Circus Performers Who Blog From the Inside: Of What Value Are They? What Risks Do They Take?

A most interesting issue of the moment that is unlikely to go away anytime soon is the potential value to the consumer and researcher of the insider blog. As Kelly-Miller Circus manager James Royal views this new medium for instant expression with an unlimited reach, “In the past, circus people have tended not to be reticent in expressing their opinions. The only change in the present is that these opinions are made public on blogs.”

And, boy, what a difference that makes.

Renee Storey Checks In:

While at present big top blogging is unlikely to influence, one way or the other, the masses who but tickets to circuses (traffic on the sites appears confined to the insular circus community), it does have critical long-term ramifications for the owners. According to Renee L. Storey, vice president of marketing for Cole Bros. Circus, who took some e-mail time during the summer to share with me her feelings on the subject, already one circus to her knowledge has “incorporated company sanctioned/sponsored blogging in its marketing campaign. This affords the company opportunity not only to edit but exercise creative control over info published. It’s a good marketing tactic that produces glowing but less than inspired reports.”

Which turns upside down the negative side of blogging. But what about the worker-performer not amenable to puffing for producers, or the soul who may puff under pressure but who might also, upon leaving the payroll with a grudge, spread malicious rumors because, well, who is there to stop them out there in the vast wide-open cyberspaces?

"Frightening potential"

“Employee blogs hold frightening potential for exposing employers to liability, damaging their public image and internal morale, and causing other economic harm,” writes Jeremy R. Sayre on LocalTechWire.Com. Sayre is a labor attorney with the firm of Ward & Smith. “With no warning to the employer, even well meaning employees can post information on their blog that might ruin a business deal, violate the trust of a valued client or customer, or even put the employer in violation of securities regulations. While many employees' personal blogs feature legitimate, innocuous, and sometimes hilarious musings, the knowledge that vindication is only one damaging comment away also makes blogging an attractive medium for a disgruntled employee who wants to lash out against the employer.”

Renee Storey focuses in on a major problem fueling an ongoing debate among media watchdogs: “The .www makes it possible for anyone to easily publish anything, minus the ethics that are supposed to apply to professional journalists.”

This means that readers turning away from newspapers in favor of the free information available to them on internet websites and blogs can be ill-served through the minefields of half-truths and rumorous attacks that flourish on a great many postings.

Two Clowns Dish the Dirt:

Earlier this past season, I found much to like in the blog of Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs (The Adventures of Steve and Ryan), who clown on the Kelly-Miller show, primarily because it gave me a good sense of the overall daily attendance, and, more interestingly, it shed light on the personality and modus operandi of new circus owner John Ringling North II. For example, midway through the season, Steve shared news of his informal discussions with Mr. North about new ideas for 2010, obviously hoping to get asked back. But in other less flattering postings, Steve dissed bum audiences (no advertisement for this circus), and I was surprised when he chose to vent a conflict with the prop hands who, as he saw it, were anything but professional in assisting him and Ryan.


Added to the grievance of Copeland and Combs was the issue of expected tipping to the prop men. This provoked a lively round of comments, one from a veteran performer correctly pointing out an organizational protocol for issuing a grievance, which evidently was not followed. The post and follow-up comments left an unflattering impression of Kelly-Miller management remaining passive on the sidelines, of a show unable to solve what should have been a solvable problem. Now, had this item been reported by a reputable newspaper, the other side of the story would probably have been researched. What might the roustabouts have said in their defense? James Royal would certainly have been offered a chance to respond. As it was, we only got one point of view. Fair?

Says John Ringling North II:

Kelly-Miller owner and producer North shared his view on blogging in an e-mail message to me: “Our constitution guarantees freedom of speech, so Steve and Ryan are entitled to whatever they like.”

Indeed, North’s position is compatible with a general consensus within law offices that employers have little legal basis for controlling what their employees may wish to blog about, short of disclosing trade secrets or committing other grave indiscretions. Copeland and Combs were offered and signed a contract to return to Kelly Miller in 2010.

What Circus Owners Can Do:

Circus owners must navigate a tricky line between, on one hand, honoring the constitutional rights of their employees, and, on the other, protecting their corporate interests and reputations against such things as defamation, harassment and breech of confidentiality. Summing up, Sayre writes, “A few keystrokes and a click of the mouse are all it takes for a blogging employee to harass or intimidate coworkers, make defamatory statements, disseminate proprietary information, or divulge trade secrets. If an employer wishes to limit its exposure, it should carefully consider taking steps to communicate its expectations to its employees unequivocally and to enforce its policies consistently and lawfully.”


Bloggers Benefit History and Reporting:

Such blogging is of great value to researchers, consumers and fans. Ultimately, it is the blogger who may assume the greater risk, for not every show owner is likely to share John Ringling North’s easy-going acceptance of carte blanche free speech. A reputation for honest tell-all blogging or agenda-driven rants may not be welcome at shows overly protective of their image, and this could short circuit career opportunities up the road.

Renee Storey offers cautionary advice for active bloggers within her profession: “Most circus employees work season to season at the will of the circus owner who may chose not to contract a disgruntled employee for the next season. Understanding that biting the hand that feeds you does not promote job security may encourage some bloggers to engage in self-censorship.”

They may have the law on their side. But not all of the big tops.

Friday Fliparounds: China's Emerging Greatest Show on Earth ... A Tawdry Bio on Cirque King Guy Laliberte Fails to Deliver, Says Bloomberg ...

A terrific new Big Apple Circus YouTube teaser left me charmed by one act in particular — two wry Chinese guys, the Long Twins, who end up in two barrels cavorting in a very funny manner. Comedy from China? Once seriously ground bound, their crack acrobats are more and more flying high, and now they are clowning it up or down, too. What next — a dog act that doesn’t end up on somebody’s plate, ho ho? I am starting to see a Buddha big top. All they need are a few animals. I share this remarkable insight with friend Boyi, and he tells me of a very clever monkey who performed for him years ago in his village. The charming chimp did “flips,” dressed up and walked like a human and then “passed a tray around” for donations. Okay, so maybe we've got a bookable chimp, and I've heard of two pander bears over there who perform. All they need are a few Montreal designer insects. Read on ...

Speaking of which (animals, that is), Wade Burck takes me to task for maybe being to hard on Kenneth Feld. Says the cage man, “the animal rights movement kicked into justified action with a full head of steam in the late 70s/early 80s fueled by many producers/trainers revered as heroes. The ‘Feld myth’ that you point out as ‘crashing’ is residual fall out from the sorry history that the industry had before it was forced to change itself. Everybody operating today and tomorrow will be dealing with the sins of the past. Point a finger in the right direction if you want to help change the situation.” ... Okay, Wade, but we still have that awful video issued by PETA appearing to reveal blatant elephant abuse, and I remain more than curious about how, according to a Feld Entertainment press release, it was “deceptively edited.” Believe, me, I would love to learn that the damaging film footage was edited into false testimony, but I can no longer hold my own (possibly self-created) myth about Mr. Feld as being a man genuinely dedicated to the proper treatment of animals.

Monkeys to Insects: From Montreal to San Francisco come the latter, all dressed up for Cirque’s new touring attraction named OVO. $65.00 (not counting additional fees) will get you the best worst seat in the tent. Maybe I’ll try to sidewalling this one. I’m skinny enough to pass for an insect myself. (I’m laughing, are you?)

About Cirque du Soleil, its fearless leader Guy Laliberte could not nix the publication of the sleazy tabloid tome about him that alludes to all sorts of late night parties for free lovers and loaders. Reviewing it for Bloomberg News, Steven Frank expresses acute disappointment that a major chance to deliver on this remarkable story was so botched up and blown aside by gossipy author Ian Halperin. Says Frank (largely in sync with what Henry Edgar earlier told us), the author “skims over parts of Cirque du Soleil’s history while spending an inordinate amount of space on titillating tales from people identified only by a first name or a pseudonym.” Laliberte is a “great creative force worthy of a major biography. But Halperin’s book, sadly, isn’t it.”

Naked Residuals: When I read about the Naked Clown Calender 2010 being put out by the San Francisco Circus Center, all I can do is rue the strange subversive demise of its once-vital predecessor named Pickle Family Circus, and wonder why this had to happen to Larry Pisoni’s little touring gem. Nothing more is what’s left of the post Pickle operation than a concession cow for a few individuals who pitch lessons to students seeking circus careers who mostly dabble and then go no where. Maybe as insects they’d have a future. Sad but true. I sigh. And I take heart looking elsewhere, such as to Oakland where the promising Circus Bella (there they are in the photo), a new Bay Area troupe reminiscent of the old Pickles, is striving to make a name for itself. I hope they can. We need a circus, not a failed institution that pushes veiled porno. Yuck! What an insult to the Pickles that were. Go, Bella, Go! (in your costumes, please)

End Ringers around Dragon Well: Heck, there are none. They all got puffed in the Big Show! Meet me here for more of the same in a few or a thousand days ... No more teasers, Big Apple. I am not calling Amtrak!

[top photo: Qibi Acrobatic Troupe, China]

Broadway’s Cruel Reversals Tumble, Humble Once-Invincible Neil Simon. Is Disney Next? ...

What a breath taking shock to discover that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs, greeted in revival by a slate of glowing notices. closed in just one week. Repeat: one week.

Simon, once the king of comedy along the Great White Way, told a reporter how he was “dumbfounded after all these years.” Indeed, what happened to his revered play feels almost like a public assassination. The New York Times described it as “one of the biggest commercial flops on Broadway in recent memory.”

“I still don’t know how Broadway works, or what to make of our culture,” said the humbled 82-year-old author of numerous hit shows, among them The Odd Couple.

And now, another planned Neil Simon revival, Broadway Bound, is no longer Broadway bound, nixed, too, for lack of sufficient advance sales.

Next for the chopping block may be Disney, already in a slow motion free fall. The tortuously adapted stage version of its instant film classic, The Little Mermaid, which provoked scathing notices, closed last June, less than two years on the boards. Today, less than two years on the boards amounts to box office failure. Before that, another Disney turkey, Tarzan, clomped out of town amidst critical disgrace and customer indifference.

I never quite bought the Disney act. Its productions have a slick manufactured look and feel to them. Yet to be seen is how long its Mary Poppins, a mixed-notice co-production with another foundering producer, Cameron Mackintosh, can last.

Simon may not have lost his touch; audiences may no longer respond to his pen. But there are things to be said against Brighton Beach, essentially about a contrived third act that resolves conflicts raised in its finely wrought earlier scenes with sit-com simplicity. I left the show years ago feeling that Simon had missed a chance to reach the level of O’Neil or Williams.

Broadway produces high drama itself, merely by dramatizing the vexing ironies of how art and commerce intersect. I’ve seen plodding audience pleasers in recent years (Elton John’s cardboard Aida – it did well) and absolute gems (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels -– it didn’t).

Has anything really changed on Times Square? Gone, it seems, are the long-running contributors who can be counted on to stock stages with popular entertainment over long lush hauls. The remarkable Richard Rodgers, who worked first with Larry Hart and then with Oscar Hammerstein II, enjoyed four prolific decades. So did pop master Irving Berlin. Cole Porter’s output spanned a good thirty years. Other master creators, like George Gershwin, died all too soon.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, a contemporary giant, suffered widespread critic indifference -- some might call it outright abuse -- when he came to town. Never mind the envy. This master of melody and showmanship landed five hit shows in New York, and his Phantom of the Opera is now the longest running production in Broadway history.

From whence the next Rodgers and Hammerstein? The next Andrew Lloyd Webber?

We can always count on the one- and two-hit wonders. Think Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line; They're Playing Our Song). And the town is also a place where promising talents get many second chances and yet still fail to turn a profit for the producers. Think Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, whose plodding and didactic Ragtime is now in previews, set to be revived next Sunday. Maybe this time it'll work. Advance praise from avid fans and a good notice in Variety suggests a better outcome the second time around. But don't count on anything. New York has yet to weigh in.

John Kander and Fred Ebb, a couple of giants, came to town with many fine shows, but only two of them clicked, and one — Chicago — is now New York's longest running revival. The other is Cabaret. I'm hoping their score-rich Steel Pier will get a second chance someday.

Indeed, musical theatre is a devouring mistress who usually turns away her most ardent creative suitors sooner than later. Lerner and Loewe first struck gold in 1947 with Brigadoon. Thirteen years later, following the lucky success of their critically dismissed Camelot, they went their separate ways. Two revivals of the leaden Camelot suffered more critical disdain; both return visits were out the door within weeks. Remember the long-running off-Broadway phenomenon, The Fantasticks? Its creators Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones landed just one hit on Broadway -- I Do! I Do! Popular music giant Johnny Mercer courted Times Square for many years, mostly in vain. In 1956, he finally hit a minor jackpot with his Ll'l Abner, which managed to outfox a set of widely mixed reviews.

And what is to become of the ultra gifted Adam Guettel, grandson of Richard Rodgers? His masterfully wrought, Tony award winning The Light in the Piazza played out a respectable thought profitless run at Lincoln Center. I fear for the future of so accomplished an artist in so treacherous a place.

Now, in lieu of established names, Broadway gets by with more than a little help from a handful of monster hits (Lion King and Phantom of the Opera, Mama Mia, and promising new candidates like Wicked and Jersey Boys) that can generate winning ticket sales for decades, a feat unheard of thirty seasons ago. And Broadway stages stay open, thanks also to rentals for revivals of popular shows created by yesterday’s top talents. Finian’s Rainbow just opened to upbeat notices. West Side Story is doing well in revival. So is South Pacific and so was Hair, but “golden age” classics rarely hang around for longer than a couple of seasons. Others less lucky or ill-directed, like Guys and Dolls and the recently opened Bye Bye Birdie, do not enjoy guaranteed respect and patronage merely by returning to the Broadway battlefield.

Steven Schwartz is something of an aberrational rarity -- a composer who struck gold in a second act that may turn out to be bigger than his first, with his mega hit, Wicked. And then, at the top of the revival heap, there is legendary Stephen Sondheim, the prince of trenchant tuners whose acclaimed musicals rarely turned a profit when originally produced. Sondheim has great shelf life; his work gets revived regularly.

Broadway is a strange place. A show can bomb there and have a huge afterlife elsewhere. A Broadway flop is a Broadway show in any other town, and a Broadway show is all the public wants to see. They're funny that way.

“I‘m dumbfounded. After all these years, I still don’t know how Broadway works or what to make of our culture.”

Neither does anyone else, Mr. Simon. Welcome back to the club you once ruled.


[photos of people: Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers; Chicago cast members Nicole Bridgewater, James Patrick Sands, Dylis Croman, and Donna Marie Asbury; Adam Guettel; Neil Simon and Elaine Joyce on opening night of the revival of Brighton Beach Memoirs]

Sunday Morning with Carl Augustus Heliodor Hammarstrom: An Artist Awaiting Recognition? ...

Across the street to Playland-at-the-Beach we went on foggy nights, my sister Kathy and I holding his big warm hands. He would buy us salt water taffy or popcorn, or a hard crunchy chocolate covered “It’s It” ice cream bar. Neons flickered through surging ocean roars, through the shouts of soldiers and their girlfriends riding the Big Dipper roller coaster.

Across the street from the Big Dipper is where we lived, in a two story brick house in Golden Gate Park, set poetically in the shadows of the North Windmill. My grandfather and then my father following him were park gardeners. With their city jobs came the house. My Uncle Smitty managed the Big Dipper directly across the street. My dad installed electrical shock effects in the Laugh-in-the-Dark and the Dark Mystery rides, and he worked on the Dipper, too, night after night through the war years, manning the grips.


Out back of our house stood an old shed, filled with must and paint and canvas. And old clocks and easels. Filled with a special atmosphere. That’s where my grandfather had labored over his passion in days gone by. Now, he lived in a small tent a few hundred feet in front of our house, where on pleasant Sunday afternoons, the locals would picnic on a spread of grass. Each morning I would take Grandpa a cup of Oval-teen. Under his bed once, I discovered the bike that Santa had planned to give my brother Dick on a Christmas day. The same magical December morning, I received my most prized gift ever -- a Lionel train set.


I’m not sure what dampened Grandpa's spark for painting. I never saw him create a single canvas. By the time I came along, he was spending most of his time sitting in a chair in an engine shed that drew water from the ground. The power for that task had been supplied by the windmill until it was stripped of its muscle and steel for wartime use.

What a family: A painter. A father (seen, right, in the photo) and uncles who worked on a roller coaster. A great uncle (Eugene B. Lewis) who enjoyed a screen writing career in the silent days down in Hollywood. And my mother, who had wanted to be a singer and got only as far as one timid audition, and never went back. She settled into the safe inviolate role of full-time recreational dreamer.

My kindly, quiet grandfather, the son of a sea captain, had come to San Francisco from Gotland, Sweden in 1885. He worked as a street car conductor (during spare moments, sketching out the faces of his customers); by another account, he worked on the cable cars. Following the earthquake of 1906, which demolished his studio, he lived in a tent next to the Cliff House. Whether his wife, one Anna Pelch from Bohemia, shared the tent with him I do not know. She died at a very young age. Sometime later Grandpa got the park job. With it came the windmill which he operated and maintained, and the brick house in which he alone — with the help of a murky succession of “house keepers” -- raised six or seven children.

Artist Carl Augustus, who studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute and privately with Gottardo Piazzoni, made a local name for himself. From two news stories I have, evidently he was called simply "Hammarstrom" by local critics, whose discriminating respect he enjoyed. Some of his work won display space at the San Francisco Art Association, the Del Monte Gallery in Monterey, the Alaska Yukon Exposition in Seattle in 1909, and, finally, at the glorious Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939. I am so happy to know he got this far, for from the movies I have seen of the event, what an enchanted setting it was. Close to his 90th birthday, he passed away in 1954.


Hard for me to judge his work; he is my father's father. That having been said, some of it I find perfectly fine. Especially am I engaged by its serene moodiness, a mark of the period. After all these years, there is some interest out there in cyberspace for the work of Carl Augustus Heliodor Hammarstrom. Here are a few of the images I came across on the internet. My brother Dick discovered that one of them sold at an on-line auction this summer for $600.00. Yes, not much, and I hope it wasn’t to a member of our family. I do know that a few years ago a Los Angeles gallery owner e-mailed me, expressing interest in acquiring what I might be willing to sell. We talked by phone. She judged him "a fine landscape painter," but said she would need a large body of his work for a viable try at building up a demand. I only have a precious few of his paintings, one being the last displayed here (misleadingly lit when I snapped it), my favorite. Not for anything would I ever give it up. That lonely enchanted place is exactly where I came from.


Thank you, Grandpa, for reminding me.

Sunday Side Up: Crash Moreau to Feld: Fire Bad Trainers! ... NYT to BAC: Yes, We Still Love You ... Bandwagon Remembers Stuart Thayer

Crashing a Feld Myth? I was gratified, reassured, reinforced and retrofitted, validated and exhilarated to discover that Crash Moreau, sometime recently on his blog (you’ll find it to your right) has challenged Kenneth Feld to fire the animal trainer(s) responsible for the abuse that is all too convincingly obvious on the tape made by an undercover PETA agent, a tape that has left many of us aghast. Here are the main points in Crash's posting:

“I have to express my feelings ... I am not an animals rights activist as I believe animals should be in the entertainment business. But what I saw and I know, this is not an old video clip as one of the handlers has been with Ringling since 2008 which makes it an updated video ...The time has come for the Ringling organization to do the right thing. First: Anyone involved on the tape should be ... fired with no exceptions. This does no need to happen for any reason ... Second: Ringling should bring up charges against all the ones that were beating on the elephant and the judge should throw the book at them PERIOD.”

I can only hope-assume that most in the circus community share Crash’s outrage and demand for corrective action. I would add one other request: Ringling needs to immediately back up the claim it put out in a press release alleging that the video was “deceptively edited.” If so, Ringling, how, how, HOW??? Mr. Feld: my long-held respect for what I perceived (naively, I'm afraid) to be your total micro-attention to proper treatment of your animals has been shaken to the bone. I no longer believe you. Now, if you can prove to us that the video was "deceptively edited," once again, I ask you to show us now. Thank you, Crash.

Another Big Apple Circus Charmer: The annual New York Times valentine to Big Apple Circus in the form of a thoroughly positive review was composed this year by one Ken Jaworowski, who gives them a full White Tops endorsement: He loved Bello, found nothing to carp or question. “This is one terrific troupe.” New York, you are one lucky town!

Remembering a research master of many index cards: The passing in June of circus historian Stuart Thayer, as covered with profound affection by Fred D. Pfening III in the latest issue of Bandwagon, is a sad story. Sad because if Thayer was, as Pfening alleges, virtually the greatest in his class, why such anonymity? According to Pfening, Thayer’s “best work is the best ever written on the subject ...the quality of his scholarship is unprecedented and unmatched.” What is so puzzling is why Thayer could not find a publisher to promote his work and get it out to readers beyond the CHS. “He had little interest in impressing anyone,” Pfening writes. “He self published his books, usually with minuscule press runs.” We are not told whether or not Mr. Thayer actually tried to find a publisher. And if not, why not? Was he forced in default to publish himself? (I know, through countless humbling rejection slips, how hellishly difficult it can be to find a regular royalty publisher out there.)

I could not purchase any of Thayer’s books on Amazon if I tried. All “unavailable.” I did a world library search to discover that one of his tomes is on the shelves of only six libraries, another on just sixteen. Compare that to Earl Chapin May’s 1932 masterwork, Circus From Rome to Ringling, which remains in well over 500 libraries. A brief Wikipedia bio of Mr. Thayer that reads as if it were penned by Pfening is preceded with this note from the editors: “This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (June 2007).”

Because I have great respect for the CHS (recent Bandwagon articles by Bill Taggart on Ringling grift, Mike Straka on phone rooms, amount to courageous revelations), I have to give Pfening’s Thayer claim strong consideration. But Pfening is a human being, too, with opinions of his own; he previously slighted the magnificently rich (in my opinion) May work. Why not, Pfening & Pfening, an article in your words telling us why Mr. May’s book is so “overrated,” and listing the top three books on American circus history from your well-informed points of view?

Truth has a hard time finding an audience, I fear, if there are too many foot notes, too much contextual detail, or too little narrative thrust. Now, if it was Stuart Thayer who tracked down the first portable circus tent back to J. Purdy Brown in 1825 (identifying a signal turning point in U.S. circus history), that is the sort of research that merits lasting respect, whether found in a compelling read or a finely wrought thesis.

Biggest Mystery Under the Big Top: How Many People Went to the Circus? ... Ringling in Europe Illustrates ...

Are you a Yankee’s fanatic? I bet you could get me annual attendance figures if I asked.

Film buff? You probably know that 90 million people went to a movie every week during the forties, but only 30 million during the fifties. They say it’s a fact.

Hard core Beatles fan? I assume you know which of their albums sold the most copies.

Now, I’m a circus fan, so please don’t ask me any such questions, for I can’t answer them, and I'll tell you why. In fact, I wish I'd addressed this vexing historical issue with TV documentary film producer Philip Weyland during my Miguel Vazquez interview in Los Angeles last July. Here is what I might have said:

“Let me tell you something, Phil. You and I both share a general sense that attendance at circuses has declined markedly over the last thirty years. In fact, we are both only making guesses, because, and here it is important to note, unlike virtually all other entertainments, circus ticket sales are not tracked by any agency whatsoever. They remain a total mystery. Reporters and writers following the movie, theatre, pop music or sports fields, in comparison, enjoy the luxury of transparent factual sales information from independent tracking sources. We who write about circuses have none. And so we speculate based upon our own head counts at the shows we attend and upon rumors and reports, many of which are likely slanted to either puff up or push down the actual number of bodies in the seats. And that makes it, personally, very frustrating for me in trying to write accurately about historical business trends at circuses.”

Here is an of-the-moment illustration of the problem: A few of us have been wondering aloud about business at Ringling’s Gold Unit in Europe. One Anonymous source implied poor advance ticket sales in Spain. Another source, “Barb D,” who works for Feld Entertainment and has toured with the Gold Show in concession sales, has posted a couple of comments that challenge skeptical views of ticket sales. Compared to Steve Copeland's vague references on his blog to business on the Kelly-Miller Circus ("average sized crowd," etc.), Barb D's summations offer breathtaking clarity. However, since she works for the Felds, I must be on my guard, which is not to say that I distrust Barb D, only that I must take her information in context. Here are excerpts from her two comments:

1. “Milan opened with a bang...again, capacity about 2000 with only a few empty seats.”

2. “Milano was decent....the house held approx 2000 and most shows were three quarters.”

Now, how are we to interpret this? I’d say that a strong opening fizzled out to “decent,” agreeing with Barb’s account and assuming it is accurate. “Most shows” to me suggests that probably more than half the shows did about three-quarter business. So I would then guess that, overall, the circus played to, let’s assume, 60% capacity, or — if the venue actually seats 2,000 people — 1,200 to 1,300 patrons per show on average. Do I believe this as fact? No. I regard it as a strong likelihood. "Fair business" is how I would characterize the stand. And that is my best guess based on the information that I have at hand. It is, sadly, nothing like what I would have to work with were circuses accountable to a neutral reporting agency, same as -- you name your favorite entertainment pastime.

Be it a rock concert, ice show, Broadway musical or hot new film, everybody wants to know: How many people went?

At the circus, unless you were there, you may never know. It remains the best kept secret under the big top.


[photos, from top: Ringling-Barnum at Verizon Center, Manchester, New Hampshire, 2009 -- crowd size estimated by Crash Moreau to be less than 25% of available seating -- about a third of the seats were not used owing to the new truncated performance setting; Kelly-Miller Circus plays to a full tent in 2009; the last under-canvas performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey in Pittsburgh, July 16, 1956, with approximately 9,000 people inside the big top]

Sunday Scramble: Big Apple Bello Lopsided? ... Ringling Tongue Twists Another Puzzlement ... Cirque Storms Russia ... Death Stalks the Big Top

Another So-So Big Apple Circus? ... First review I could find of Bello is Back! comes from Peter D. Kramer on his blog In the Wings. Kramer found Bello Nock in return to be “good news and bad news” for the show. Bello’s engaging comic and acrobatic contributions, wrote Kramer, “makes Big Apple’s less comic and less daredevil acts pale by comparison.” The critic expressed disappointments in several of the acts. He gave high marks to identical twin Chinese contortionists Long Jun and Long Bin, Picaso, Jr. and Barry Lubin’s Grandma. “Other acts lose their luster when compared to past Big Apple productions.” I'm waiting for the New York reviews, expecting them to be generally-generically supportive as they usually are.

The Russians are lining up to get their first taste of the Cirque du Soleil magic. 80,000 tickets already snapped up, Guy Laliberte happily noted. “Russia has a strong circus tradition. This is a good place for Cirque du Soleil.” He might have gratefully added that his artistic empire, in fact, owes its heritage to this very spot on the globe. The roots of Cirque are solidly in Russia soil. And if you don't believe me, just ask Guy Caron. Twenty percent of Laliberte’s artists, in fact, are Russian. BTW: the big bop boss got back from up there in space AOK.

Kenneth “Overly Clever Title Concoctor” Feld: Please enroll me in your Ringling Tongue Twister Titles pronunciation school. I’m still trying to pronounce Barnum’s Ka, Ka, ka LAID oh, or collide and scrape, shape ... skip? ... Then there was that long and winding name alluding to something out of Monte Carlo years ago. Now from Feld’s Funqueurlous Name Division comes this: Barnum’s FunundrumSM. It's the letters “SM” that sometimes appear at the end of this name that give me pause. I mean, are the Felds taking on Cirque’s porno unit in Vegas? The advance press agenty is spell binding, complete with a typo. “Thrill seekers may pay for the entire seat, but will only need its edge as a rip-roaring" ... and you know the rest of the drill. Let’s get to the best one and a real howler: “funomenal animals” What is a funomenal? Is that me? You? Animals raised on funomenal? Oh, it’s so vaguely fun, I say, let’s funvaguely Feldge forward: “the funtastic and the funbelievable experience answers the conundrum...” Please somebody, untwist my tongue before I gag on all the Feldific fun! ...

End Ring Twitters Down the Covington Chute: San Antonio Witt Museum to open a new wing “Circus Folk: Secrets Behind the Big Top,” incorporating, anong an array of items, a 1902 Gentry Bros. Wild Animal Show wagon; a timeline tracking a circus at the time; video segments and “chewed on chairs” from Clyde Beatty’s act ... Cirque's Kooza drew an L.A. Times rave out of Santa Monica, causing cyber catcher Don Covington to aptly note, as if spotting a rare drop of water in a desert, “reviews!” ... Good news about the hereteforic profiled FunununudriummmenialSM is that Johnathan Lee Iverson is returning to the ringmaster role; that guy had such great potential when he first hit Ringling -- until he turned his restrained persona to Afro-Centric gospel hall. No, no, no, sayeth Showbiz David! ... Dangerous Russian Rehearsals: Here is tragic news to report and respect: A skating Russian bear with an ice circus in rehearsal in Bishkek turned on and killed the manager, Dmitry Potapov and mauled another worker. Bear was shot and killed by police ... Sadder still is the death of Ukrainian gymnast Oleksandr Zhurov arising out of a mishap while practicing on a Russian swing during a CDS rehearsal in Montreal. Said Guy Laliberte, “Today, it is all of Cirque that is in mourning. An incident like this reminds us of the courage and determination displayed by our artists each and every day. They are exceptional human beings who share their talents with great generosity.”

Well said, Mr. Laliberte. I share your same deep appreciation and sadness.

Kelly Miller 2010: Poema Risley, Rice Animals, “First Time in America” Aerialist, New Copeland-Combs Gags; Torales Twist on Rolla Bolla ...

In a recent production meeting on the Kelly Miller lot hosted by circus boss John Ringling North II in his “Jomar,” (no, not the rail car but a mobile version), ideas “were flowing,” according to inside information supplied to Showbiz David by show manager Jim Royal. Next year’s opus will feature two new clown production numbers and a walkaround from returning laugh-makers Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs. Shriners in greasepaint need not apply at this circus. And that’s good news.

Adrian and Nellie Poema offer an “incredible risely act,” in Royal’s estimation. And from what I’ve just seen on a couple of You Tubes, his high regard is well placed. At the very least, this charismatic family from Peru are a minor sensation who should hold their own in any ring or venue. They mix clean crisp executions with high-line showmanship and verbal comedy from the kids and a simple knock-out zippy zesty payoff. They will stop the show for Kelly Miller. And if properly used, they should provide plenty of color and personality to production elements.

“We are working on a rather interesting production number,” added Royal, “with some twists, but I can’t reveal it yet.”

North II is currently in negotiations with an unnamed aerialist whose appearance would mark a “first time in America” booking.

The diversified Rices, with a performing menagerie of dogs, camels, ponies and donkeys, are advancing to North II's payroll following two seasons on the Cole show. The veteran trainers arrive with some promising critical cache. A tough Brooklyn Paper reviewer this past summer termed two of their acts “a blast.” Crash Moreau rated their four-camel act the “best” he has seen on any show in years.

A “completely different” Friedman Torales twist on the rola bola is on the bill, reports Royal. Other returnees include Casey McCoy’s tigers, Armando Loyal’s elephants, and Natalie Cainin’s dogs recast in a “themed” number.

“The program is not complete at this time,” said Royal.

Impressively absent from Royal's e-mail are three entries from last year that all struck me as show retarders: hula hoops, motor bike up a wire, and a group horse-back riding effort that many charitably regarded as a work in progress.

So, what to think? Two dog acts on any show makes that show in my doggy opinion automatically twice as entertaining. Mix in the inventive comedy antics of admirably ambitious Copeland & Combs, add and season in those terrific Poemas, and it sounds like a ground pleaser in the works.

On paper, so far the spread looks out-to-lunch above the ring. Yet to be known is how JRN II will fill the air, and just who this sought after “first time in America” thriller might be.

Show goes into the barn this Monday.

Sunday Speculator, Europe to Feld: ICE, not SAWDUST ... Now, Would John Ringling North II's Designer Dung Do?

Will Ringling-Barnum ever conquer the old world? This latest attempt to capture European patronage by offering them one ring in a building does not appear to be paying off. Already, earlier slated visits to England, Germany, France and Belgium, in venues usually played by the Disney ice shows, have been axed, per sketchy reports. In fact, everything about Kenneth Feld’s foray abroad is rather sketchy, but I twitter on, Tweet! Tweet! Circulating rumors, some posted on this very midway, allude to “lousy” advance sales in Spain. Seems the Europeans are asking aloud, why would I want to see a one ring show with only two American performers? Hmmm, well, ah, either, Over Here, we lack American performers —- or our producers aren’t hiring them other than to push canvas and pitch coloring books ... Don Stacey, are you ready to bash once more what I am about to reference? Here goes: John Ringling North (the original) took a crack at Europe in 1963-1964, lasting a full four months and then calling the whole thing off in a fit of Northian haste, either fearing the loss of more money or unentranced by less than stellar reviews (they and the biz were both respectable, to put a full tweet on the matter). JRN did not exactly flop out, not anywhere near. At least he gave old Europe new America (as in three rings). Mr. Feld is not giving Europe America, nor is he giving it to them in a tent. And so they aren't giving back ... Oh, let's leave Over Here ...

And what is there back here? We have designer dung to sample, over here at the in-the-mud Keller Miller Circus festivals, according to a big story in the St. Louis Post- Dispatch. What a hoot. Tweeting for fun, John Ringling North II, I am thinking with a smile verging on a Felix Adler guffaw, has a dry wry sense of humor. The most laid-back of the Ringlings. This cool senior dude will be advancing into his senior year as a circus owner, and he’s now hosting production meetings, spreading out next season’s opus, and I’m waiting for details, sorta kinda promised by the royal version of North’s Concello — James Royal I. Stay tuned and all atwitter for future tweets on the matter.

Heck, I was supposed to be addressing those elephant emissions. Okay, “In some towns visited by the roadside circus [boy is that mud-on] people wait in line for the elephant dung,” reports the Post-Dispatch (or would that be the Dung Dispatch?) ... Fights are said to break out over first grabs for coveted Jumbo fertilizer. I am almost laughing ... “like the time three men scrapped over the last of the pachyderm poo,” according to the story. Saith North the Sequel (there he is strutting his lip with a side show manager in the 1950s), “You don’t put it on fresh. You need to compost it. Let it rot down. Then it really is super” No wonder North's tenter revels in making love to muddy lots. Now I wonder if our circuses will break out into poop battles, each boasting “the most magical manure on earth!” “Fresh off the back lot!” “Sacred White Elephant emissions!” “Dixie Dung!” “Pennsylvania Poo!” Stay with me on this, please, we are close to a Krisnamurti insight, courtesy of the Dung Dispatch writer: “Most people want elephant dung for their garden. It is held in high, almost mythical regard as fertilizer. And the circus gives it away for free.”

I’d better get a poop on before I tweet out ...

End Ring Twitters: Barbara Bird, chirping eternally, to Good Morning America; “You have to love this job or you can’t do it. It’s definitely in my bones, my blood, and in my whole being." And in your dung, too, Lady Byrd? "I was born on the road and I’ll probably die on the road. We want to stay in the business. We want to keep alive the circus in America." And I say, YOU deserve a song and the cream of the you-know-what for that lovely sentiment ... A film Children of All Ages, lensing in easterly places, and I wish I could see it, for it includes interviews with, among "many others," La Norma, La Claire, Woodcock and Herriott (seen in the photo above) ... But back to the smell of circus, if you’ll pardon my poop. I Just told my friend Boyi about the Kelly-Miller giveaways and he recalled happy encounters with our subject in his enchanted Chinese boyhood. During New Year’s back home, Boyi and friends put firecrackers into OX poop, ran back and watched the stuff explode into the air. Oh, the joys of life on the farm. “Only happens in the village” he insists, because outlawed in bigger Middle Kingdom cities. Mr. North, are you looking for a fresh new act angle? How about a most spectacular finale combing ancient traditions with earthy necessities. I was just served a thin stalk of celery wrapped in turkey. Now I'm ready for the rest ...

Tweet tweet! Oh, and I have so much more. Meet me here in a few furious days, all atwittered up in your finest mud ...

Ringling Singing Coney Return, But Deal Far From Done

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey wants to return to Coney Island next summer, and, what's better, they'd like to make it an annual event, according to a story in today's New York Post. Felds are said to be in active communications with the owner of the land they played on for a 2010 return.

"It makes sense for many reasons to come back to Coney Island," said Ringling Northeast Regional Public Relations Manager Paulina Pickarski.

Hold your horses! The elephants are not coming back just yet. The Post story outlines a more difficult and uncertain road ahead, reporting that the Bloomberg administration "will have to work its magic with developer Taconic Investment Partners," owners of the land that hosted Boom A Ring's three month stay this past summer. A possible roadblock are plans by developers to "someday" build condominiums on the vacant site.

Pickarski is doing most of the up-talking at the moment. "We see the value of being an annual event on Coney Island for reasons beyond ticket sales." She pointed out the 200 locals hired by the show to work the date.

New York City Economic Development Corporation spokesperson Libby Langsdorf expressed support for another Ringling visit, but "played the details close to the vest."

Pickarski termed the date "wonderful," and added that ticket sales "exceeded expectations."

So the Felds, it seems clear, are high on Coney. That's good news. Now, it's up to the land owners and local politicians.

Restart the negotiations. This is not a done deal.