What makes me the happiest? To know that most Americans through so many classes and cultures all over the country share my feelings. It makes me feel better about the country, and better about its future. Even here in the State of Insanity (CA), there is hope.
Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Thank You, America, For Coming to Your Senses
Saturday, October 26, 2024
SINGING ON SATURDAY: New Brit Big Top Musical Puts Songs on the Marquee ... Might This Start A New Trend? ...
And how would you like your circus served today, sir? Wrapped in ballet ... or steeped in theater? You said Cirque free? A La Cart maybe? And for music, will it be Karl King or Cole Porter?
Of the various production elements that go into making a circus performance, by far the most powerful is music. And the closer it comes to connecting with an audience, the greater its impact on the show.
We need no better way to illustrate this than to take a look at the 1932 program magazine for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. The holder of this particular copy appears to have written down the titles of favorite tunes played during many of the displays: That
1932 show played at least two songs hot off piano keys that year –
“Just Anther Shanty in Old Shanty Town” for a display of aerialists,
and "Lord You Made the Night Too Long” for Wallenda pyramids scaling the high wire.
Elephants cavorted to “The Washboard Blues,”from 1925, and
“Can’t We Talk It Over?” Family horse riding acts rode to “Keep on
Smiling, “ and the clowns held down the track to “Yankee Doodle.”Alfredo
Codona's trapeze artistry was serenaded by an 1882, ditty, “The Skaters Waltz."
Can there be any disagreement that favorite tunes will enhance our reaction to the acts before us? For my own ears, unforgettable are the zippytific Stephenson’s Dogs scampering merrily to “That’s Entertainment;” Gracious Charlie Bauman collaborating with his tiger friends to the music of "The Shadow of Your Smile;” Single trap daredevil supreme Gerald Soules diving dangerously close to the brink of extinction as Cole Porter's’ “So In Love”charges the air.
In recent times, with live music missing from most shows, the owners have resorted to either playing CDs that come with the acts, or producing original scores —the mixed results can veer between appealing and appalling.
Won’t you play a simple melody? Yes, please! John Ringling North in 1956 featured the music of the famed Broadway composer of the musical Guys and Dolls, and billed this novelty The Greatest Show on Earth, with songs by Frank Loesser.
Which brings me to a most interesting development over in London town, where a new kind of circus program under a small tent is causing a promising buzz. Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular is making its primary pitch on the songs it sings from the Hugh Jackman film, The Greatest Showman. Notwithstanding JRN's move above, this may mark a first in circus ballyhoo.
I don’t know if they can fill out the entire show, but this I know: I am rooting big time for the success of this venture. Why? Because, I can only hope that it will help put the focus back on popular songs and pull it away from other trendy embellishments pushed by theater and ballet elitists, which are dragging down and diluting the primal power of circus.
In fact, Come Alive! also comes loaded with a muddle of materials vaguely alluding to story-telling elements. From the London website Ham and High, which issued a great notice, also issued was a qualm that often dogs Cirque du Soliel reviews: "Overall this showman mash up is great fun for all the family, just don't ask what it's about." lol.
Nonetheless, score-wise, have we here the seeds of a new trend in the making? Are there other films that might serve the same purpose? Surely one would be The Sound of Music movie which has been screened to audiences who sing along to its songs.
Movie fans having lunch before a Sound of Music movie sing-a-long at the Hollywood Bowl in 2008.
So, how might its songs work for a circus performance? Here are my suggested match-ups:
Title song: I can see a serene ensemble opening, performers moving in slow motion.
My Favorite things: Teeterboard
Do Re Mi: Dogs!
Lonely Goatherd: Dressage
How Can Love Survive? (from the original cast album) Horse riders
No Way To Stop It: Jugglers
Climb Every Mountain: High wire
Edelweiss Trapeze flyers
Proposed matches for shows and music
Circus Vargas / Hollywood movie musicals
Cirque du Soleil / Andrew Lloyd Webber
Big Apple Circus / Broadway show tunes, Cohan to Sondheim
Zippos Circus / The Beatles
UniverSoul Circus / Motowown
Zoppe Family / Festive Italian score and music from Fellini's The Clowns.
Come Alive! may risk getting lost in an ill-defined structure, as seems to have been the plight of Water for Elephants on Broadway. Would it be too much to ask for simply some good songs to hear while a winning lineup rolls by?
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Broadway Says No to Circus ... Might London Say Yes?
* Updated, 10.18
First, the lowdown. Every year on Times Square, around a dozen new musicals hit the boards, all dreaming of Tony acclaim and turn away crowds. Roughly speaking, for every five new shows that open, four of them will go turkey before the season ends.
Water for the Elephants was one of last year’s new contenders, and it opened to a wild array of warring notices, heaven-sent euphoria to hell-bent fury. Variety proclaimed it “spellbinding. The New York Times, no surprise, gave it a Critic's Pick. It was thoroughly snubbed at the Tony's. Among the testily insulted, Rex the Reid declared, "I thought I had seen the worst of what the 2024 season would bring. I was wrong. I had not seen Water for Elephants yet. Now I have. It can’t get any deadlier than this."
The more tempered notices in between suggested that, even if the story lines were leaden and plodding, the circus acts,which wowed 'em, might be good enough to merit your patronage.
Ah yes, and therein lies the two-word problem,“circus acts.’
I have long contended that people do not flock to to the Great White Way to see circus acts. They go to see Broadway Shows, and Broadway shows have virtually never achieved lift off over sawdust and spangles. The one arguable exception was Barnum, but it drew its gusto from the Cy Coleman Score, Jim Dale's charming agility. Story lines? Some may remember it for P.T's wistful infatuation with his star attraction away from circus, singer Jenny Lind. Circus action was incidental.
Over to you, London ...
Over there, across the bony pond, songs may hold star power. In London town under a 700 seat tent, a new kind of singing show centered in or around circus, inspired by the Hugh Jackman flick, The Greatest Showman, is winning early crowd enthusiasm. Called Come Alive! The Greatest Showman Circus Spectacular, from a five-minute video sampler, it appears to be drilling down into the film’s highly popular score, whose cast album won a Grammy and sold 5.3 million copies worldwide. Show has been extended through next March
* The reviews? With Broadway World giving them, overall, a 67% positive rating, they veer towards the tepid. None are close to scathing, and a few give the show's circus content the highest marks. I can see here what might be called circus acts with popular songs, which can work. In 1956, John Ringling North featured many of the songs of Broadway composer Frank Loesser, spread throughout the wide-ranging score.
And, yet, there's more: Following this theater-circus thread, Disney over here still has in the works an adaptation of The Greatest Showman. One might wonder how true they will remain to a largely fictional take on Barnum’s real life that was roundly and rightly panned by knowing critics. If they try restoring history, they risk producing something that ill-fits the film's premise and songs. They should give as much serious consideration to the fate (to be) of Come Alive! as they no doubt have to Water for Elephants.
Big tops will go up, and new Broadway shows will unfold, each in their own sphere.
Wednesday, October 02, 2024
Saturday, September 14, 2024
VANISHING WATER FOR ELEPHANTS ... Bucket's Now Half Empty ...
When last I updated, they were comfortably back in the 70% range, and so I though maybe they are finding a hook to keep going.
Latest figure: 56.9%.
From Broadway World, two days ago: "What an embarrassing number even in a week where many shows took a big hit. I expect a closing notice for Water For Elephants sometime soon too
Friday, September 06, 2024
Book Quiz Contest Results!
A huge crowd here last Friday, but not a one of them could produce the correct answer to the question: Who was the first and still only performer to land a Gold Clown for the type of act they performed at Monte Carlo? The next day came the answer:
JUGGLER ANTHONY GATTO
The winner:
BONNIE O'CONNOR
Congrats, Bonnie! I will e-mail you to facilitate my sending you your copy.
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Two Phone Calls, One About Scott O'Donnell Leaving Circus World, the Other About Ringling Crowd Sizes in L.A.
Sometimes today when we are drowning in AI, bots, and even the "Operator" no longer being there,it is possible to get through. I just start dialing numbers, hoping that one will still work, better yet, might deliver me to a living human being from the age of He and She.
FIRST CALL: Why did CEO Scott O'Donnell, as the official story goes, which he confirmed when I reached him by phone, "resign" from circus world? Scott would only say that he and his overlords (aka: Wisconsin Historical Society) did not share the same vision for the future.
So, dialing for balance by reaching out to WHS and leaving messages with, among others, Colleen in Media Relations, she did return my call! I asked her if she could explain how they had come to loggerheads. She promised to consult with others and get back to me. This she did, but with not a single word answering my specific query. She sent me the same press release that I already had, which I quoted from in the story I earlier posted. An expert in the ways of the business world might be able to decode this, but I am not going there.
SECOND CALL: To Crypto Center (previously Staples) in L.A, about Ringling's recent three day stop there. To the guy, Lewis, who answered the phone, I said that I was hoping to get an estimation from them of the average number of customers in the seats per performance. He did not waste an empty second in evasion or passing the buck, but answered: "Between six and eight thousand." The arena seats 20.000.
Would that have been a disappointment to Crypto, I asked my source. "No," he replied.
You can look at the figure in two ways: What a flop! Not even half houses!
Or, you can look at the figure in context. Is there another circus out there anywhere in the world that draws that number of bodies in the seats?
EYES ON THE SCENE: And how did Ringling show? I have a deep state source who was on the scene and noted that the ends of the arena were blocked out. Pyrotechnics "were greatly reduced" and the large overhead screens were not in use.The show, he reported, was a "scaled" down version of what he had seen at an earlier date months ago, which amounted to him as a "thinning of the herd." (I like that) For example, an Ethiopian father and son foot juggling was not on the bill. Some of those in his party, he noted, were critical of the show, but he stood by the excellent review he had given the show when he saw it earlier in the season.
End of on-the-ground reporting the older fashioned way.
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
MIDWAY FLASH! MIDWAY FLASH! Scott O'Donnell to Leave Circus World ... Dave Salutos, Another Exit ..
updated: 9:21 AM
The sudden exit of CEO Scott O'Donnell from the ringmaster's desk at Circus World took me by total surprise.
News of his exit came through a Don Covington link. Naturally my first thoughts where, why? Had he been let go? So I called CW this morning, to inquire, and they put me through to Scott, which marked the first time we have ever spoken.
Was it his decision, I asked him?
Yes, he answered.
Why?
He said he does not share a new vision held by the state government, which now owns Circus World Museum. For most of its existence, CW operated as a virtual private enterprise. But that changed about four years ago, when the Wisconsin State Historical Society came in with much needed funding and assumed greater control. Evidently, they now want more power at the Top.
Momentous achievements on the job, not good enough? A press release from Circus World overflows in citing O'Donnell's "countless transformative contributions," including preservation of Ringlingville, creation of a master plan "that will enhance the visitor experience for generations to come," and the "driving force" behind the Society's acquisition of the Al Ringling Theatre. This and more, in but eleven seasons? Something is wrong with this picture.
I asked Scott if he will miss being there.
"I put my heart and soul into Circus World" he answered. Clearly, as I heard him speak, the job meant a great deal to him, and yet he is leaving without rancor, ready for an "encore" somewhere else.
Scott's departure will be in tandem with Dave Salutos, who is retiring at the end of the current season, following a 40 year run. Ominously, this adds another layer of implicit intrigue to a back story.
Sheer speculation on my part, we may find out what was really going on when we learn who will next assume the CEO desk.
There are some things in life that just don't make sense. This feels like one of them to me.
Sad to see you go, Scott.
Monday, August 19, 2024
Step Right Up! Snappy Snippets in Sawdust and Spangles! -- And It's All Free on the Inside!
The circus plays a big role in my new book Keep That Day Job! Here are some excerpts:
The Dark Side of a Spangle
Wallace Bros hired me to usher. A few weeks later, they recruited me to replace a fired clown. Now I was “with it and for it,” and now being one of them myself, soon — all too soon — reality’s wry sense of humor struck, when I was introduced to a real life sledgehammer. Sure, such a pleasure to meet you!
Dining, Haute-off-the-lot at Wallace Bros. Circus
$25.00 a week ... Not bad given the sweet free extras that come with the glories of performing — your flat bunk in the truck you share with the band, and the three full-course adventures served you each day in the “gut foundry” as some called it — while others preferred “ptomaine joint,” for cookhouse. One of our musicians regaled us over his having ordered chicken fracases for dinner and being served “fried flower”
Pitching Elephants to ABC from a Payphone
I am off skates, on a pay phone at the Greyhound bus depot in Chicago, having just arrived with a list of media contacts in hand. Time is of the essence, only three days before the circus of Sid Kellner, now titled George Matthew’s Great London, is to open in the suburb of Oak Terrace. I shove a lot of change into the phone, and start frantically dialing up local TV and radio stations, hoping to land free coverage
Typing through Tears
Up to my clerk's desk at a chemical company in Century City, steps the office manger, handing me a just published rave review in Variety of my musical, Those Ringlings. After reading it, I continue pecking dutifully away as a flood of tears come rolling down my face. No town like this town.
The Ringlings, as Cast in Hollywood
Jeffrey
Rockwell, who played Al Ringling was the son of Robert, who had played
Mr. Boynton on the TV version of Our Miss Brooks. Hal Landon, Sr.,
who played August Ringling, was in real life the father of Hal Landon,
Jr. The closest geographical link to Ringling history was Wisconsin
native Joseph Lustig, who took on the role of Alf T.
Wishing I Could Be with Sid
At my first Kaiser Steel Christmas dinner on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, while walking back to a private dining room the firm had secured, I spotted a former boss, Sid Kellner, sitting on a bar stool chatting with a woman of looks sitting next to him. How I wished I could be sitting with Sid instead. But Sid was from another time. And he could have been so much more, as I would profile in my book Behind the Big Top.
Buy your big show tickets now at the Amazon Annex!
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Show Me Some Dogs, and I'll Call You a Circus; Big Apple, Welcome Back!
Show's next Lincoln Center annual promises a more down-to-earth party. Best of all, I see doggies on the show's new poster. Do you? Are the current owners, whomever they are, daring to be a touch more authentic again? Golly molly, wonder of wonders, it looks like a circus is coming! Best of all, it still calls itself a circus!
Pardon my unintended sarcasm, but I am looking to circus to stave off the end of human civilization, as more and more, the digital world is competing to replace it with a nightmare alternate universe composed of what are called called "bots." I finally got around to googling out what those ugly four letters spell. Oh, you already know? ROBOTS. I am always, it seems, a few upgrades behind the latest gizmo. More and more, these clever invaders are making more humans feel less connected, needed, valued. More and more, we are coming closer to the inevitable showdown between us and them. I'd love to see a sci-fi flick in which the bot bastards go to war with each other and blow themselves up into impotent digital dinosaurs imploding over and onto each other. Crash and collapse!
Over in San Franfreako, here in the State of Insanity across the polluted bay, the new driver-less taxis are getting hissed at and attacked, smashed and left feeble, possibly by the Uber and Lyft drivers they are designed to render obsolete. How sorry I feel for those drivers. When I talk to them, I can feel the hurt in their voices, the void in their hearts. Many of them value what they are doing. And I recall Chinese premiere, Xie issuing an order to a few regions: If humans can do what your robots are doing, hire the humans. "Hire humans." How revolutionary. A preview of what may have to come?
Which, for me, makes real circus as opposed to the human and bots variety, a welcome retreat to the real.
The mere sight of some jumpy dogs getting to perform with humans tells me that, gradually, the public may come to see what has been lost under our tents in the name of progress. And then maybe a horse act, and then, maybe some riders, and then, maybe a pig down a slide. One step backward at a time.
There are still animals, plenty of them, in the Russian shows, and in many European shows too. And over here, among a few heroic hold outs, there is the Zoppe Family. As I have previously noted, the Zoppes play to a more sophisticated clientele down in the Redwood city main library parking lot, in the the heart of Silicon Valley.
Whatever happened to Jenny Vidbel? She deserves an apologetic encore. Bring back her magical menagerie, and let the circus be circus again!