Circus Contraption pays homage to the nickelodeon machines and cheap, popular entertainment of America at the turn of the 20th century in its "Grand American Traveling Dime Museum."
The show returns to Magnuson Park on June 3, after a successful run in Seattle and San Francisco last year.
"I'm excited about it," musical director Kevin Hinshaw said. "I think it's going to be that much better this time around."
The show has been modified and improved, but the acts are essentially the same, noted troupe member and acrobat Evelyn Bittner: "Everything's better. This is our biggest show ever."
The inspiration
The show is largely inspired by attractions the troupe encountered during its 2002 national tour, including the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco, with its vintage nickelodeon-style amusements and old music/peep box machines, and The House on the Rock in Wisconsin that contains rooms filled with eclectic collections.
Lara Paxton, co-founder of Circus Contraption, did some preliminary research around the theme, and the 14-member troupe came up with the routines.
A show in two-acts, "Dime Museum" features acrobatics, puppetry, juggling, comedy skits, rope-climbing, smutty French postcards brought to life, musical interludes and more. The show takes the audience to a world with coin-operated fortunetellers, dancing girls and animated mannequins.
One of the troupe's acrobat routines, "The Drunkard's Dream," was influenced by an actual machine with wooden characters that consisted of a drunkard in bed that is visited by demons.
"It was really neat, and some of it's really artistically done," Bittner said of the machine.
In another routine, Paxton rolls on stage as a coin-operated fortuneteller inside a glass cabinet and ends up performing a rope routine.
'Visions of old dance halls'
Also in the show, vocalist Sari Breznau performs an operetta about a knife thrower who sleeps with an elephant. The show's finale involves the entire cast creating a mystical carousel.
"It gives us kind of a nice, surreal closing number," said music director Kevin Hinshaw, who wrote much of the music for the show.
Much of the music in the show is closely tied with the action on stage.
"We kind of tailor the music so it accentuates the act as much as it can," said Hinshaw, who plays piano, clarinet and accordion.
The eight-piece Circus Contraption Orchestra includes a varied repertoire from ragtime and Dixieland to Eastern European and gypsy music.
"It kind of inspires visions of old dance halls," Hinshaw said. "There's a little more of an old-timey feel to it."
Instruments can include the drums, saxophone, tuba, trombone, accordion, guitar, glockenspiel, saw, upright bass and more. The group has four vocalists, one female and three male.
The band recently finished mastering its third album, "Grand American Traveling Dime Museum," with music from the show. The CD is expected to be for sale by the end of the run.
"I think we did a good job of capturing the music," Hinshaw said, adding that the CD is drawn from 75 minutes of the show.
"It's a pretty long album, because the show has a lot of music in it," Bittner explained.
Show information
After its Seattle run, "Grand American Traveling Dime Museum" will travel to New York City in September for a month-long run at Theater for the New City.
Circus Contraption will host a closing night gala in Seattle on July 30 at 8 p.m. to raise money for the trip to New York. The New York show will cost the circus $60,000 to put on. Tickets for the closing night gala are on a sliding scale of $40 to $100.
The Magnuson Park show runs June 3 through July 30, Friday through Sunday, at 8 p.m. in the Magnuson Community Center auditorium in Building 47 at Magnuson Park, 7400 Sand Point Way N.E. There are no shows June 24 through 26 and July 1 through 3.
Tickets are $20 each; group discounts are available. Opening night, June 3, is pay-what-you-can. The midnight show on July 23 is $15.
"Generally, our midnight shows are a little bit more raucous," Bittner cautioned. All shows contain mature content.
For more information about Circus Contraption, call 442-2004 or visit www.CircusContraption.com.
Jessica Davis can be reached via e-mail at needitor@nwlink.com.
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