Traditional circuses still crisscross the country, but on a much-reduced scale from when they ruled America as the undisputed “greatest show on earth.”

Sharon Grimberg’s two-part documentary The Circus rewinds to that era of big tops and big crowds that exploded more than 100 years ago. The circus helped knit together a diverse populace spread across a huge expanse.

“Before there was a circus…there wasn’t radio, there wasn’t television, so people were very isolated in these communities, and they didn’t necessarily have common cultural references, but the circus was it, in a way,” Grimberg tells Deadline. “In the late 19th century and early 20th century [it’s] the first form of entertainment that everybody went to, that everyone could afford, and also something that tied the country together.”…

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