Join Jim Turner & Ellie Covan for a mutual birthday Raising Cain wrap party, with surprise guest Deb Margolin, special edition Bingo, and the raffle stops here!
Doyens Richard Bach & Michael Howett shepherd a virtual Donor Dinner! Cook along with them or simply simmer in their brassy banter & scandalous stories!
The Slipper Room is a New York institution. A House of Variety!
The Slipper Room is facing serious financial difficulties.
I did a wonderful interview with producer James Habacker in 2016. I am posting it here for your viewing. In the meantime, I have put a link below the video to the GoFundMe campaign that is currently set up to help them make it back in one piece! Please Help!
By making a gift to Celebration Barn you will give the Barn the critical financial foundation necessary to prepare for the upcoming season. Thank you for being a part of Celebration Barn’s community of artists, audiences and believers!
To help raise funds for next year’s SSH event (The Lady Aye is a Board Member of SSH) NYC organized a special night @The Beauty Bar on 14th Street. The lineup was terrific and the torrential rain storm didn’t stop those of us that wanted to attend!
Here are some visuals in case you missed the event.
Hosting the evenings talent and festivities was The Lady Aye.
Mike Zohn showed off 2 antique panels from a magician’s cabinet probably used in the 1920’s.
Rob Romeo showed his ‘nail shoes’ and then demonstrated for the audience.
Rob Romeo walking around the stage with his ‘nail shoes’ on. (painful?)
Matt Knife showed off his ‘nut sack’ and ‘other things’ during his boylesque act.
His costume was amazing and his stage presence hysterical.
The Lady Aye performed a classic sideshow act ‘the human blockhead’ but used silverware!
Rob Torres was one of the funniest and most professional clowns in the world. Having performed in over 80 countries throughout his life, he brought laughter to thousands if not millions of people creating a fan base that was truly world-wide.
Tragically in late June, Rob suddenly passed away of a heart attack while flying to his engagement in Boston, Massachusetts.
Rob and I were working on a book project tentatively titled “A Clown in Our Town” which included photographs of Rob in many of the cities where he performed using iconic geographical locations to showcase his clown character in that particular town. We shot in Paris (Cirque d’Hiver), St. Louis (Circus Flora) and New York (Big Apple Circus) and had plans to shoot in 6 other cities during his upcoming tours.
While planning this tribute book, I realized that Rob had been captured by many other wonderful photographers. I reached out to a number of my colleagues who had also had the pleasure and opportunity of capturing Rob performing. I am fortunate to have Maike Schulz, Michelle Bates and a few others (names will be announced at a later date) share their own vision through photographs of Rob performing in different venues. Their work will contribute to the second part of the book. I have also contacted his family to contribute photographs of Rob in his early years.
To produce this tribute, funds are needed for graphic design work and publishing. I encourage you to share Rob’s vision and help make this book a wonderful TRIBUTE to Rob Torres – anybody who ever met him or saw him perform knows how much he truly deserves it.
Hardcover book featuring approx. 30+ pages of Color/B&W photographs.
Unique and unrepeatable first edition.
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~ Pledge $75 – 2 copies of the book and a Special Thank You in the book.
~ Pledge $50 – one copy of the book and a Thank You in the book.
~ Pledge $10 – a postcard featuring one of the photographs from the book and a Thank You. ~ Pledge $5 – a Social Media shout out from the photographers in the book. ~ Make a pledge without a reward. Any amount is appreciated!
Estimated delivery date: March 31, 2019 ~ So please, give what you can, tell who you can, and let’s start this journey together. ~
All funds that are donated which exceed the printing/designing costs will be forwarded to the Estudio Búsqueda de Panotmima-Teatro/The Rob Torres Memorial and Scholarship Fund.
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Who is Rob Torres? For those of you that aren’t familiar with this brilliant clown I would like to present a wonderful documentary by Sebastiano Greco and Luigi Marmo. (Thank You Sebastiano and Luigi!)
A critic is seated smack in the middle of a series of events he is meant to review, and people mistake each other for things they are not. A wild, vaudevillian comedy that investigates the critical impulse, from its most elegant to its most petty.
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“An artful and insightful work about our compulsion to inflict opinions on one another.
PLEASE HELP KEEP THIS AMAZING NEW YORK CIRCUS ALIVE!
New York, NY – The Big Apple Circus, which announced several weeks ago that it was in dire financial condition and launched a $2 million fundraising campaign to Save the Circus, said today that it is low on cash and that unless it receives a significant infusion of funds by Friday, it will have to cancel performances for next season and possibly for good.
“When we went public with our urgent call for help, we needed to raise $250,000 a week over a two-month period to survive. As of today, we have not met that goal,” said executive director Will Maitland Weiss. “Several large supporters have made pledges, but those are contingent on our getting much closer to our target. And so, our cash is dwindling. We are at a point where we are living day to day, week to week. We must raise $600,000 by Friday in order to preserve our circus for the upcoming season and beyond.”
As of June 22, the organization had raised more than $400,000 in cash and a further $300,000 in pledged contributions from its board, ticket buyers, current and former staff members, and others, with $90,000 of that from 900 donors to their online crowdfunding site, www.savethecircus.org. With only $400,000 in cash received to date, cash flow is in critical condition, and unless the organization raises another $600,000 in cash by Friday, performances for the fall season will be cancelled, and it is unlikely they will be resumed in future seasons.
“We’ve been heartened by the outpouring of love and support from our fans, who have made contributions large and small in response to our appeal,” said Big Apple Circus artistic director Guillaume Dufresnoy. “The Big Apple Circus is a cultural treasure that has brought joy and wonder to families and children of all ages and abilities, all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and all income levels for 38 years, and we want to be here for them for generations to come.”
Conceived and founded by Paul Binder and Michael Christensen to be a leading presenter of live family entertainment and a nonprofit performing arts institution, our nation-wide performances and community programs have made our 38-year history far-reaching and full. Our mission is to invigorate the communities we serve with the joy and wonder of classical circus. We create authentic, direct contact; laughter and delight, under the Big Top and in hospitals, nursing homes, and schools across the country. For more information, visit www.bigapplecircus.org.
Hosting the evenings talent and festivities was 
His costume was amazing and his stage presence hysterical.
To cap off the show 
