Special Event

2-man tour a blast for ex-MythBuster

Adam Savage, once part of the TV MythBusters team, takes on a new partner, along with “crazy toys, incredible tools and mind-blowing demonstrations,” in Brain Candy Live!
Adam Savage, once part of the TV MythBusters team, takes on a new partner, along with “crazy toys, incredible tools and mind-blowing demonstrations,” in Brain Candy Live!

Adam Savage used to do a tidy bit of scientific exploration, some of it pretty spectacular, on TV. For 14 years he was co-host of MythBusters on the Discovery Channel.

Now as editor-in-chief at Tested.com, he and colleagues test gadgets and concepts, ranging from serious (a thermal detonator) to whimsical (a Lego bucket wheel excavator and a Twitter-controlled pie machine).

Brain Candy Live!

7 p.m. today, Robinson Center Performance Hall, 426 W. Markham St., Little Rock. Adam Savage, editor-in-chief of Tested.com and former co-host of TV’s MythBusters, and Michael Stevens, creator of the YouTube Channel Vsauce, perform scientific experiments onstage in a “celebration of curiosity.”

Tickets: $36-$66, $126 VIP (100 tickets, includes a post-performance opportunity to meet Savage and Stevens, signed 8-by-10 photo and a special VIP meet-and-greet laminate)

(800) 982-2787 (ARTS)

ticketmaster.com

Savage is currently on the road with another science-based extravaganza: Brain Candy Live!, hitting 40 venues in 48 days, including today's 7 p.m. show at Little Rock's Robinson Center Performance Hall.

The show answers such questions as "Can you slow down the effects of gravity with something we throw away every day?" "What happens if everyone on earth jumps in the air at exactly the same time?" And is it possible to 3-D print a human -- live onstage?"

His partner in this so-called "celebration of curiosity" is Michael Stevens, creator of the Vsauce YouTube channel. Together they're schlepping along "more than three tons of crazy toys, incredible tools and mind-blowing demonstrations," according to a news release, which includes a description of the show as "a cross between TED talks and the Blue Man Group ... like a two-hour play date with Walt Disney, Willy Wonka and Albert Einstein."

"We're having a blast," says Savage (presumably not literally).

"It's the longest I've ever gone on a single run on a tour," says Savage who also toured live shows with his MythBusters co-star Jamie Hyneman for about four years -- "three different countries, 200 cities; it was great, except that Jamie doesn't like performing as much as I do. He was very keen to be done with it. And in late 2015 he said he didn't want to tour any more."

Savage's management company, which also represents Michael Stevens, suggested a partnership.

"I was a huge fan of Michael," Savage says. "We met and started talking about what we could do together. It was very simpatico and the relationship and collaboration has been that way the whole way through. It was wonderful meet-cute, and proved that William Morris was 100 percent right about us.

"It's lovely working with someone whose comic timing is so solid and yet so different from mine. And yet so natural a performer. He listens well on stage."

Savage says he and Stevens are constantly reworking parts of the show, so it's "a little bit different every night. ... We get the rough structure out, then we work on making each piece good; now we have each piece, it's relatively solid, now we're going in and refining language, piece by piece. Sometimes that means we have to take something entirely apart and put it back together again, but that process is really fun."

The pairing with Stevens means that many members of the audience aren't necessarily MythBusters fans.

"Michael brings a whole new demographic with VSauce," Savage explains, "a lot of young men and women in their mid- to late 20s that I didn't see in previous MythBusters tours. And it's also clear in audience responses that in a way, just like for me, MythBusters is a bit in the past; they've been paying attention to the stuff that I've been doing at Tested.com.

"I loved doing MythBusters but I always knew there would be an end point to it, and all I want, when something ends, is to be able to keep on building stuff and communicating and telling stories about it. So I'm really glad that my fans have seemed to migrate along with me to see what these new adventures would unfold."

The important thing, he says, is that "When I'm doing these shows, I'm learning -- it wouldn't be worth it to me if I wasn't.

"When Michael and I are reworking things, part of it is to get the storytelling right, but the other side is to make sure we understand what we're talking about. The deeper we go and the more we ask these questions, the more we learn how this stuff actually goes together."

That includes the occasional occasions when something goes completely blooey.

"Last night, in fact," Savage says. "We have a very bombastic final effect; I don't want to give anything away, but it requires a high-pressure scuba tank.

"The whole show goes very linearly, toward this great finale, and my scuba tank was empty. And I [asked] my crew, 'Could you get me another scuba tank?' -- we travel with five of them. Unfortunately, the truck was two blocks away, so one of them had to run two blocks there and two blocks back while Michael and I filled for the audience.

"And the audience was right with us. The ending, which usually took a minute and a half, took 10 minutes to reach fruition, but when it did they were on their feet.

"All of a sudden, this was a wonderful thing to be able to model: 'Hey, things don't always go according to plan,' and it's not a disaster unless you classify it as a disaster. We can respond to it in many different ways, and that's under our control."

Style on 03/28/2017

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