October 14, 1998
Control is the secret for live mannequins
By Garret Leiva
Herald staff writer
For minutes on end, Meredith Maccoleman stared out the Front Street jewelry store window; her porcelain face filled with a blank, plastic expression.
On the other side of the glass pane a crowd of passerbys gathered on the sidewalk stare back. Grown men make faces, a little boy jumps up and down hysterically. Someone even resorts to pulling off a poor excuse for a pratfall at her feet.
Stifling a smile, Maccoleman struggles to regain her flat affect. Hey, no one ever said being a mannequin would be easy.
Despite the difficulty of keeping composure amidst all the finger pointing and rubber necking, more than a dozen West Senior High students -including Maccoleman- took on the role of mannequin as part of the 1998 Fall Festival held Saturday in Traverse City.
For these high school students, many of which were members of the Thespian Club, staying in character for several hours proved challenging - especially when your stage could literally be the storefront windows of Stage Milliken.
"The hardest thing is not to laugh," noted Maccoleman during a quick wardrobe change over of gold and precious gems before stepping back in the window display at Miner's North.
"I try to think about anything but the people looking at me because if I think about them I'm going to smile."
Natural reactions such as smiling, blinking and even breathing have to be controlled in this theater of the observed. To help students prepare for their stationary roles, proper body mechanics and mind set are stressed.
"The woman who came in for training spoke to us about keeping your arms out and bent and how to hold your hands apart like a mannequin. She also talked about keeping one foot in front of the other and locking your knees," explained Eryn Walker, who along with fellow junior, Heather Marlette used those skills to stand still among the autographed guitars and vinyl records in the window display at New Moon Records.
While keeping one foot in front of the other was no problem for Walker, standing up to the mental rigors of being a mannequin at times proved difficult.
"I just thought to myself, 'I'm not going to smile,' which is not easy because usually I'm a pretty smiley person. It goes against my nature," Walker said.
As an observer on the other side of the pane, Burt Tuschman remarked that to be a successful mannequin you need to put yourself in a Zen state of mind.
"You have to be oblivious to not only outsiders but the deepest part is to be oblivious of yourself," noted Teshman, a sales person at Miner's North and a practitioner of Zen who said that Maccoleman's concentration was "quite wonderful."
"You have to divorce yourself from being and that's difficult for some people."
Of course there were those like Gordy Debries who just couldn't resist trying to break that concentration -in his case with a Three Stooges-esc pratfall.
Able to make Maccoleman crack a smile, the Grand Rapids resident admitted that if he had to pose as a mannequin the worst thing would be putting up with people like himself.
"The hardest thing would be dealing with morons like me. That, or having a case of allergies and standing there with snot dripping down your nose," said Debries, who did play a static character of sorts in a Easter play where, as a disciple, he had to hold the same pose for a half-hour.
Pratfalls not withstanding, many who peered outside the glass like sophomore Amy Hayes found that by standing still they gained a new perspective on human nature.
"Little kids would come and get in my face and tap on the glass," said Hayes, standing among the hiking boots and patent leather pumps at Golden Shoes on Front Street.
"Then their parents would stand there and tilt their heads in my face - it was all really weird,"