By Dic Wheeler.
After spending all of last summer online, the Children’s Circus of Middletown is set to RE-UNITE! On August 6th at 5pm, Oddfellows Playhouse and the Middletown Commission on the Arts will present the 33rd Annual Children’s Circus of Middletown’s THE CIRCUS OF UNITY!
The performance, the result of five weeks of training in acting, stilting, juggling, unicycling, acrobatics, painting and more, will be held at Macdonough School, 66 Spring Street in Middletown. This Middletown tradition will feature over 120 performers and a live band.
Tickets are $5 for adults and $3 for kids (cash only at the door). Seating is on a grassy hillside; audience members are encouraged to bring blankets, lawn chairs, picnics, and whatever else you might need for a fun evening at the circus.
Children’s Circus director Jason Leinwand lays out the scenario for this year’s circus: “After laying dormant for so long, it seems our magical conch shell has lost its power to bring the Children’s Circus together. The unicyclists haven’t seen our jugglers in so long! The stilters haven’t towered over our acrobats and the clowns haven’t been able to pie anyone in the face in years! It’ll be up to our performers to unite and build an epic robot machine to fix the conch shell! Will this separation end? Can the circus unite?”
Join us August 6th at 5pm (Rain date August 7th at 5pm) at Macdonough School in Middletown for The Circus of Unity! There is street parking available throughout the neighborhood; the school’s parking lot is reserved for elderly and handicapped only. If you require wheelchair seating, please contact Oddfellows Playhouse at (860) 347-6143 so we can assist as needed.
The Children’s Circus is part of the Kids Arts Program of the City of Middletown’s Office of the Arts and Culture and is directed and produced by Oddfellows Playhouse. Major support is provided by the United Way of Middlesex County, the Middletown Commission on the Arts, the Middletown Public Schools, the Evan Boyd Knoll Memorial Circus Fund, and the M. Jones Fund at the Community Foundation of Middlesex County. Oddfellows is also supported by the Connecticut Office of the Arts/DECD, The Stare Fund, The State of Connecticut Judicial Branch, The Fund for Greater Hartford, Community Foundation of Middlesex County, American Savings Foundation, Middletown Youth Services Bureau, Maximilian E. and Marion O. Hoffman Foundation, Thomas J. Atkins Memorial Trust Fund, CHEFA Cultural Relief Grant, New England Foundation for the Arts/New England Arts Resilience Fund, George & Grace Long Foundation, and many generous individual donors.
Oddfellows Playhouse offers year-round programs in theater, circus, music, dance, technical theater, and visual arts to young people ages 3-20.
For additional information, contact info@oddfellows.org,
Call (860) 347-6143 or go to www.oddfellows.org
Photos by William De Kine.
