New York: You’ve Got Circus! ... Steve and Ryan, You've Got My Au Revoir ...

Live in New York and still not circused out? Wait a few days, maybe only a few hours, and another troupe will come spangling into view. Beware of pachyderm poo. Look both ways when crossing Broadway; Thespians now share the street with jugglers. More circuses are on the way whether you like it or not. They are coming because, suddenly, the Big Apple is the Big Prize for big tops.Guy Laliberte, King of Montreal, just won’t go away, even if (or maybe because) you have yet to show him the love he takes for granted in other cities. Reports in The New York Times are that Cirque du Soleil’s Wintuk at Madison Square Garden theatre over the holidays drew 20 percent less biz than the previous year. And whatever Ringling-Barnum managed to bring off at...

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Kenneth Feld’s Dubious Coney Gamble Could Dramatically Reverse Ringling History ...

Showbiz David SpeculatesKenneth Feld, finally, has found a tent in which he can feel at home. I am thinking the one on its way from Europe to America, to be pitched over Coney Island when Feld's smaller Gold Unit will appear during the summer at the sagging seaside resort.Forget Kalaidoscape. As good as this Cirque du Soleil spin-off struck some as being, the man who for a moment wanted to go upscale and grab a part of the CDS market soon lost heart. Mr. Feld, I believe, simply realized how little patience or flair he has for such artfully crafted things, and how far better he is at the art of populist marketing. When recently, talking to a reporter, Feld described his operation, not without a touch of pride, as the Wall Mart of the circus world, I think the statement showed that he has come...

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Friday Nite L’Amyx: An Obit Made in Feld Heaven? ... Kelly Miler’s Asphalt-Averse Flyers? ... Cirque’s Insects in Spandex ... By the Byrds Blessed ...

Where do we start after all this time away? Let’s salute Barbara Byrd’s routing inspirations. Last year she pitched the last American three ring tented circus in the city of my dubious birth, San Francisco, out there at the Cow Palace. Now Lady Byrd is bringing her new one-ring Carson and Barnes compact to another of my boyhood settings, fifty miles north in Santa Rosa.. At the fairgrounds come June, and maybe on sacred sawdust: the very spot, I hope, where Clyde Beatty threw up bannerlines when I was oh-so-young. What symmetry! What is it about John Ringling North II’s lack of an advance sense that gives me pause? Take a look at Kelly-Miller's revamped blog and you’ll see a mishmash of photos both old and new, and a pull down window to check...

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And You Wonder, What Are They Thinking? ...

From the best -- or worst -- of Showbiz DavidOriginally published 12/07/07Rumblings down at the runs, waiting on a circus train from nowhere... Once upon a season they were all in the barn by now -- red wagons in need of fresh red paint, ring curbs for new stars, jacks and stringers for repair ... Now the elephants wait for cues that may never come ... To be or not to be? To perform or not to perform?Down at the runs, you wonder what Barbara Byrd is thinking. Strange how it should all come down to this -- from a man to a woman, from William Coup adding rings in 1872 to Barbara Byrd being the last to keep three of them in motion under the same canvas. Is she too thinking a single circle, or does she hear the ghost of her dad Dory telling her to stay the American course? ... Down in Florida,...

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