latest staging of this spectacle benefits from the talents of Lilia Trapaga, José Luis Mendoza, Cleo Stevens-Kamelhar and Miguel Kegel. Tickets are available beginning July 24 from 4 to 7pm at the Teatro Santa Ana.

Theater, The History of Mexico
Monday, July 31, & Tuesday, August 1, 3:30pm; Wednesday, August 2, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana, Biblioteca Publica, 50 pesos