Percussionist John Sawicki answers his telephone and metal clangs in the background. It sounds as if he is in the midst of a rehearsal for Stomp. Not so.

"I'm just at the gym," he says cheerfully in an interview from Kansas City. "You have to work out for this show. You have to stay in shape."

Work out? For a show that's 90 minutes of almost nonstop motion? Don't you work out enough during the performance?

Not really, says Sawicki, who has been a member of the Stomp tour since 1998. The performers expend a lot of energy during the show, working with props that range from brooms to garbage cans to kitchen sinks - really - but they have to exercise with weights for strength and to stay fit enough to perform without injury.

Stomp, which opens a five-performance run at the Stranahan Theater tonight, was created in Brighton, England in 1991 by percussionist and one-time busker (street performer) Luke Cresswell and actor/musician/writer Steve McNicholas. After finding success in Scotland, England, Australia, Japan, and France, among other places, the show opened in February, 1994, in New York. A decade later, it's still there.

Although the show's theme - a combination of percussion, movement, and visual comedy - hasn't changed, the various acts have, Sawicki says.

"You [Toledo audiences] will get to see two new numbers, and every night of the show is different anyway, because there's room to improvise. So it changes every day," he says.

Sawicki believes the show's appeal lies in its relationship to everyday life.

"It's all about rhythm, right? Everything we do in our day or in our life is rhythmic. We talk in rhythm, we walk in rhythm, everything that goes on around you is rhythmic. A lot of people take it for granted, because they're so used to just waking up in the morning, making their coffee, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, going to sleep, and that's it. But what they don't realize is that when the coffee is brewing, when you're rins-

ing your mug in the sink, when you slam the microwave door to start heating up a muffin or something like that, when you turn the shower on, all this is music.

"Stomp kind of opens your ears up to everything that goes on in the world around you. You blow your horn, the blinker in your car, everything that we do is rhythmic."

Sawicki is a trained percussionist and former studio musician who had his own band in New York before he started touring with Stomp about six years ago, so it shouldn't be a surprise that his favorite part of the show is called Hands and Feet.

"It's where we kind of play our bodies like a drum set," he explains. "We make rhythms stomping our feet on the ground and clapping our hands."

Another thing he likes about Stomp is that anybody, any age can enjoy it.

"You can be blind, you can be deaf, you can be 5 years old, you can be 95 years old. You can feel it. It's a fantastic show."

The Theater League presents "Stomp" at 8 tonight, 5 and 9 p.m. tomorrow, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday in the Stranahan Theater, 4645 Heatherdowns Blvd. Tickets, $31 to $43, are available at the Stranahan box office, 381-8851, and through Ticketmaster, 474-1333.

First Published March 5, 2004, 12:47 p.m.