Tuesday, June 10, 1997 | 11:03 a.m.
Contrary to popular belief, New York's famed street and subway performers don't usually sing for their supper.
For their home mortgage and credit card payments, maybe.
Chances are, they make more money than you do -- maybe even have better hours.
"There's no kind of poverty involved with it," explains Danny Herman, director of "MADhattan."
The show, which opens Thursday (following a weeklong soft opening) at New York-New York hotel-casino, features 35 performers who were discovered and lured to Las Vegas over the last three years from Big Apple street corners, parks and subway stations.
Among them: unicyclist Sasha Chervotkin; the Trembles, a female a capella trio; and Pots 'n' Pans, a.k.a. Tony Walls, who makes music with oddball items -- even the kitchen sink.
Talented, yes. But struggling?
"A total misconception," Herman says. But one he believed for many years. "I used to see these people on the street and think, 'Oh god, if they could just make it.'"
A former dancer who spent a decade in Broadway's "A Chorus Line" and directed other productions, Herman says these outdoor "artists" have it pretty good.
"If you're in a Broadway show nowadays, you make $1,000 a week, you have one day off. You're there from 7:30 to 11 o'clock at night and you entertain 1,000 captured people, and it's the same show (every night) and it's somebody else's vision," he says.
"On the street, you could pull in between $800 and $1,500 a week. If you have a week where you only want to work two nights, you may make $600 that week. You pick your own hours, you have your own freedom. You don't play to 1,000 people a night, you play to 10,000 people. You try out your own material. How many Broadway people are able to do that?"
Not many. That's why Herman, 36, says it wasn't easy convincing some "MADhattan" performers to move to Las Vegas, where they perform twice a night, five nights a week.
"There's a structure involved. That's kind of anti what they're about, and I respect that. It's tough on them," he says.
One thing that helped lure them to Las Vegas is that the Big Apple is starting to take a bite out of their livelihood.
"When you get a crowd of 1,000 people around Pots 'n' Pans in Times Square on a Saturday night, there are some dangers as far as controlling crime," Herman says. So police officers ask performers to "move along."
And if they lack the performance permit required by the city, they can be fined. "For that reason, it was easier to get them here," he says.
Another "part of the seduction" was "MADhattan's" concept "that it was their souls we were going to enter into and expose on stage."
Such a concept excited the show's producer, Kenneth Feld of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus fame, who conceived "MADhattan" three years ago, after catching Pots 'n' Pans outside a New York theater.
What Feld, who also produces Siegfried & Roy's show at The Mirage, immediately picked up on was the very nature of the street performer's business.
"If you don't grab (someone's attention) in 15 seconds, they leave," Herman says. "If you're not catchy and you're not aggressive in your showmanship, they're not gonna stop. That's what separates them from a Broadway performer."
That and their creative control over their talents. Though "MADhattan" is a scripted show, Herman says it's crucial that the stars be allowed a say in their art.
With the help of production crew members, the performers -- 10 singers, 10 dancers, six musicians and the rest specialty acts -- spent the last year fine-tuning their material and even writing several of the show's tunes. (A cast CD is due out this month.)
"If we don't feed these people artistically, they will not function," Herman contends. "It's part of why they're here, it's why the show is as strong as it is. We took the time to figure out what makes these people tick."
That has, however, posed some directing challenges for Herman, who spent the last three years calling the shots for the Ringling Bros. circus. "I've never had a creative process totally dependent upon the psychology of who you're working with," he says.
"With the circus, when acts come in, they're identified as this (type of) act. They're in a sense limited to what their acts are. No one in this show comes with a given. You have to be really willing to sit and listen and understand everybody's strengths and weaknesses. It has been a delicate process."
Also crucial, Herman says, is "not losing that simplicity, that edge, that connection, but making you feel like you're part of that circle" of sidewalk spectators when you're seated high in the balcony, he says.
Or, at least for native New Yorkers, to feel like you're back home.
The show's sets represent each performer's previous urban stage, including the East River, Washington Square Park and Grand Central Station.
"I think if you're from New York, you have a little bit of an in because you will recognize the locations," Herman says. "If not, I think you'll sense that (the performer is) at home."
Even if it is on stage and not a subway platform.
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