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The Mongolian Angles – Dava [left] and Byamba [center] – work with choreographer Jonathan Stuart Cerullo.

Performers’ daily drills lead to precise routines that are timed by a stopwatch down to the fractions of a second.

FOR A CHILD'S SMILE, MONTHS OF SWEAT

The Big Apple Circus goes through a painstaking process to create wonder

Richard Dyer

April 3, 2005

        WALDEN, N.Y. -- The large but unprepossessing building on the edge of town looks like a manufacturing plant, and that's what it used to be -- a place where they made copper wire.

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In a sense, the place is still a factory, but what it produces is amazement and wonder. This is the headquarters of the Big Apple Circus, where each year, in August and September, the company puts together its new show before sending it out for months on the road and stops in 11 cities.

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        Big Apple cofounder and ringmaster Paul Binder, piloting a golf cart, enjoys showing off his facility. The main building houses 32,000 square feet of offices; a national box office; scene, costume, and mechanical shops; storage facilities for props and costumes of circuses past; and a rehearsal area bigger than an airplane hangar.

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        On a busy day early last September, there is enough activity going on all over the site to fill a dozen circus rings. The theme for this year's show, ''Picturesque," which opened yesterday at the Bayside Expo Center and runs through May 8, came from circus-inspired works by famous artists -- Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Picasso, Chagall, Magritte. Now the process is coming full circle, and the paintings are inspiring the look, character, and feel of the show. In the big conference room adjacent to the rehearsal area, there are stacks of books devoted to these and other artists, as well as a well-worn copy of ''Sister Wendy's Masterpieces."

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        Out in the tent, the slow and painstaking process of setting the lights is going on; performers strut around in ostrich feathers and sweat pants. Barry Lubin, the Big Apple's beloved clown ''Grandma," strolls by, a balding middle-aged man in a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers; Grandma's red shift, yellow socks, and pearls fit into a duffel bag, but her spirit suffuses the entire show. What looks prosaic and dull under work lights becomes dazzling, fluid, and dramatic after the theatrical lights are focused and computerized.

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        In a room in the main building, the eight-piece circus band is learning the new music under the high-energy direction of Rob Slowik. ''If you took any element out of this show," Slowik observes, ''it would become a different thing."

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        Off in corners, performers put in the daily drill of exercise and practice that make their routines possible; in this world, no one stops to stare at a nimble acrobat hand-balancing on the heads of burly athletes. The show's star juggler, Picaso Jr., sees three apples in a bowl; probably without thinking about it, he picks them up and starts juggling.

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        British equestrian Yasmine Smart has come in to put the horses through their paces this year because Katja Schumann, Binder's wife, is on a leave of absence. In the show, you can see the horse trainer talking or whispering to the horses; close up you can hear what Smart is saying: ''That was terribly good, boys. Now let's do a waltz . . ."

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        Smart comes from a famous circus family, and she's worked with animals all her life; she looks as chic in jeans as she will in a costume inspired by the designer Erte. ''Horses love to show off -- especially male horses," she confides.

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        If you've ever wondered what the trainer hands the horses as their reward, they're not sugar cubes. ''They're vitamins," Smart says, crisply. ''Apple-flavored, or carrot."

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        Big Apple shows are two are three years in the making, so planning for next season's production was underway long before this season's went into rehearsal. Binder and his cofounder, Michael Christensen, develop the concepts. The resident company of eight, including Grandma and Binder's teenage son Max, is already in place. The founders choose their guest attractions at various international circus expositions, looking for original and surprising performers whose specialties will fit into the theme; the clowns and the resident company bridge the acts.

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        Christensen writes the script and develops the concept in collaboration with the scenic designer (Dan Kuchar), the costume designer (Mirena Rada), the director (Michel Barette), the choreographer (Jonathan Stuart Cerullo), and others on the team.

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        Sensitive issues get resolved -- the plan to use a dancing figure based on Toulouse-Lautrec's drawings of the famous African circus clown Chocolat to help with transitions bites the dust because of the issue of racial stereotyping; he becomes a character named JoJo.

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        A ''reality board" schedule grid dominates the conference room; each act and link is timed with a stopwatch down to fractions of a second. Episodes move around according to technical requirements or issues of dramatic flow, but the company knows the attention span of the children in its audience, and the show cannot go beyond two hours.

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        ''The difficulty this year was there was more good material than we could integrate into the show, but that having more than you need is the best situation to be in," Barette explains later. ''Like a chef creating a dish, we choose the things that will give us the flavor we are looking for. It is something elusive, to obtain a rhythm, a pattern, a curve. There are always good surprises; the bad ones, we cut."

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        By the end of the day, the rings all over the Walden building are beginning to converge into the Big Apple's famous single ring. The entire company of 32, still in street clothes (the aerialist Mongolian Angels wore T-shirts saying ''Mongolian Angels"), is going through the introduction to the show, and ringmaster Binder repeatedly delivers his punch line as if he had just thought it up: ''Degas, Chagall, Renoir -- and Grandmoir!"

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        Choreographer Cerullo is in charge, under the watchful eye of Barette. A witty and flamboyant former dancer, veteran of seven Broadway shows and a national company of ''Cats," Cerullo comes from a very different world and has trained in an athletic discipline very different from the circus arts. Nevertheless, a healthy mutual respect has developed. It isn't particularly easy for hefty Russian lifters to go through a dance-based routine set to counts, but they do their best. ''Don't just use your hips," Cerullo counsels, mimicking their physicality. ''It looks a little lewd."He gives a little pep talk. ''You have to be beautiful to look at -- that's what people are paying to see. It's all about joy, energy, and emotion, which is what the audience is going to need."

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        Within 10 days, the Big Apple Circus will perform a final dress rehearsal for an invited audience of its Walden neighbors. Then the caravan will hit the road for the first stop on the tour, Washington, D.C. Grandma has the last word. ''Our job is to seriously do funny things -- but without consequences."