So much circus and variety news lately, this may have to become a regular feature!
- As we reported in our earlier bulletin, but may have gotten lost in the list of items, the theme of this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival is Circus Arts. Our good friends at the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus have been invited to participate. But they need your help! The unplanned trip to bring their show down to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. is by definition un-budgeted for. You should help support them in any case (with the ancient art of circus in precarious danger everywhere you turn), but now’s a particularly good time to send some coin to the Bindlestiffs. Do so here.
- The Daily News reported today that a judge approved Compass Works LLC’s buy-out of the bankrupt Big Apple Circus’s tent and equipment, with the upshot that the show will go on (in some form) once again! Read the good news here.
- The bad news is that now the Friar’s Club’s finances seem to be in a mess. Yesterday, the New York Posts’ Page Six column reported that the FBI actually raided the place and seized all their financial records. Not too funny! Read about it here. Thanks for the tip, Bob Greenberg!