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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "When Lightning Strikes" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[0:28] Jeryl Brunner: This is Jeryl Brunner, and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes, where we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist.

[0:39] Marty LaSalle: Marty LaSalle is the CEO of Big Apple Circus, their latest show, Journey to the Rainbow, created in collaboration with Circus-Theater Roncalli, is now playing at Lincoln Center through January 1st. It's also a New York Times critics pick. So welcome, Marty.

[1:05] Marty LaSalle: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Jeryl. That was a very theatrical and informative introduction. Even in those few sentences, I hope people can get.

[1:18] Jeryl Brunner: So I love your trajectory. I love the full circleness. We'll get all into that of you and your legacy of your circus life. Tell me if somebody were to ask you, what is the Big Apple Circus and why is it special? What would you say?

[1:40] Marty LaSalle: I love that question. And since I rejoined the Big Apple Circus as CEO a year and a half ago, I thought a lot about that. The Big Apple Circus really stems from this traditional European circus style, which means that it's presented in one ring. During the 20th century in America, circus morphed from this traditional format to a large-scale arena spectacle that Americans have become accustomed to, the three rings that traveled in these massive big top setups until the mid-50s when they were converted to arenas. And so for decades, Americans had kind of lost touch with the romance and the intimacy and the magic of this more intimate circus that presents acts in a much more immediate environment.

Paul Binder and Michael Christensen, who founded the Big Apple Circus in 1977, had just returned from a street performing tour of Europe where they were invited to participate in Annie Fratellini's first Nouveau Cirque that was presented in a Big Top tent in Dijon in 1975. For Paul Binder, as he writes in his memoir, this was really a revelation for him. He wasn't aware that this was really the source of the circus form, not just in Europe but also in America. So when they came back to New York in 1976, it took about a year for them to do something about it, but they did when they founded the Big Apple Circus under a big top, a one-ring big top tent in Battery Park City, and the legacy of that inspiration remains very vibrant.

The Big Apple Circus specifically also has a very kind, gentle spirit that I think provides a contrast to other one-ring circus tents that tour throughout the country. And then, of course, we're New York City circus; we're here at Lincoln Center. We are connected to the razzle-dazzle of Broadway. Jeryl, you were here for the show for our opening a couple weeks ago, and so we cast a company of six dancers who are all local here to New York who are just wonderful, wonderful dancers, and we really bring in this production value and energy and style of New York City. So it's all those elements that come together in our ring here at the Big Apple Circus.

[4:21] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, because you have jugglers, you've acrobats, you've got trapeze artists, and as you mentioned, dancers and these beautiful magnificent costumes. It's really a 360 experience, dare I say it, that you have so many beautiful elements.

[4:21] Marty LaSalle: Exactly. And although we're a 1,600-seat venue, which by the standards of Broadway is quite big, it doesn't feel that big because the seating configuration is in the round. So nobody's more than 50 feet from the ring, and when you're configured in the round, it's really like three prosceniums one after another. So think about our venue that way; you can see why it's 600 seats. It's really intimate. It's about presenting ordinary people doing extraordinary things right in front of you. And with the proximity to the performers, I think that it is easier for people to come away feeling inspired and really connecting to these moments of joy and wonder that we create in our big top for all audiences of all ages. And it's really about connecting people and bringing people together through those shared experiences.

[5:45] Jeryl Brunner: And as you mentioned, the Big Apple Circus has quite a legacy. It's in its 46th season. And I love your history with the Big Apple Circus. Can you talk about your experience as an acrobatic juggler with your brother and that lightning strike?

[6:08] Marty LaSalle: So to me, that's so fascinating that here you are the CEO. Yeah, you know, some things when they happen in life feel like they're meant to be. And I think my coming back to the Big Apple Circus certainly felt like one of them. So I first connected with the Big Apple Circus in a meaningful way 20 years ago, January. So it was January 2003. And by that time, I was a senior in high school, and I had already developed an acrobatic juggling act with my twin brother. So at that point, we had been in the gym training for probably about 10 years. The first few years of those were primarily in gymnastics and acrobatics. And then we moved over into juggling, which I could tell you a little bit about, but by the time we were seniors in high school, we had performed our acrobatic juggling act all over the world and in all different types of venues.

This was when Cirque du Soleil was firing on all fronts, and it was a very vibrant time for the circus industry, not just in America but in Europe and throughout the world. There are two major circus festivals each year that bring together up-and-coming acts and also more established acts and serve as showcases that connect buyers and sellers. My brother and I were representing the United States at a festival called Cirque de Demain in Paris, that was housed in this beautiful building called Cirque Vert. Paul Binder, who was the artistic director of the Big Apple Circus for the first 30-plus years of its history, would journey over to Paris every year, and sometimes he would sit on a jury; there'd be awards that would be handed out.

But by the time we were in the festival, every year he would present what he would call the Big Apple Circus Award, and he would present the award to the act in the festival that most closely embodied the spirit of the Big Apple Circus. And so I hadn't met Paul Binder at that point, but after we performed a couple times, he came backstage and introduced himself to us, and we left the festival with the Big Apple Circus Award. So that was 20 years ago. That was 20 years ago this past January. My brother and I actually moved to New York to go to university. We were here; we went to Columbia. So during those years, we couldn't commit to a full-time contract with the Big Apple Circus. But at the time, they had a special events division called Big Apple Circus to go, and we would work with that division throughout the year as much as we could in a way that still accommodated our school schedule.

And then when we graduated, we called Paul Binder and we said, "Remember when you asked us to come work for Big Apple Circus? We would like to do that now." And so it worked out great. We graduated in 2007 and then we joined the Big Apple Circus in the summer of 2008 for the 2008-2009 season, which also happened to be Paul Binder's last year as artistic director.

[9:15] Jeryl Brunner: So I must know, though, when you knew you had to be a circus performer. And I love that you have this shared passion with your brother, your twin brother.

[9:28] Marty LaSalle: Yeah, absolutely. And we never would have been able to get on to journey down this path had we not done it together. I always like to say that I won the circus lottery by being born an identical twin. Yeah, 251 odds, and yeah, it helped for sure. So my brother and I, we started as gymnasts, and I don't know if there's any one moment, but I do remember what I believe would be the first time I saw a circus, and it was Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that toured arenas. It was probably in the mid-90s; I was about 10. I remember that I was already a budding gymnast and I was already spending probably 14 to 16 hours a day in the gym. And I just remember being completely intoxicated by it, by the magic and the beauty of the performers.

It really felt like the whole world was coming to your doorstep, and it just really felt like a place of celebration and belonging, which I think a lot of people who get into the theater world have that similar type of experience. But to me, there was something about the circus that was not fantasy in a very compelling way. The performers aren't pretending to fly through the air; they actually are flying through the air. The jugglers aren't pretending to juggle; they're actually juggling. And I think that really was powerful for me that these were real people, and this was who they were and how they lived. And at the end of the day, this was back when Ringling Brothers still traveled on trains; all these performers would go onto this magical train, and they would wake up in a new city.

And to me, that was just thrilling in every way. Plus, there's cotton candy, there's popcorn, there's lights, there's action, there's adulation, there's all these elements to it. So I was pretty hooked. And then what's really exciting about circus skills and learning circus skills is the act of learning them. And I actually pulled a quote because I knew what this podcast was about. And years ago, Glenn Close was preparing for the originating role of Barnum on Broadway.

[11:52] Marty LaSalle: Oh, I love that show. And this was, I believe, in the late, yeah, late 70s, early 80s. And at the time, Paul Binder was already known in the circus in New York as the circus person, you know, Dartmouth grad, and you know, so when they needed to teach Glenn Close to juggle, they called Paul Binder, and they've stayed connected for decades. And when Paul Binder wrote his memoir, um, 10, 15 years ago, Glenn Close actually wrote the foreword to the book, and she says this about the time that she was being taught to juggle. She says, the magic of the circus first captured me when I gained control over an object as a simple rubber ball, and it became part of me. And there's just something that's really exciting and pleasurable and satisfying about developing a sort of a mastery of physical objects.

And this is not new to anyone who's been an athlete or even someone who's a chef or someone who has a craft where they use their hands. And I think that was a big part of what set me on this path as well.

[13:00] Jeryl Brunner: Now, are you from a family of gymnasts? How did you become a gymnast in the first place? You grew up in Pennsylvania, right?

[13:09] Marty LaSalle: You and I did, and in just one of those, you know, coincidental moments, my the town I grew up in, a small town in Pennsylvania, happened to have a really vibrant up-and-coming gymnastic facility that was benefiting from a lot of the immigrants coming out of Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union collapse, and it just became a powerhouse of a regional gymnastic facility. And I think that had I not grown up 10 miles from there, my life would be very different because there was nothing that was directing me, there was nothing that would have obviously supported these interests or pushed me in this direction had that gymnastic facility not been there, and it really became a second home, both for my brother and me throughout our childhood.

[14:09] Jeryl Brunner: Where was this? What town?

[14:11] Marty LaSalle: This was in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It's a gymnastic facility called Karen Myers Gymnastics Center.

[14:19] Jeryl Brunner: Okay, so then you see the circus and you think, okay, let's take it up a lot and be acrobatic jugglers, and your brother was totally on board. How so what happened there? How did you become to be, you know, to go from you're saying, you know, juggling, you know, becoming pros?

[14:40] Marty LaSalle: Yeah, it's a good question. And it's interesting. I've realized over the past year, I don't know if I'd realized this before that my brother and I remember it a little bit differently. Um, so you know, it just goes to show that the stories we tell ourselves are powerful. Um, but uh, you know, the broad brush strokes are that as I mentioned, we were already gymnasts. We taught ourselves to juggle. A lot of people just pick things up and kind of teach themselves to juggle, and we had a natural proficiency for it, enough to learn pretty quickly and ask our parents to find us instruction manuals and some rudimentary juggling props so we could continue developing skills. And because we're identical twins and because we could already do acrobatics, it didn't take too long for us to piece together tricks that were pretty unusual and advanced because we had the same natural body rhythms, and so we started doing street performances and we started going to little juggling festivals, there's festivals for everything, you know, little workshops, magic communities, variety communities, and then there was a couple years where we were mostly amateurs and would perform at local theaters and go down to Baltimore to street perform in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.

And over a number of years, we were approached by some coaches and some choreographers and managers who took us under their wing a bit and said, you know, we think this could be something really special. Here's how we could help discipline your life and your training to develop a variety act that we can present in a lot of different formats. And that's basically what happened. So when I was in high school, we were performing in circuses and theaters and cruise ships, and we would do halftime shows for the sporting events. So we would go around and do 20, 30 halftime shows for the NBA during the NBA season. And there was just a lot of corporate hospitality opportunities and things like that.

[16:57] Jeryl Brunner: So here you find all this success, you win the Big Apple Circus Award, and then you make this pivot. You go, you both to go to Columbia, right? And here you study economics.

[17:12] Marty LaSalle: Right. You know, that's right. And so, right. So when we went to college, we intended to go to explore other interests, and we continued to work during the breaks and things like that. But we, you know, I don't think either of us really were clear on whether or not we were gonna continue pursuing a circus career after college. And after a couple years, we decided that, you know, we really wanted to refocus on the performance, and there were a number of places that we had wanted to work, like the Big Apple Circus. Um, and so we really came out of college with a renewed focus and determination to perform for a couple more years, and you know, we were more mature, and throughout college we continued to train, and so we kind of took what we had developed in high school and perfected it and just gave it a little bit more maturity.

And so we spent six months at a variety theater in Frankfurt called Tiger Palace Variety in Europe. There's a really wonderful scene of variety theaters that people, you know, people will go and have dinner at before the show, and it's almost like a ballet or like a jazz, a combination of a ballet and a jazz club here in the US. So we did that for about six months, and then we came to the Big Apple Circus and performed here for a year, and I had always been interested in producing and in business and in management. I, as you put out, I studied economics at Columbia, and so after performing for two more years, my brother went off to medical school, and then I pursued a series of opportunities in management and production, and my brother's now an anesthesiologist here in New York. So he got out of this.

[19:11] Jeryl Brunner: I love how you're so adjacent. You can get out of it. And what's also fascinating, not to take you through your whole resume, that you ended up at CAA, like this powerhouse company, you know, producing.

[19:15] Marty LaSalle: Yep. So I spent five and a half years in various divisions and affiliates at CAA. Um, once I left the Big Apple Circus, I worked here actually, or after when I stopped performing, I stayed at the Big Apple Circus and worked in a couple of guest services roles for about a year and a half. Um, and then I left to pursue other opportunities. And for a number of years, I was a contractor for Royal Caribbean cruise lines. And so me and my, I had a little company and we presented, we produced stage shows for those cruise ships. And then about seven years ago, I had an opportunity to go out to Los Angeles to work for a company that CAA had acquired. Uh, it sounds like you probably know these agencies historically have been private equity owned, although there's been some corporate finance activity in these worlds recently.

But part of the strategy at these agencies was to diversify into non-representation businesses, and so they had acquired a company called Mills Entertainment, which was a stage promoter and producer of touring stage shows. So I initially went out to run development for that subsidiary of the agency, and then I moved over to the licensing group, and I was a licensing agent for a number of years, and then launched another production division that produced immersive ticketed attractions through COVID.

[21:03] Jeryl Brunner: So can you talk about when Big Apple Circus came back into your life in this new iteration? You know, here you are, CEO, when that happened.

[21:16] Marty LaSalle: So I've stayed connected to the Big Apple Circus, not officially, but I just I've always felt very connected to the Big Apple Circus. Uh, certainly from the time I started performing in the ring and really felt its capacity to inspire joy and wonder and make the world a little bit of a kinder, gentler place, just a little. And I don't think I understood that until I was in the ring and connecting with the audience. Uh, but ever since then I've had a very strong sense of the opportunity and the potential and the importance of the Big Apple Circus. And starting around the time of the financial crisis when I was in the show, it just the business model really started breaking down. Um, a lot of the corporate clients evaporated overnight when the financial crisis happened.

It was initially a nonprofit structure, and then in 2016, the company actually went bankrupt because it was operating at a model that just didn't really make sense. And so the company was acquired by a private equity company in 2016, it was reconstituted in 2017. Uh, it had a challenging number of years. This business is really tough coming out of the bankruptcy. And then when COVID happened, the owners said, you know, we're not gonna throw any more money into this. And that's when a guy named Michael Cole came into the picture. And Michael Cole, I don't know if that name means anything to you, but he's probably the most important music promoter ever. Um, he came out of Toronto and he really changed how artists toured by winning the Rolling Stones tour in 1989 with a 50 million dollar guarantee, and it completely transformed how acts were.

And he went on to become the first chairman of Live Nation, and so I got to know him when I was working at CAA, and when COVID happened, he was approached to invest in the Big Apple Circus to bring it back once we passed COVID, and he promoted a circus in the 70s and remembered it fondly, and he just goes for things. And so he acquired the Big Apple Circus, and I knew he had done it, but I had sort of forgotten about it until I was in New York a year and a half ago, and I was having breakfast with him, and he brought it up to me and said, you know, we need new leadership at the Big Apple Circus.

[24:11] Marty LaSalle: He was familiar with my history of the Big Apple Circus and he said, do you want to give it a try? And I said, absolutely, why not? And so that was in May of 2022. It took us a few weeks to kind of figure it all out, but I actually started officially on July 18th last year, which happens to be my birthday.

[24:41] Marty LaSalle: Like, there's all these moments of synchronicity. I was actually born on Big Apple Circus' birthday, which is just kismet.

[24:50] Marty LaSalle: So there's all these degrees of moments of convergence, and that's a mouthful, but that's how I ended up coming back to circus.

[25:04] Jeryl Brunner: So how involved are you with the casting, with the selection of performances, with the acts? What does your role involve?

[25:25] Marty LaSalle: Yeah, exactly. So in theory, I oversee the whole circus from the creative to the operational side to the marketing and sales. I think of my job as being to identify best-in-class creative partners and then supporting their ability to succeed. I don't get into the intricacies of the directing or this year even in the casting.

[26:03] Marty LaSalle: This year, the Big Apple Circus has a history of collaboration with other troops and circus companies outside of the US, never quite to this extent, but they collaborated with a Swiss mime troupe in the 90s and a big Chinese circus company in the 80s. This year, we planned the show very much later than is ideal. Typically, you want to be developing these shows with at least 18 months lead time.

[26:39] Marty LaSalle: I had first seen Circus-Theater Roncalli when I was working in Frankfurt in 2007, and Michael Cole knew the ownership there through a partner of his. Michael actually had the idea to pursue a collaboration with Circus-Theater Roncalli. I went over to Germany and spent some time with them, and it just really felt like the stars were aligning on this one.

[27:07] Marty LaSalle: Once we put the deal together to bring them on board to develop the show and create the show with us, they're some of the best circus makers in the world. Working in the US is, of course, different than in Germany. The pacing is different. In Germany, the shows are significantly longer. Their circus in the evenings is mostly attended by adults; here, we have primarily a family audience, so it needs to run quicker.

[27:45] Marty LaSalle: There were some filters that we established and discussed when creating the show here that affected the outcome. But the Roncalli folks, they did the work.

[28:01] Jeryl Brunner: Don't they have a lot of those costumes from their warehouse, these gorgeous, very elaborate chandelier costumes, a lot of sparkles and tinsel?

[28:22] Marty LaSalle: Yes, absolutely. It's one of my favorite parts about the show, and it was one of the real upsides to working with them. We built some costumes this year and adjusted some costumes, but Circus-Theater Roncalli has this huge warehouse of not just costumes, but Big Apple Circus does too, but not nearly to the same extent.

[28:43] Marty LaSalle: Bernard Paul, who founded and owns Circus-Theater Roncalli, has been a collector for 50 years and just goes all around the world and collects his stuff. One of the things that I'm most excited about in this year's show is the beauty and scale of the costumes. They come from a broad range of styles, and I think they give it a polished Broadway caliber quality that really resonates with our audiences.

[29:26] Jeryl Brunner: Do you have moments where you wish you could be out there performing, juggling with your brother?

[29:32] Marty LaSalle: I don't know. It's not very often. I love being around the circus, and I'm at most of the shows. I love to watch the audience react. This year especially, I really connect to the show. It's warm, it's gentle, it's beautiful, and it's exciting. You just feel the response from the audience; it's infectious.

[29:54] Marty LaSalle: Every now and then when I'm watching the juggler, I'll sort of have a flash of memory that man, that was pretty cool and that was fun, especially when everything just landed exactly right and the timing was perfect. The Big Apple Circus is really special because we have a live orchestra, and I absolutely love how the Roncalli team integrates them into the show. You really feel like they're part of what happens.

[30:52] Jeryl Brunner: Has your brother seen the show?

[30:54] Marty LaSalle: Yes, he was here for the premiere, and he thinks it's great. He loved it.

[31:15] Jeryl Brunner: Do you still juggle?

[31:15] Marty LaSalle: It's so funny. Friends give me a hard time. Juggling is one of those disciplines that requires so many hours to do well, and you just kind of either do or you don't. However, we had Pix 11 here this morning, and we were doing a live segment, and somehow they actually got me to juggle three balls when we were getting ready for the real performers to take the stage. That was like a once-in-a-five-year sort of event.

[31:42] Jeryl Brunner: Okay, so maybe in five years you'll be able to do that again.

[31:44] Marty LaSalle: Exactly.

[31:52] Jeryl Brunner: Do you have moments that just take your breath away, or is it like choosing a favorite child?

[31:59] Marty LaSalle: In the show, there are two moments that give you this sense of daring. The trapeze where they're joined just by one foot, and they're pretty high up. Then we have that Russian acrobatic troupe that does three high pyramids, and the person on the third level is sometimes on her hands. There are a couple of pretty good moments of thrill. I love the jugglers, I love the foot juggler; I was a juggler.

[32:44] Marty LaSalle: I love the dancers because I think it really brings in the New York Broadway energy. I also love the clowns. Americans have a particular idea of clowns that kind of came out of Ringling Brothers, and I think maybe don't have as much awareness of or experience with more of a European style, Commedia dell'arte type clown. The clowns in this year's show really pull from that tradition and the comedy dell'arte form that was explored in the 60s and 70s coming out of the neorealism movements in Europe.

[33:17] Marty LaSalle: And so, so I really, that really resonates with me, and I'm excited to watch the audiences respond to it here in this year's show.

[33:52] Marty LaSalle: Yeah, yeah, you know, I'll leave you with...

[33:52] Jeryl Brunner: Alessia Alexis Sileski in her review for the New York Times wrote, "This is the gift of the circus, wherever it's from: a glimpse of the extraordinary within the everyday, a vision of what tenacity and a heedless approach to muscle strain can achieve. And cotton candy too! What glitter! What joy! What a day!"

[33:52] Marty LaSalle: I couldn't have put it better myself. This is the gift of the circus. What glitter! What joy! It distills it into its essence.

[33:52] Jeryl Brunner: Well, Marty, thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your incredible story.

[33:52] Marty LaSalle: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure, Jeryl, and I hope to see you back at the circus again soon. You're welcome anytime.

[33:52] Jeryl Brunner: I'd love to come back to see it all again.

[35:02] Marty LaSalle: Experience it because you experience it differently, right?

[35:07] Jeryl Brunner: Absolutely.

[35:07] Marty LaSalle: Well, thank you. Have a great day.

[35:30] Jeryl Brunner: Thank you, Jeryl. You too.