In the early eighties Marlin, the show's creator, was working in Las Vegas as a comic/juggler and took a magician friend of his, Jeff McBride, on a camping trip into the Arizona desert. That night the marvels of the Milky Way unfolded to Jeff, who had never seen it growing up in the vicinity of New York City. Marlin witnessed the impact of the stars on his friend and in a moment of play picked up a burning branch from the firepit and brandished it about creating a storm of sparks that rose to meet the night sky. The visual was memorable enough to create further exploration though classes with Rachel Rosenthal in Los Angeles a few years later. Using flashlights and gels, Marlin created a piece that spoke of our loss of the night sky through our overuse of artificial lighting. Starlight which had traveled across the universe, traveling millions of light years, was being drowned out at the finish line by our city lights. The irony was thick because people want to chase away the dark and inserted chased away the lights. However, it wasn't until the late eighties that Marlin would find the the birthplace of LUMA standing in front of a lava flow on the side of the world's most active volcano.
FLASHBACK TO THE 70'S
At age 17, after graduating high school, Marlin ran away with the circus and spent a year tending a herd of six elephants. The expression is, "Starting at the bottom dung (sic) of the ladder and working your way up."
By age 19 Marlin started performing professionally as juggling entertainer and made his living solely on his work as a busker on the streets of Houston Texas. At the time, there wasn't a street scene like San Fransico's FirsherMand's Wharf, so he learned to work the crowds in front of concert halls and movie theatres.
Attending an audition he landed a place in the class of 1976 and attended Ringling's Clown College as an assistant teacher and student. Upon graduation he had a short stint working at a Ringling Theme Park as a clown then doing his own act, opening for a magic show.
From there Marlin toured the eastern seaboard with a Belly Dance Troupe performing for military bases and fraternal orders.
In 1977 Marlin made his first nationally televised appearance on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and was introduced with, "We here at Rock Concert believe that our next performer will do for juggling what Doug Henning did for magic." Six months later Marlin was touring with Doug as the support act and was signed by a major Hollywood agency. Jay Leno and Ricky Jay were other some of the other young artists that Marlin came to meet and work with during his years in the entertainment industry.
In 1978 he was scheduled to perform on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson but fate had another plan as Marlin was, "bumped" by a Buffalo Chip Thrower from Beaver Oklahoma and never got rescheduled. Though he performed on numerous television shows, like the John Davidson, Mike Douglas, Evening at the Improv, Live at the Comic Strip and others, he never gained the notoriety everybody said was going to happen. Marlin performed his one man show at over 350 universities in 35 states, headlined comedy clubs from LA to Atlanta, opened for a number of stars, did a series of award winning television commercials but the brass ring eluded his grasp. His signature piece, juggling scarves to Rossini's, "La Gazza Ladra", was seen on national television in Holland, Spain, France, England and North America.
Marlin's skill as a juggler won him numerous awards from the International Jugglers Association. He worked with every major magician in the industry (except Siegfried and Roy) and his combination of street savvy and vaudeville panache had been emulated by a generation of comedian jugglers but the "break" he so desperately waited for never came.
Frustrated, angry and disgusted with the way things were going in his career Marlin quit. "It is a hard thing to walk away from what you are good at, but I was going nowhere." Before leaving his home in Los Angeles he sold most of his belongings and moved to Hawaii and helped a collective of jugglers form a community.
FLASHFORWARD TO THE 80?S
Living in the jungles of Hawaii in a two story, 900 sq. ft. treehouse of his own design, Marlin learned to live "off the grid" and did so for over four years. Catching his water from the sky and powering his one light and CD player off his truck battery, Marlin became a "Castaway" from the entertainment industry and the fast lane of LA. It was an extreme contrast. He began to sync himself to the universal clock and it brought another focus into view. The light at night came from but the stars, the moon or the glowing volcano illuminating the horizon. Forays out onto lava flows to witness the power of the planet close up became a portal to the present for Marlin. In that moment he realized that "Life follows light" and that the whole world would want to see a show like that. Another sign came with the realization that he was going back into show business and leaving his treehouse and Hawaii behind.
That was in 1987. A year later he teamed up with a dancer and started creating a work called, "The Evolution of Light". His first performances was for Alan Cohen's spiritual workshops and the was an instant recognition that he was on to something. In 1991 he met Kirsten Jones who joined Marlin as a partner in life his assistant on cruise ships. From 1991 to 1994 the work was entitled,"Laughing in the Light/Dancing in the Dark" and consisted of Marlin's comic juggling work in the first half and his newly explored work in the dark in the second half. In 1995 Marlin took the summer off to complete his book, "The Contemplative Navel" a collection of illustrated cartoons with accompanying appropriate aphorisms.
The summer of 1996 had Marlin bringing the work to the Chicago Fringe Festival where the Chicago Tribune said, "Marlin is master at manipulating light, the show never fails to amaze."
Word spread and Jules Fisher, (7 time Tony Winner for Lighting Design) invited Marlin to perform at his Broadway Lighting Master Class. Here, two producers saw the work and helped Marlin to launch a fully developed version.
In 1997 while living in Madison with his wife Kira, Marlin rented a warehouse space on the east side and began to incubate the work further with a cast of five people. The show was to open off-Broadway later that year in the Houseman Theatre on 42nd street. Various unforeseen circumstances had the producer's leave the project which they had named, "Light Fantastic" and Marlin was left on his own to carry the work forward. Recruiting anybody who would show up LUMA first cast consisted of Gretchen Miller, (a photographer) Jessica Fueger (an organic farmer) Sarah Carol (an HR person for a computer firm) Kira Maerlyn (the show's costume designer) and Marlin.
That summer, the logo "LUMA" was created by celebrity LA designer, Margo Chase and the show was marketed to the special events industry and corporate producers. Since 1997 the show has gone on to play the Kennedy Center, The Tonight Show, Film Fare Awards in Bombay India, and in theatrical venues from California to New Hampshire, from Florida to North Dakota.
The cast has changed over the years and the work continues to evolve with the intention that it will claim it place as the definitive light show for the industry and reach stellar prominence in the firmament of show business.
