Meet Shari Lewis:
Ventriloquist, Actress and Teacher
Entertaining As A Job

Brigid: Your shows are great. What is it you like about doing kids' shows?

Shari: It's play! I love to play. I don't mind working hard in order to have the opportunity to play. It's like some people work really hard at their tennis game. I work really hard at putting together a playful show.

Brigid: What's the most fun you've ever had on your job?

Shari: I think doing command performances in Great Britain, because knowing that the Queen is watching makes me giggle. I really loved that. I have performed at Buckingham Palace. I've done four command performances. And I've performed for at least four Presidents, maybe five.

When I did my first command performance as a teenager, Princess Anne was a teenager then, too. She came running up to me and said, "How did you start doing what you do? It's so unusual for a girl." And I said, "Well, my father was the official magician for the City of New York. We always had magic and puppets around the house." And the Princess took exactly one beat, and then said, "Yes, one does tend to get involved in one's family business, doesn't one?"

Brigid: What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you?

Shari: I do a clown number called "What am I? -- A Clown." And in order to do it, before I come out on stage, I put a huge baggy pair of clown pants on underneath my beautiful ball gown. At a certain point in the song, I simply lift up my skirt and there are my clown pants, and I stuff my skirt into the clown pants, which gives me a big clown belly. One day, while performing with the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis, in the concert hall, in front of 2,500 people, I lifted up my skirt and realized -- I had forgotten to put my clown pants on!

Brigid: So what did you do?

Shari: I ran offstage and put them on! The audience laughed for a full five minutes. It was very hard to get them to stop laughing! It wasn't only my clown pants that were red. My face was red, too.

Brigid: What's an average day like? Is there an average day?

Shari: I try to do the things that use my head first thing in the morning. I write a lot in the morning. If I have songs to learn, I'll work with my musical director in the morning, like from 8-11. I try to do interviews in the afternoon... and meetings in the afternoon because they're not as difficult. They don't demand as much of my head as writing or learning. I think it's really important to learn what your best time is and use your best time to best advantage.

I like time a lot. When I was little my grandmother showed me how to use a pattern to make my own clothes. You lay out the fabric, and then you lay the pattern on the fabric and the game is to get the most pattern onto the smallest piece of fabric. And that's the way I feel about time. Time is like a fabric that is mine to use... and I try to get the most out of it.

Brigid: What do you like best about your job?

Shari: I think what I like best is dealing with music. That's just great; I'm very fortunate to be able to dance to music, conduct orchestras, and sing music and play it. I really like to deal with music, in fact I've just done my first CD-ROM for Phillips Interactive. It's called "Lamb Chop Loves Music." The reason I chose "Lamb Chop Loves Music" first is because I love music. Lamb Chop loves music. I know kids love it too.

But this is not "music appreciation" because kids appreciate music. What this is, is introducing kids to the idea that there are lots of instruments out there and they're fun to play.

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