There’s a youthful aura about the 2015 edition of the Summer Circus Spectacular that goes beyond the giggling and cheering kids in the audience at the Historic Asolo Theater.
Young juggler Sebastian St. Jules creates sounds as he bounces tennis balls within a triangular device in the 2015 edition of the Summer Circus Spectacular. STAFF PHOTO/JAY HANDELMAN
This year’s show, an ongoing joint venture between the Circus Arts Conservatory and The Ringling, features plenty of young(ish) performers who may coincidentally inspire some of those audience members to consider trying circus acts themselves through programs like the Conservatory’s Sarasota Sailor Circus.
“If that kid can do it, why can’t I?” they might think. Just as long as they don’t try those acts by themselves unsupervised.
Clown Kirk Marsh gets some laughs performing hat-catching tricks during the Summer Circus Spectacular at the Historic Asolo Theater. STAFF PHOTO/JAY HANDELMAN
There’s a gleeful tone set by clown Kirk Marsh, a nervous type with huge baggy pants, who has a knack for getting the audience to clap along with his hat-catching antics, or involving audience members at random. At Wednesday afternoon’s show, he had fun with a young girl who had trouble following some of his directions, and he surprised a young man on stage by turning a vest into a dress and a hat into a wig. He’s goofy and lovable as he barrels his way onto the stage, sometimes from the audience, sometimes stumbling through the curtain, while interrupting the planned introductions by the charming, if slightly formal young Ring Mistress Bailey Sloan.
The show’s youngest performer is the agile 13-year-old juggler Sebastian St. Jules, who not only tosses multiple tennis balls in the air with a winning smile, but bounces them on contraptions that respond with sound. In one set, he tosses them in sequence onto a black box on the floor that produces music like the giant keyboard scene from the film “Big.” The faster he juggles, the more the familiar themes become recognizable.
The show opens with the Alvarez Family doing an impressive job with a Teeterboard routine, with the father catching his son and daughter on his shoulders, and, at one point, into a chair suspended high over his head.
The Alvarez Family does a high-lying teeterboard act in the Summer Circus Spectacular at the historic Asolo Theater. Photo Provided by Circus Sarasota
Dolly Jacobs, the recent winner of a National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellowship, may be one of the show’s older performers, but she continues to impress and inspire with her energy and elegance as she soars above the stage in an aerial routine.
The show closes with the impressive dexterity of the Risley (or foot-balancing) act of the Anastasini Brothers. Giuliano lies back on the bench, legs up in the air, and tosses his younger brother Fabio through a varied series of flips, backflips and somersaults.
In just about an hour, the production gives audiences a few thrills and laughs, along with discounts to discover more about the circus inside the museum’s circus-themed galleries.
CIRCUS REVIEW
SUMMER CIRCUS SPECTACULAR
Box type: Runs Tuesday-Saturday through Aug. 1, Historic Asolo Theater, The Ringling, 5401 Bay Shore Rd., Sarasota. Tickets are $15, $12 for children. 360-7399; ringling.org
