Submitted by Dic Wheeler
(July 21, 2023) — The Middletown Commission on the Arts and Oddfellows Playhouse present the 35th Children’s Circus of Middletown: Circus Got Games!
This annual, unique show will take place August 4, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. In case of rain, the performance will take place August 5, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. This outdoor performance will be held on the grounds of Macdonough School, 66 Spring Street in Middletown.
Circus Got Games! is the culmination of a five-week day camp for 160 kids ages five to fifteen, in which they worked with professional circus artists to learn juggling, stilting, unicycling, dance, clowning, acrobatics and other circus skills. The annual performance includes the 160 youth performers, forty staff and a live circus band of fifteen adults and teenagers.
The Children’s Circus of Middletown has been an annual collaboration between Oddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater and the Middletown Commission on the Arts since 1989. In 2018 the Children’s Circus was presented with the New York Life Foundation’s Excellence in Summer Learning Award.
“This year’s show will be a spectacular circus adventure into the world of board games, video games, classic arcade games, playground games and more,” said Children’s Circus Director Jason Leinwand. “Come see the pinball wizard clowns, our menagerie of Hungry, Hungry Hippos, and the larger than life Snakes and Ladders stilters! Will the Teeny Tiny Troupe successfully navigate the Game of Life? Can the Surgeon Jugglers save the Operation patient? Fun for the whole family, and we’ll do our best to not break any rules!”
Tickets are available the day of performance; $8 for adults and $5 for kids. Please call (860) 347-6143 to reserve wheelchair seating. Bring lawn chairs or blankets and a picnic. Street parking around the neighborhood. Handicapped & Elderly parking only in the school lot.
Major support for the Children’s Circus is provided by the United Way of Middlesex County, the Middletown Commission on the Arts, 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, Middletown Department of Health, CHEFA Cultural Relief Grant, Connecticut Office of the Arts GOS for Theaters, 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 three to twenty. For additional information, contact info@oddfellows.org, call (860) 347-6143 or go to www.oddfellows.org
