What It's Really Like To Be A Street Performer

Michael Trautman didn't start out wanting to be a street performer, never mind a mime. As with many people who came of age in the 1970s, Trautman, 56, says he wanted to "change the system" from within and planned to become an attorney.

But that plan got sidetracked after he appeared in several student productions while attending William Jewell College in Missouri. In his senior year, he landed the role as the lead actor's comic sidekick, and though it wasn't a speaking part, he brought down the house.