Hurry, hurr'ih, hurr-eh

The circus will come to your party
Friday, September 14, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Step right up to your kitchen phone, ladies and gentlemen. With enough time for planning and some moolah, you could get the greatest show on earth where you want it, when you want it.

[At left: "Grandma," the star clown of the Big Apple Circus. Courtesy of the Big Apple Circus.]

"We put on a world-class show, then clean up and leave," said Jim Roper, director of Big Apple Circus' Circus to Go division. "The idea is to make you happy."

Since he took over the department three years ago, Roper has been putting the show on the road to bar mitzvahs, corporate events and big venues across the nation.

Big venues include the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, which kicks off its 10th anniversary season this year with an extra-large Circus to Go production. The daylong extravaganza involves three shows on an outdoor stage and 20 walk-around entertainers armed with balloons, face paint and some tricks up their sleeves. Alumni of the center's Jazz for Teens program will perform on a side stage, and 10,000 tickets to the season's shows will be sold at the event for only $10.

NJPAC has ordered up a buffet of options for all ages and all walks of life. But the unifying goal, as with all jobs the circus takes on, is the wow factor. "They want people to come and say, 'Wow, did you see that? How'd they do that?' " Roper said.

The show will feature acrobats flipping up and down silk runners; a Russian bar act where two men toss a woman 30 feet into the air on a bar for some death-defying somersaults; a quick-change act in which a woman's dress magically changes eight times onstage; and Grandma the clown.

"He's one of our main attractions in the main show," said Roper of the clown, whose real name is Barry Lubin. "We're just lucky to get him in this show."

Lubin, a native of Garwood, has performed in faraway locales from Turkey to Taiwan and is the director of clowning for the Big Apple Circus. His Grandma persona charms adults and has kids running to him after shows with big smiles.

The performers will be coming from around the nation, said Roper. Circus to Go keeps tabs on performers who have worked with Big Apple Circus and calls them up for specific shows. Wherever they are at the time of the show -- Las Vegas is a popular town for working performers, Roper said -- they are flown in for the event, then flown back on the circus' dime.

"They all know each other, and everyone goes out to dinner the night before -- it's like a little reunion," said Roper. "Sometimes if there's another show nearby, performers will be like, 'Oh, is everyone else going? I'll go too.' "

Being on the road means making a lot of adjustments from event to event. Roper recalls a smaller show at the Central Park Boathouse Restaurant for the bar mitzvah of a young autistic boy who loved Grandma. The show had to expand for a Radio City Music Hall event, and shrink back down for a 60th wedding anniversary at the fancy Greenbriar Hotel in West Virginia. "The Russian bar act folks told me they'd do a 20-foot act instead," said Roper.

Whatever the challenge, Circus to Go makes it work. One year, for the Fiesta Broadway festival in Los Angeles, Roper found himself improvising a tightrope. A bank wanted a high-wire act to advertise the fact that it did international money wiring.

"Try and rent cranes and not telling the owners what they're for!" said Roper.

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.