The circus has come to town for the weekend. Featuring a cast of acrobats, aerialists, clowns, contortionists and more, the Flynn Creek Circus will be putting on a total of seven shows under a big top tent that has been installed at Nottingham Park in Avon.
The Flynn Creek Circus is an all-human circus that specializes in bringing big top performances to the smaller villages and towns of the Pacific Northwest. Their family-friendly shows are theatrical in nature, and portray original storylines that incorporate each circus artist as a character in a larger narrative.
The story that the circus is performing this weekend is titled “Fairytale”. With an original script written by members of the circus, “Fairytale” is a comedic fable starring a bombastic unicorn and his estranged back end in a quest to bring the youth back from the void.
Ross Travis, a Chinese pole artist and clown, plays the head of the unicorn, while another circus artist plays the unicorn’s back end.
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“The story conveys these two different ways of going through life,” Travis said. “The head of the unicorn is very assertive and full of himself, a real go-getter, and then the tail is more contemplative and likes to look into things, taking more of a philosophical approach to life. You get to see how these two methods interweave through the story and how the different sides of the unicorn succeed and fail throughout.”
Along his quest, the head of the unicorn is thwarted by a mischievous weaver and thieving ravens while constantly being upstaged by his own back end.
“This circus is one of my favorites because it’s very irreverent and as an artist you get to really have a say in developing the story,” Travis said. “It’s collaborative and ensemble-based, which is really important for me as an artist to work with companies where I can really bring my voice to the vision.”
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The story is narrated by Nicole Laumb, a circus comic who helped write the script and will guide the audience through the story from start to finish. In addition to their individual roles as stage performers, all of the circus artists also have roles off stage that allow audience members to directly interact with the cast.
“We’re the cast and the crew, so you see us around the whole time,” Laumb said. “We’re helping at the front of house, we help with concessions, everybody puts up and takes down the tent together. We’re all interwoven into the entire process, and then we appear on stage as these characters, which is something unique to big-top circus and especially smaller traveling companies like Flynn Creek.”
The Flynn Creek Circus is being brought to Avon by the Circus Colorado, a company founded by Gina Hallisey that brings circuses from around the country to perform in our state.
“The circuses that I bring are either vintage or theatrical in nature, they’re not your typical Ringling Brothers or those kinds of circuses,” Hallisey. “I think they’re fascinating. It’s an art form that is slowly going away as all of these old circus families die off, so I like to support it, and it is very well received by every community I bring it in. It’s just so unique.”
Hallisey loves bringing rare circus experiences to Colorado, and is doing so in a way that provides maximum public safety and full compliance with CDC and State guidelines. Certain walls of the tent will remain open to provide ventilation, and the seating is being sold in “social bubble” tables, or by the pair, which will each be in its own roomy section.
The seating arrangement reduces capacity to a maximum of 200 people, but ensures that all attendees can feel safe and comfortable while still getting the full experience of sitting inside of a big top circus tent.
“There’s just nothing like seeing a circus in a big top tent, especially when it’s on the grass,” Hallisey said. “I’m an experienced broker, that’s what I do; I find super unique experiences and I bring them to people, and hopefully it’s something that they enjoy and won’t forget.”
Tickets for the circus are available online, where a range of ticket packages are being offered that start at $23 per person when you buy a table for four, or $35 per person for a pair of tickets. Performances will take place three times on Saturday, Aug. 14 at 1 p.m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. and twice on Sunday, Aug. 15 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. Each show is about two hours long, and light concessions such as popcorn, shaved ice, beer and wine are available for purchase on site.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit circuscolorado.com.
This content was originally published here.
