Bus life

Artist Stokley Towles wags his finger while telling a story as he performs “Behind the Wheel: Life on the Metro Bus” on a King County Metro bus marked “Special” and stopped at the Route 47 bus stop next to the Lookout bar on Capitol Hill, Thursday, April 28, 2016. In the roughly 50-minute, one-man performance piece, Towles shares stories gathered from his interviews of over 30 Metro bus drivers about their experiences on the job.

Each vignette begins with Towles reading a quote from a driver he’s interviewed. One reads: “You gotta be a teacher, a psychiatrist, a doctor, a lawyer, a parent, the whole nine yards, and this all in one tripÉ” Towles says he tries to explore how drivers take on those different roles. “How do they mentally survive the work?”

One of Towles’s audience members Thursday was Metro driver Jeannetta Moreland, who got to take in the performance while she kept an eye on the bus. “Most people don’t notice the driver,” said Moreland, who says she knows all of the drivers Towles interviewed. “I never looked at my life the way he just did. It was all on point. ”

For information on upcoming performances visit: www.stokleytowles.com

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Entertainment

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