Circus News — Including the Return of Ringling!

December 2 being the birthday of Charles Edward Ringling, I was primed to re-share my post on the Ringling Brothers (and Barnum and Bailey) anyhow, but fortuitously I just got the exciting news that some new version of their show is returning in the fall of 2023, as reported here, sans animals. I do, and will, miss the spectacle of trained animals (and feel free to spare me the lectures everyone’s heard 10,000 times before), but will be glad to welcome back this historic show in any, way, shape or form. I do think it might be prudent to stop calling it “the Greatest Show on Earth” now though. It hasn’t been that for about a century. If it comes to that, some of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen were presented in theatres the size of a phone booth anyhow. As I wrote here and here back in 2017, the show closed over a variety of issues — I can’t imagine that charges of animal cruelty was the only one. Go to their official website here to learn the latest.

But wait! There’s more! If you don’t feel like waiting nine months to catch the circus, there’s a ton of it happening in NYC right now!

You have about a week left to catch the Mexican show Circus Vazquez at Citifield in Queens through December 11. Tickets and info here!

For those who can’t bring themselves to leave the Upper West Side (I know people about whom that is literally true), my old workplace The Big Apple Circus is still up at Lincoln Center through January 1 — the star is Nick Wallenda (and his Fearless Family)! Info and tickets here.

Just got his in my mailbox this morning: Circus Abyssinia is coming direct from Addis Ababa with their new show Tulu. It will be at the New Victory Theater, Times Square from December 9 through January 1. Info and tickets here.

Last and hardly least, and only slightly off topic (cuz its not circus, though its related) my good friends at the Panto Project have their production of Dick Rivington and the Cat up at the Abrons Arts Center through December 18. Read my review of their inaugural production here for an enthusiastic rave about their work, then buy your tickets here

Bottom line: accounts of the death of circus are greatly exaggerated!