Entertainment? Fator keeps his hand in it …

When Terry Fator made his first appearance on the “America’s Got Talent” stage in 2007, the entire audience seemed to engage in a collective eye roll. He emerged holding a puppet, a pigtailed moppet named Emma Taylor, which caused then-judge David Hasselhoff to groan, “Oh no, a ventriloquist!”

And then the puppet opened its mouth – while Fator kept his closed – to sing Etta James’ signature tune “At Last,” and the crowd went wild.

Fator would go on to win the second season of the NBC reality competition show, and by the end of that year, he would be one of Las Vegas’ premier performers.

“Of course, I never, ever thought I would win the show,” Fator said from his home in Las Vegas. “I seriously thought I was going to get on the show and end up getting on two or three episodes, like everybody else who gets on. Nobody was more stunned when I won than myself.”

Although Fator spends most of his time performing at the Mirage Hotel and Casino, he’s no stranger to touring, and he brings his traveling show, “The Voice of Entertainment,” to Turlock Community Theatre on Sunday night.

“I love Vegas, and it’s amazing to be here,” he said. “But I have a completely different show when I’m out on the road, and it gives me an opportunity to bring what I do out to the rest of the country.”

The touring show functions both as a showcase for Fator’s impersonations and as a biography of sorts, as Fator walks the audience through his journey from average Joe to Sin City star.

“I decided to tell my life story – how I went from being a janitor in a small town in Texas, which is what I did growing up, to headlining my very own show in Las Vegas,” Fator said. “So I actually come out on a stage in a janitor’s uniform, and I introduce myself to the audience as if they work in the building I’m cleaning. Then I take them through my story: how I started doing impressions, how I started singing, what made me pick up ventriloquism.”

“The Voice of Entertainment” is also a showcase for the various characters Fator made famous on “America’s Got Talent,” including country singer Walter T. Airedale, Winston the Impersonating Turtle, and lounge lizard Johnny Vegas.

“I promise you this: Once you come to my show, you will not think you’re watching a ventriloquist,” Fator said. “Every single character I pull out is going to seem so real and genuine that you won’t be thinking puppets and ventriloquism. You’ll be engaged and fall in love with the characters.

“You’ll leave not realizing it was one person up there doing everything,” he added. “You’re going to think there were six, seven or eight people. And a turtle.”

As for the art of ventriloquism, Fator says he believes that more people have warmed to it – or have acknowledged the tremendous skill it requires – since he was thrust into the spotlight.

“Some people look and they think, ‘Oh, that should be at my kid’s birthday party.’ But everybody loves music,” he said. “Everybody loves impressions. The fact that I do both of them together sort of gave me a little edge. … I’m doing the voices of people they already love.”

This story was originally published October 23, 2014 at 2:48 PM with the headline "Entertainment? Fator keeps his hand in it …."