Every now and then we get to meet one of the younger generation of Vents who really impresses us. Can’t always put a finger on why, but some of the younger generation just manage to reach out and capture your attention.
One such young Vent that we have come to know a little bit is Joey Colianni Jr. Joey began to impress us early on as we got to know him as having the drive, the love of the art form and a sincere interest in learning the craft.
Recently, I asked Joey to write a short biography on himself and tell how he became interested in the world of Ventriloquism. Here is what he sent us. Meet Joey Colianni Jr.
When I was little I had a DVD, Taylor Mason’s “here we go” with paco the pig and sumo. I thought everything about it was so cool! A couple of years later I was visiting in Stevens point Wisconsin, and there I saw a toy store “Gepetto’s Workshop,” you guessed it- they had puppets! I was dumbstruck! Of course I had to buy one, an Italian chef I named Mario.
I practiced with it day and night. I would go down to the front desk at the hotel and the puppet would ask for some mouthwash. In my life I’ve tried lots of other hobbies, rock collecting, piano playing (my piano teacher used to be a ventriloquist as well,) gardening, but none of them stuck except ventriloquism and puppet making. Years later I made a hard figure out of clay, needless to say, it was terrible.
Then a while later I bought a howdy doody puppet I called “Julius” which later changed to “Jimmy.” and then a while later I bought Taylor Mason’s ventriloquism for dummies, and that helped me a lot. When my howdy doody puppet broke I had Kevin Detweiler make me a “Jimmy” figure. Jimmy is still my main character today. After the new maher studios opened, I learned a lot from them and the homeVENTion.
So now I decided to make a new character. First I saved my money, and asked Scott Bryte to make me the character I had in mind, he said that he stopped doing commission figures. Then I contacted Kevin Detweiler and he didn’t have an old man one.
Then I contacted mary Ann Taylor, James kemp, and probably half a dozen more places, the puppets were always too much or they couldn’t build the one I had in mind. I even tried building the character that I had in mind. Then I found Steve and JET.
I am so thankful that they accepted the job! I can hardly wait to get it in the mail. I would like to thank Taylor Mason, Kevin Detweiler and Clinton Detweiler, Tom Crowl, Mark wade, Ken Groves, Terry Fator, and the dummy shoppe for helping me be a better ventriloquist.
And I’d like to thank Taylor Mason once again for being a great inspiration.
Well written Joey. We enjoyed getting to know you better through your own words. Keep up the good work and keep on practicing.
Thats all for now folks,
Steve and JET