Hello friends, and welcome to
"TONIGHT YOU ARE IN PITTSBURGH"!

Thank you for stopping by. This show was born out of a desire to perform locally. I have spent the past half year touring Europe and America non-stop. During this period I actually performed in Pittsburgh twice. The second time was in an international performing arts festival for children.

My venue was a huge old elementary school auditorium. Someone had put hot pink spike tape on the floor in the shape of a giant arrow in the stage right wing. The arrow marked the entrance to the stage and upon the tape in bold black marker was written: TONIGHT YOU ARE IN PITTSBURGH. I tried to imagine who in the world would actually need such a reminder. I pictured some very old and tired comedian rushing onto the stage without seeing the arrow and yelling "Helloooooo Philedelphia...... Who's ready to laugh?!?"

The point being that I found it pretty astonishing that someone might be touring so much that they are in a different city each day, have forgotten where they are after the journey, and are playing to children in an elementary school! Perhaps in the larger markets of superstar rock and roll singers things like this are common place, but I was pretty amused to see this piece of show business in my life. However, it did make me stop and think about my own schedule.

I would get back to Minneapolis every month and a half or so for two or three days. When I was home I would always meet my friends and tell them about the latest adventure (or to be more precise, I would complain about things- a good artist always complains about everything- all the time: remember, pain + suffering = art). During these brief visits I would talk about performing, and many of my friends kept asking when I would be doing a show that they could see. So here I am.

When starting to make this show I was thinking about my friends and decided to take many of them up on their offers over the past couple of years to play music for me. I am very grateful for their support and enthusiasm. Although the content of the show is entirely original, I would like to thank the following jugglers who have inspired many of the ideas this show is based upon: Matias Salmenaho, Saku, Matt Tardy, James Ernest, Denis Paumier, Martin Switzke, Simone, Jerome Thomas, Maksim Komaro, and Ville Walo. I would also like to thank my parents, John Rauser, and the kind folks at the SOOVAC for making this production possible.

Another special thank you to my father for his very generous prop construction. And of course a HUGE thank you to all my friends who have helped and supported me in so many ways- its great to see you all here at home!

Enjoy your stay in Pittsburgh! Peace out, Jay Gilligan U.S. Air Flight #221 somewhere over Cleveland, 4:48 pm local time July 1, 2003