There is a great article and interview in The Orange County Register with ventriloquist Jay Johnson. Is starts like this:

Jay Johnson seems extremely cheery for a man who gets asked the same questions all the time.

Isn’t ventriloquism a dying profession? Aren’t those hand puppets creepy? Are you a repressed person who can express himself only through a wooden doppelganger?

Perhaps that’s because Johnson, 60, is at the top of his admittedly rarified art form. He has been a familiar act ever since his character, Chuck Campbell, and his smart-mouthed puppet pal, Bob, became famous on ABC’s opera parody “Soap” (1977-81), one of the riskiest and most popular TV comedies of its era.

Johnson gained even more respectability when his one-man show, “The Two and Only,” won a Tony Award in 2007. Pretty good for a boy from Lubbock, Texas, whose biggest dream was to land a job, any job, in show business.

Johnson brings “The Two and Only” to the Laguna Playhouse from June 11-20. (The title is deceptive – Johnson’s act includes 11 puppets.) We talked to him about his art, his show, and the love/hate relationship people have with ventriloquism.

The Orange County Register: How did a small-town Texas kid turn into one of the world’s most famous ventriloquists?

You can read the rest here http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/johnson-251605-register-ventriloquism.html#article-comments

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