Running away to join the circus
Well, I've been prompted to tell more circus stories. It only takes one and then I'll never shut up about it. I hope you're ready for it!!
It's kind of hard to just start talking about my time with Ringling Brothers - it's easier when I'm with a group of people and happen to mention it casually and then get a slew of questions - "Did you really live on a train?", "What did you do for them - were you a contortionist?", and the inevitable "How are the animals treated, anyway?"
I guess the best place to start is the beginning. I had a friend in grad school, Steve, who had left the circus to come to grad school. When we graduated, he got a better job with them and went off on tour with the Ringling Brothers Blue unit, 128th edition. I went off and worked a summer at a stock theatre in New Jersey, then went back to the alumni season of the program I had just graduated from to work on a show, then went back to NJ for a Christmas show and finally landed at the Virginia Opera in Norfolk, VA. About a month after I started working there, the circus came to town and it was Steve's unit (side note - Ringling Brothers now has 3 touring units - the red, the blue, and the gold. Red and blue follow the same routes but staggered by one year. The gold unit is smaller and plays much smaller towns) so of course I went to visit. I showed up to see him during the load-in, which was an overnight load-in. The animals walked into town from the stock cars at about 11pm and Steve arranged it so that I could accompany them. I walked with the Operations Manager, Dave, and got my first tast of PETA. Their headquarters is in Norfolk, so there were LOTS of protestors that walked right along with us. Dave insisted that everyone keep their mouths shut, since everyone who works for the circus and cares about the animals feels about the same way as I do about PETA. He didn't want any incidents to happen. Nothing actually occurred, but I came to realize that the animal walks were not usually that serious, quiet, and well-chaperoned.
Anyway, I hung around the load-in for at least 4 hours or so. I met my future husband, although he likes to remind me that I don't remember meeting him that night. I met lots of people over the course of that week. I got to see a lot of the operations of the Greatest Show on Earth, and it was really a neat experience. I think I got too tired to stay around 3 or 4am. Later in the week, I went by to talk to Steve again and he had me interview with the General Manager, Jeff. I later found out that Jeff would be leaving the unit to tour with a different show, Kaliedoscape, so Dave would be moving up to General Mgr and Steve would be Operations Manager, so they needed a new Asst Ops Manager. A few months later, Steve called and offered me the job. It was very hard to walk out on the VA Opera and it's one of only two theatre contracts I've left early. I gave them about 3 or 4 weeks notice, so they were able to replace me before I left.
I joined up with the show in Philadelphia, PA just before Easter in April, 2000. It was the start of a really fun adventure, which had plenty of difficult moments as well.
More later.....
1 Comments:
Didn't realize you could comment on every story. This one's my favorite so far. Later, Steve
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