Circus World Musem’s Steve Freese -- the Barnum Baraboo Needs? ... He Leads "Water For Elephants" Research Parade

Call him a late-coming sawdust and spangles convert. While walking the movie set of Water For Elephants, which recently wrapped in Southern California, politician-turned-circus-museum-mogul Steve Freese, seen standing in the photo, felt a certain thrill watching the wagons he had loaned help recreate the look of a Depression era circus.

Indeed, when this promising film is released next year, circus fans who care about detail may marvel at the authenticity on display. If reports are accurate, they can thank Circus World Museum, which provided valuable research assistance not just to author Sarah Gruen, upon whose novel the film is based, but to the film company as well. In fact, Mr. Freese's pro active involvement in getting old circus museum wagons into the film revealed a flair on his part for the sort of promotional savvy that the world-respected institution he heads sorely needs.



After losing to a democrat in the 2006 Wisconsin State Assembly race, Freese, a 16-year State legislator and speaker pro team, got offered the executive desk at Ringlingville, a place forever in search of enough funding to avoid what insiders claim it has narrowly escaped: being sold off by its owner, the Wisconsin Historical Society.


And he went to work. This guy is not shy. This guy can infect you with his enthusiasm. Give him credit for getting the Milwaukee circus parade back in motion, at least for a season. As quoted by Rob Thomas writing in The Capital Times, Freese told of learning in 2008 that Fox 2000 had secured film rights to Water for Elephants, and promptly putting together a pitch package touting the museum as the ideal resource to supply wagons, props and other materials. He even came close to landing location shoots for the film in Wisconsin, but a snag in tax incentive proposals sent the production team back to Southern California.




Nonetheless, CWM followed them out after snaring agreements to supply use of old circus wagons. Of 215 wooden darlings considered by film producers, thirteen of which date back to the 1880s, 15 were loaded onto flatbed trucks and motored out west. There, they were re-lettered Benzini Brothers Circus. Escorting the consist to protect their sacred holdings were Freese himself and the museum’s devoted wagon superintendent Harold “Heavy” Burdkick. (Heavy was the super nice guy who allowed me to see closeup the old Foley & Burke Thimble Theatre fun house wagon, currently fading, or would that be rotting?, away in a back barn not accessible to patrons; repeat, this wagon more than deserves immediate rescue and restoration. This museum must end its ridiculous obsession with taking in and patching up every last circus wagon that stumbles its way.)

Additionally, Freese proactively supplied photographs and archival film footage, thus giving film producers vivid details with which to evoke rich period realism. Let’s hope they do. A single 1927 photo, shot from a Browning Instamatic camera, contained enough information to astonish Freese himself: “Its like, ‘Oh, this is how they stack their crackerjack boxes’ This is the brands of candy bars they had.’”

Prior to the shoot, director Francis Lawrence and associates visited Baraboo during pre-production research. Gruen had also consulted with CWM when preparing to write her best selling book about a depression era circus. Both Gruen and Freese, ever the politician, appeared together at Madison Square Garden in 2007 promoting the book’s paperback release.

Notwithstanding recent staff layoffs, including the highly questionable dismissal of their top-drawer archivist Erin Foley, about which I’ve previously ranted, this Freese may have the right hand-shaking, fun-raising, back-slapping stuff to help turn a critical corner down on Water Street.


New Visions Needed, Not Old Fords ...

Okay, there’s the good news. Now, here’s news that gives me pause to wonder. What Freese seems to lack, and perhaps that which he most needs, is a cohesive vision for the future. A vision that will draw significantly more patronage to the doors and bring more national attention to the museum as a vacation magnet. Freese’s efforts to jack up ticket sales range from suitable (scale model circuses) to downright odd; Come August 21, he’ll have on display for a day Model A Ford vehicles that rumbled off assembly lines between 2927 and 1931. Yes, competing with all those circus wagons for attention will be roadsters, coupes, phaetons, among other curiosities. It smacks of marketing desperation. Go figure.


So, how can the purists who believe the museum’s carnival holdings should remain incognito justify this strange kowtow to Mr. Henry Ford? A couple of seasons back, seems they had on the premises a touring scale-model White House replica. Now, if the Freese team is so ready to diversify its identity by offering such random irrelevancies, then why not delve deeper, at last, into their own backyard and pull out the carney rides and attractions? I still believe they’ve got the makings for something called Outdoor Show World Museum. Ford gets the limelight, but the Thimble Theatre, seen in the photo, above, when it arrived in 1972 from California, must remain shamefully ignored and neglected?


And I also still believe that Baraboo itself, not the museum, should be the sell --- a package holiday destination: Circus World, International Clown Museum, the Al Ringling Theatre, all of it only a few miles up the road from the Dells and all those roller coasters.

Freese has got to give the fickle vacation and leisure crowd more more more reasons to come to Baraboo.

The wagons used in the movie are back in Baraboo, where they can be viewed by summer crowds. And Freese can look forward to his own cameo in Water For Elephants, assuming he does not end up on a Hollywood cutting room floor, and get discouraged and return to the campaign trail.

An impresario for a season, or the real thing? Baraboo needs a Barnum. Even half a Barnum.

8/10/10

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All the World's a Circus: Laotian Elephants to China; German Bathtub Acrobats to Edinburgh; U.S. Billposting War Lithos to Shelburne

Covington Connected, here are a few juicy finds around the globe:

Bathtub acrobatics: Edinburgh Festival crowds were left "open mouthed" by the rare spectacle of scantly clad circus type performers cavorting as much in water as out of. Circle of Eleven, a German produced show that just completed a two-year run in Berlin (where else?), sends its sexy stars flipping and flopping, turning somersaults and hand stands over and around bath tubs. Will a shower circus be next? Here, in the photo, is Fernando Dudka, whose splashy exploits are described by The List, "a perfect balance of strength,precision and wet muscles. Show is said to give off "more louche cabaret tone."



Here's a kid in Laos (heck, he looks like he could be from Hugo, Oklahoma) who might become a professional elephant handler, and maybe the next Gunther Gebel Williams. He might go to work for a Chinese circus. He'd reap the whopping sum of $150 a month, more than a hundred bucks he could earn in his own country, "The Land of a Million Elephants.' Not nearly quite that many any more. More pachyderms, considered sacred for thousands of years by the respectful Laotians, being shipped against the will of local preservationist to other ports of entertainment in Asia. So revered are the Big Buys and Gals in Laos, that mothers bring their babies to be blessed by them ... "We are very concerned to see so many elephants, especially young ones and females, being exported to foreign countries," said Sebastian Duffillot, co-founder of ElefantAsia. Rues he, for several years now the best and the healthiest have been "rented" out of the country against existing laws that condemn such extractions. Worse still, once ready for return, the foreign agents often renege on funding their passage back. 19 elephants were dispatched to a Korean circus in 2002, and all of them were not returned but sold locally ...

Old Lithographs Never Die: Thrilled, tickled and historically impressed are they to have accidentally discovered several old 1883 Adam Forepaugh lithographs during a 1991 home restoration in Northern Vermont; better yet, underneath, the lithos of a rival operation named John B. Doris Menagerie and Circus that evidently lost the battle of the billposters that day. During the period, Forepaugh and Doris were embroiled in a nasty slander war, each slinging rat sheets at the other. Among the scurrilous insults, Forepaugh's worst charge was this rival had actually advocated the assassination of President William McKinley. Hmmm. Might McKinley have favored Forepaughs elephants over Doris's? ... Lithos on display in Sheulburne, under "Circus Day in America" until October 24.

Oh, to have lived then! When the circus came to town, all sorts of real-life drama followed it, as rarely it does any more.

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The Evidence that Animals Think and Feel Grows ...

Most interesting, a scientific chap on the Charlie Rose Show, talking about studies made of behavior among apes, etc., showing more and more the intricate thought and emotional interactions among these and other animals. The element of social "cooperation" is also discussed.

Circuses, I am more and more considering, are the perfect forum in which to teach children, as always they have, about the wondrous interactions between humans and the four-legged set.

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Morning Midway: Glimpses and Guesses About Semi- Elusive Cole Bros. Circus of Stars in 2010

Their updated website is fresh, vibrant, dazzling, intimately engaging. The lineup looks fairly promising -- not exactly content heavy, but covering some strong basics and culminating in a power fest down the home stretch.

I wish I'd seen Cole Bros. Circus of the Stars at Brooklyn. Like so many shows, it takes sleuthing or inside connections (sometimes a guessing game) to ferret out these shows well enough in advance to slate rails east. If you live in California, most of them are way east.

Anyway, I spotted a brief nod for Cole at Brooklyn under "things to do" in NY Time Out. Inspired me to revisit their website, and here are some images.

A photo of the tent looks like it's been expanded in size, which, if so, suggests business is up. How novel that would be!

Program items on paper that fancy my yearnings: The Flying Ponces,
a cloud swing aerial ballet and "lofty lyres" moving into a circus parade, closing out the first part. Lots of animals, a funny number called "Mr. and Mrs. Clown's Wacky Taxi Trip." End-stretch acts include a free-style motor show; globe of death and, as always, the Elvin Bale mandated (I assume) cannon blast off.

I've not hunted down a single review of the show, which is not a great surprise.

I hope the season does well and makes Johnny Pugh a happy trouper.

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Time Out NY Reviews Ringling's Illuscination

Note: I found this review, which appeared a few weeks ago on the website Time Out NY, to be independent and worth passing along.

The writer is Raven Snook:

Like last summer’s eye-popping Coney Island Boom-a-Ring!, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s latest seaside spectacle fits right in with the colorful neighborhood. Cool (if familiar) feats—juggling, tumbling, swinging and lion taming—inspire ooos and ahhs, but it’s the interactive preshow that really wows kiddos. That’s when wide-eyed kids can step right into the ring to try jump-roping, balancing and tightrope walking (don’t worry, it’s close to the ground!); don rhinestone-studded costumes and gawk at the animals up close. It’s certainly a great family photo op and definitely a circus highlight.

Not to imply that the show itself isn’t good fun. Although there’s no standout star like last year’s French-accented bicycle master, Justin Case, there are many memorable acts—if you’re patient. An energetic opening showcases the mind-boggling illusions of magician-emcee David DaVinci, but he quickly disappears. (Not his best trick.) In his absence, a trio of mildly amusing lowbrow clowns keeps things moving. A quirky cat act (when’s the last time you’ve seen one of those?) and a comical clown-and-horse routine salvage a somewhat slow first act. But don’t leave at intermission: The best bits are yet to come. Trainer Brian McMillan brings out a team of wildcats (including a rare snow-white lion) that nip and roar before turning into obedient pussycats. (The lethargic elephants, by contrast, don’t do much except inspire the ire of animal-rights activists.) The hilarious Kung Fu Kings, a feisty sideshow duo, bend metal rods around their necks like snap bracelets and jump through a spinning ring of fiery blades…while blindfolded. Amazing acrobatic troupe the Salsations end the evening on a high-flying note, prompting onlookers to question everything they’ve ever learned from Sir Isaac Newton.

Perhaps the show’s biggest selling points are its intimacy, location (it’s a special way to end a day at the beach) and relatively inexpensive ticket prices. You can snag seats for as little as ten bucks, and while they won’t be ringside (those are $50), it’s not like watching the circus from the back row at Madison Square Garden. Now all you have to do is perform the greatest trick of all: getting out of the tent without having to buy Junior one of those $20 light-up spinning balls.

newyorkkids.timeout.com

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Monday Misc. Leno Shows New Promise; Ringling's Coney Biz a Breeze? Fired Idol Judges, Good Riddance! BTW: Who Really Runs Big Apple Circus Now?

Late Night Needy: Okay, I’m making the rounds of the late night talk shows again, and coming up, ready?, Leno. On two nights this week, what a difference without that innocuously irritating ex-band leader named Kevin Eubanks, who drew away too much of Jay’s eye contact during the opening joke fest, as if Leno were playing more to Kevin than to me, the viewer. New music man Rickey Minor remained majestically silent, and I pray he stays that way. Then, more promising news: After the first break, Jay's desk bit was a howler; he spoofed ill-fated company mergers by holding up dispirit products and the oddball creations they produced. I was LOL. Now, if Mr. Jay will just stop his jay walking bits, he might have a future. Here's the anti-kicker: Leno's ratings in steady free fall since he returned to Tonight, though he still handsomely outdraws Letterman. But both talk shows trail "Nightline," so maybe TV's late nightaholics, down on all these talkies as stale, are onto something.

Crash Moreau Selectively Crashing? Why, me wonders, did our Crash, after taking in the Cole and Kelly-Miller shows, not leave one comment about either but only photos? Very unlike the verbiage he spends dishing out candid opinions of most circuses he crashes. Come on, Sir Moreau, tell us what rendered you a no-crash?

Ringling registers ringing at Coney? Though not up to last year’s artistically sterling opus, still this new show’s got more populist appeal, I’ll grant, and so my crystal ball sees better biz ahead at the seaside gig. Somebody out there, tell me I’m wrong...?

Crashing On: As for late night TV options, via VHS recorder I've now sampled both of the Jimmy’s, Kimmel and Fallen. Really tried. More than a single night. I guess both have potential, but both left me wanting. Leno is looking more like the returning champ. I still find Letterman’s opening the funniest overall, but after that, his desk bits, especially about his dull son, are so labored, rambling and ho-hum. As for restless late night addicts dissing "same old same old," he who can deliver the goods can endure the same old same old way. Yet to rejoin the mix, long shot Conan O'Brien, destined to drain some of Jay's fans and level the Leno-Letterman front.

Idol Judges: Not surprised that the two lady replacements were both dumped. They made, by default, sobbing Paula look oddly sympathetic and theatrically viable. American Idol will never be the same again; Imagine Lucy without Ricky, the Golden Girls without all the Golden Girls? That's what Idol has come down too. It was always about what Simon says, and his sidekicks were perfect compliments. Such chemistry is rarely reproduced.

What else? Paul McCartney, I am finally coming to grips with, has been taking Beatles encores for more than fifty years and counting. Singing the same great songs, which only reminds us that hardly has his post-Beatles work amounted to much, unless I've missed out. Something sad and frayed and time-worn watching him at the White House rousing the President's staff into a protracted and a bit lame "Hey Jude" sing out. That was never that good a
rocker. But Paul's one high point, post Beatles, "Band on the Run" got a terrific acid-rock workout from a singer whose name I now can't locate, making composer Paul sound subversively in sync with '60s hardliner rebels. Now, when you hear Sir Paul croon "Michelle," somehow you forgive the long winding largely lackluster creative read he has traveled alone since, and exult in what glories he gave us. To think, the most successful popular composer ever. And all of it achieved in such a relatively short period of time.

Big Apple Circus Intrigue: Can anybody out there tell me, who is really running this circus now? I suppose ultimately that answer rests with the board, and even they may not know, assuming they are not bored. I do hope they are less fractious than the Ringling-Barnum nut-go-round of directors during the turbulent family wars of the flaming forties. Was more than rumored that BAC co-founder Michael Christensen was to follow Paul Binder out the retirement door, which he evidently has not. Which muddies up waters of transition. The French guy supposedly now in charge, remember -- Mr. Dufresnoy, I think -- may be wondering as much as we are. What’s my point here? I can hear him muttering, “Okay if I now, at last, well, a little, can try maybe my hand at directing, let’s say a few of the acts. okay, anybody? Grandma, what were you asking me to do before Michael handed me his latest notes? Sure, sure, I’m all for it....But wait, where is the director on this? Which director? Oh, ah, ah, Gillet, Gillet ... Eric! You know; yes, Michael, Paul is on the line? Paul? Sure, I'll be right there! ...

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Circusgoing in Santa Rosa, 1869 on Rails from the East ...

(A circus comes to nearby Petaluma, circa 1900)

From Gaye LeBaron's "Insight" column in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 14, 1982:

Dan Costello, another clown who had traveled with the great P.T. Barnum, brought to Santa Rosa his Circus and Menagerie "Overland from the Atlantic to the Pacific!" in August,1869 ... bringing together "all under one roof and one price of admission" wild animals including "the first hart-beast ever exhibited," Dan Costello himself and his "educated equines," the acrobatic Victorella Brothers from circus rings of Paris and London, and a Brazilian family of bareback riders.

Reported an editor in the Press Democrat, the show "was an immense sensation to these parts. It seemed as if the people of all the surrounding country -- old and young, big and little -- had turned out en masse. Our town literally swarmed with strangers. Two performances, afternoon and night, were given to vast audiences."

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Indeed, that was the first circus to travel out to the west coast by train, the journey beginning only 16 days after the historic joining of rails from east to west in Promontory, Utah. The Golden State tour opened in Truckee on July 17, concluded down in Redwood City on October 21.

Within two years, the pioneering Costello, joined with two other giants, William Coup and P.T. Barnum, launched a blazing new show that would soon turn to two rings, and ten years later, to three. The great American Circus Century had dawned.

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