Stars of the AVT #7: Kinko and Philomena Bindlestiff

This post is one of a series profiling the hundreds of performers I’ve presented through my American Vaudeville Theatre in celebration of its 15th anniversary. Don’t miss the American Vaudeville Theatre’s 15th Anniversary ExTRAVaganza in the New York International Fringe Festival this August!

It’s no exaggeration to say that in today’s variety world, all roads lead to Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. In fifteen+ years of existence, they’ve produced hundreds of circus, side show, burlesque and vaudeville acts. Back in the day in the late 90s they were at the pinnacle of what I like to call “slacker sideshow” — I swear I once saw them caricatured on The Simpsons. They produced an annual winter show in NYC that attracted thousands of unruly patrons, and they cross-crossed the country many times on rock and roll-like tours, interfacing with nascent hipster variety scenes all over the provinces. (I really do think of them as circus Johnny Appleseeds in this regard,  planting seeds of possibility wherever they went).

I first encountered them around ’95 or ’96, when I was a bean counter at Big Apple Circus. I’ve already written here about the symbolic importance of the Bindlestiff (the object, not the Cirkus) in my life. And for some months at that point, I had been hatching plans for a show of my own, much inspired by my beloved Barnum. So when I saw a home-made sign on a tiny local venue advertising something called “Bindlestiff Family Cirkus”, I said to myself, “Uh oh, Boy-o, you’d better get off your ass NOW.”

I can’t remember which of their early gigs I saw first…either the children’s show at Collective: Unconscious, or their longer running stint at the Charleston Bar & Grill in Williamsburg, where I also put on my American Vaudeville Theatre and later hosted the musical open mike night.The Collective show made an excellent impression on me. Two things I remember: 1). the first and only time I have heard “Entrance of the Gladiators” (the universally recognizable circus theme music) plucked out on an acoustic guitar; 2) A hilarious bit where Ben Meyers, later of the Hungry March Band, as an elderly skeleton dude, walked the slackwire, using a walker (a visual gag it would take too many words to explain). I performed with them in one of their early Charleston gigs, but I was wearing a gorilla suit.

In years to come, I would see them play enormous ritzy night clubs, rock venues, and even corporate parties (I recall an appalling S&M themed event for Swatch). In the late nineties I presented my New American Lyceum as a sideshow at their long-running Brooklyn Brewery gig as well as their Williamsburg Art & Historical Center stint (to which Oddville MTV came and shot), amd the now defunct Goth club The Bank.  I and my rock band (!) were also the opening musical act for one of their Brewery shows, certainly the largest audience I ever played music for, and we actually got rousing cheers from the (drunken) audience. In the new century, my show was one of those ensconced at their Times Square venue the Bindlestiff Palace of Variety (2002), and later, when No Applause was published I did a turn at their Galapagos show (2006)

Meantime, on occasion, I would ask Keith Nelson and Stephenie Monseu, better known as Kinko and Philomena Bindlestiff to perform at my American Vaudeville Theatre show, which they were kind enough to do in 1997 (at the Duplex), in the late 90s (Surf Reality), and later at the Brooklyn Public Library (2006).  As solo acts they clown and do sideshow stunts (they got their start at Sideshows by the Seashore) with a sort of grungy edge.

Over the past few years, they have been quietly, steadily institutionalizing, headquartered now in upstate Hudson New York, doing a lot of educational programs, and periodic shows, such as their Bindlestiff Open Variety Night at Galapagos in D.U.M.B.O.  A lot of apples have fallen off the Bindlestiff Family Tree.

To learn more about vaudeville past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.