About Spectacle

As you can tell from readers' comments, Spectacle, the quarterly journal of circus arts published by Ernest Albrecht's Circus Plus Publications, has quickly won the attention and respect of the circus establishment the world over.

Listed among its subscribers are every major circus school, library and museum in North America and Europe. It is read by personnel in every major circus in America, and it is available to readers and scholars at the New York City Library for the Performing Arts and the University of California, as well as Yale and Brown Universities, just to mention a few. It is on sale at Applause Theatre Bookstore in Manhattan, the gift shops of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida, the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin and the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In addition to its many readers in North America, the magazine also has subscribers in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Denmark, France, Spain and Italy.

The reason for the enthusiastic interest in this unique magazine is that it covers the circus world like no other publication: with in depth and probing articles, by and about the most influential circus artists of our time, that are entertaining, highly readable and informative.

Circus performers who have been interviewed and whose work has been analyzed in recent issues include Kenneth Feld, Tim Holst, Alla Youdina, Barry Lubin, Guy Caron, Katja Schumann, Miles White, Michael Christensen, Cecil MacKinnon, Tandy Beal, Raffaele De Ritis, The Flying Cranes, Bill Woodcock and Elvin Bale.

In addition to Ernest Albrecht, editor/publisher, whose work The New American Circus has become a modern classic, articles have been written by critics and circus scholars from around the world including Dominique Jando, Hovey Burgess, Stewart McGill, Greg Parkinson, Bill Carpenter, Helmut Grosscurth, Joel Schecter and Dirk Kuik, Peggy Snider, and Charles Meltzer.

Spectacle often examines contemporary controversies. In the past it has dealt with the new circus music, the inclusion of dance into the performance, the practice employed by some clowns of taking audience members into their acts, and the use of mechanics or safety devices by various acts.

Spectacle also keeps readers tuned in to the latest trends and the trendsetters. Two recent issues were devoted to a single theme. One discussed the level of clowning in America, and the other got directors talking about how they go about staging circuses. A future issue is being planned to look at the various manifestations of grass-root or homegrown circuses, circus schools, in-school programs and training programs.

Another recent feature was the serialized biography or Norbert Kreisch, who, as Norbu, The Almost Human Gorilla, made the gorilla parody one of the most successful comedy acts of all time. Other such extended features will appear in the future.

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