When comedian and performer Bob Stromberg started out, he had two goals in mind.
First, he wanted to make people laugh. And second, he said, “I was hoping to be able to pay the bills.”
Since 1977, whether he’s been performing at elementary school assemblies, in church basements or at Promise Keepers stadium events, Stromberg’s been getting paid for doing the thing he loves best. During the last seven years, that’s included more than 2,500 performances in the role of Bobby Bean in the hit comedy “Triple Espresso.”
The play, co-written by Stromberg, magician Bill Arnold and musician Michael Pearce Donley, has drawn more than 1 million theatergoers in 20 cities for what the Los Angeles Times called “a triple jolt of inspired craziness.”
Like most of Stromberg’s career, “Triple Espresso” was a result of what he calls a “small break.”
Another such break, he said, was the chance to perform at Promise Keepers events, which came after he was a last-minute fill-in at a Christmas party for the organization’s staff.
They liked him so much he was asked to emcee a number of stadium events.
In 1995, Stromberg, Arnold and Donley, all solo performers, were out for breakfast together at a Minneapolis restaurant when one of them had a bright idea — why didn’t they write a show together?
The idea sounded great. But since all three traveled for a living, it was impractical. When would they ever get time to write?
“If we are going to write something,” Stromberg said, “we ought to book it first. That way we have to get it done.”
Arnold called a pastor friend in Edina, Minn., who agreed to host the play at his church. Three weeks later, “Triple Espresso,” which mixes bits from the three authors’ solo acts with slapstick interaction, was born.
It was a hit. Soon Stromberg, Arnold and Donley were booked for a six-week run at the Cricket Theater in Minneapolis.
While the Cricket closed at the end of the run, “Triple Espresso” kept going.
It’s been playing in Minneapolis and San Diego (with a rotating cast) for seven years straight, and a production opened this spring in Denver.
It opens this fall in St. Louis and Green Bay, Wis., there’s a summer tour planned for Ireland, and there are plans to expand to eight other cities.
There have been bumps along the way.
A disastrous run in Chicago almost bankrupted the Triple Espresso Company owned by the three.
“We were down to bottom dollar,” Stromberg said. And while the show opened to positive reviews in London in the spring of 2003, large Iraq war protests in the neighborhood when “Triple Espresso” was playing kept theatergoers away.
Stromberg said he is well aware that the show’s success could be lost as quickly as it came.
“From the very beginning,” he said, “we put the whole project in God’s hands, and said, ‘We depend on you to help us to do our best, because we have no idea what we are doing.’”
Their strong faith has not made Stromberg and his partners immune to the personality conflicts that every theater production faces. There have been nights when someone has said, “I quit — we are not going on tonight.”
After 2,500 performances together, the original partners have learned how to work through conflict — both on and off stage — much like an old married couple, said Stromberg.
“There have been lots of times when things have not been unanimous,” he said. “You have to come to terms with it — and not work to undermine things if you don’t get your way.”
Stromberg, who recently filmed a special for PAX-TV, says he’s thinking about focusing more on his solo work in the future.
But for now, he’ll be playing Bobby Bean five days a week, and relishing the laughter and connection with the audience.
After every performance, the cast of “Triple Espresso” greets audience members in the lobbies of the theaters. Usually there is someone who comes up and thanks Stromberg, saying they’ve been going through a hard time and just needed to laugh.
This past May, he said, a man and his family came to the show in Minneapolis. The man had buried his wife that same day after a long illness.
Someone had given the family tickets to the show. Because they didn’t know when they’d all be together again, they decided to go.
“We can’t tell you what a blessing it’s been,” Stromberg recalls the man saying. “We actually laughed tonight and we didn’t think we would be able for a long time.”
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