On Aug. 23, 1992, we reported on 12 young members of Chicago’s Jesse White Tumblers, who three months earlier shook off the gray of the inner city and headed south to Venice, Fla., for a dream that once was the province of every small-town kid-to run away with the circus.
These kids, however, signed on-with parental consent-for two years of circus life with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Now, after traveling by train around the country to 41 cities-including Milwaukee, where we caught up with them-they and the circus are coming to Chicago (the Rosemont Horizon Tuesday through Nov. 14, and Chicago Stadium Nov. 16-28) to perform as the Chicago Kidz.
Life on the road with Ringling Bros. is an exotic one. There have been appearances on Arsenio Hall’s show, “Good Morning America,” “American Journal” and a bevy of local telecasts. School is three hours a day. The boys sleep two to a room on the circus train. “It feels like another family, a family away from home,” said Tim Shaw, 16, a South Sider with the show since May ’93.
During performances, backstage between acts is a constant panorama of exotic sights that have become familiar to them: clowns flopping around in goofy shoes; women in sequined outfits; and a parade of acrobats, performers and animal handlers.
In their act, the boys do back flips, forward flips, roll around in a large metal wheel and dive over a brightly beaded jump rope. During a production called “Children of the Rainbow,” a beaming Allen Grant, 14, is sandwiched between a Russian girl to his left, and a Mongolian boy to his right.
There have been casualties. Six dropped out during rehearsal months. Three have been injured: Shaw broke his shoulder bone, Donald Sampson hurt his chin and Greg Bogen injured a hand. Shaw and Sampson have returned; Bogen may return next season.
And there has been homesickness. Sampson, 14, missed Mom’s cooking. But he likes circus life: “I want to go two more years and do a different act-flip over the elephants from a trampoline. We all want to do it.”
There’s room for more. If you’re a boy 13-17 years old and interested in trying out, be at Chicago Stadium Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. with a parent or legal guardian.