Big Top Academy is a new circus-themed show on Discovery Kids Network that premiered October 15th, 2018. Set in a fictitious circus boarding school, it features the exciting lives of eight young acrobats who are dreaming of becoming professional circus artists. It is the brainchild of none other than Cirque Du Soleil Entertainment Group and collaborators Apartment 11 and Discovery Kids, who aims to build its ever increasing audience by showing the thrilling world of circus to the 8 to 14-year-old set.

The first season (over 52 episodes) have been filmed already for this huge project. Sending out a simple message (on television) to young people that circus can be more than entertainment–that it can be a lifestyle, a passion, a second family, or a place to mix some of the competitive demands of sports with creativity, the series is in many ways groundbreaking and is sure to inspire a new generation of circus artists. At least, that’s what the shows creators and actors hope.

While the plot and the timeless tween themes center around belonging and finding oneself, the core of the show is based on the concept of stringent circus arts training as the eight youth arrive with various skill sets and backgrounds and are put to the challenge by their kind headmistress Miss G, their stern athletic director Sir Rayne and their eccentric teacher Ms. Martel. The look and feel of Big Top Academy holds some of the cheese factor of Disney shows geared towards tweens and is somehow heightened by its embracing of traditional and nouveau circus costumes and sets. Each episode cover common experiences among youngsters aiming to find their place in the world, such as competition, separation from family to find one’s own identity, looking for balance between work and play, and the struggle to work in a group setting–but they do it in a circus context. Even so, the plot isn’t without some fascinating back story sometimes reaching beyond tween drama and visiting the fantastical. One character named Ella (played by the charming Ava Ro) comes from a long line of circus as a member of the Piccolo Family Circus, but she also suffers from diabetes. Another character Nicholas Zolta (played by confident young artist Drew Davis) has to fill his missing daredevil father’s shoes– a father who may be communicating to him via coded messages.

We had the pleasure of speaking to two key actors and performers Ellowyn Stanton and Krin Haglund about what it is like to be one of the stars in Big Top Academy. Stanton and Haglund are at different points in their circus journeys, Stanton being a middle schooler on track for a big future in performing arts, and Haglund being a seasoned circus professional with two children of her own.

Stanton plays one of the students in the showed named Phoenix. Her own experience in circus is formidable for a 14-year-old. She has trained atLe PeTiT CiRqUe’s studio in Los Angeles for the past four years with Nathalie Yves Gaulthier, whose work with youth in many ways closely parallels the Cirque du Soleil model. Before Stanton was a circus artist, she was a competitive gymnast for six years, which gave her that firm foundation in athleticism Cirque du Soleil often seeks in its artists. Her own life is very different from her character’s life, Stanton explains “She’s never taken a circus class, let alone a gymnastic lesson! So she never expected to be a circus artist. Everything Phoenix knows, she’s picked up on her own by basketball, skateboarding, parkour, etc. So when she gets in to circus school, she has a lot of catching up to do, and she does her best to fit in while remaining true to herself. She learns that the circus embraces people from all walks of life and the things that make her unique – her street smarts, her bluntness, her aversion to everything “fancy” – only helps to make her a well-rounded circus artist.”

Stanton explains why she made the shift from gymnastics to circus, “I got bored of competing all the time and I wanted to do something more creative. I wanted to find something that included my athleticism as well as my creativity. And that’s when I joined the circus.” She has yet to hone in on one particular discipline of circus, but favors aerial acts (especially a duo trapeze act she is very fond of), acrobatics and manipulation–a foundation that would surely make her a great cast member in any contemporary show. Regarding her future in circus, Stanton does not rule it out and says she would like to continue her training indefinitely.

But what does Stanton have to say about the show and its meaning to kids? “ Big Top Academy shows how important it is to work together to help each other learn and grow, as artists and as a people. The message shows that friends are supposed to help lift each other up. This is a great message for the kids watching the show, because at their age, friendship is very important.”

Another important feature of circus that Stanton gets is how it allows diversity of talent, and she feels that the show highlights that to kids, “Big Top Academy includes kids of all talents and specialties. Everyone in [the show] is so different and unique in their own way. I think this will really help show kids that there is a place for everyone.”

Stanton’s acting colleague, Krin Haglund, who plays the role of kooky teacher Miss Maddy Martel, has a long history of circus as well, and one that scored her more than just a leading role. Shecame to the show somewhat late in the process in 2017. She decided to audition for it after her run with 7 Fingers show Vice & Vertu was over.

As the only professional circus artist in the show, she describes her role onstage and off. “Off stage with Big Top Academy, I am a circus coach and I have worked on artistic direction of clown acts, character acts and performances. I also cast the non-recurring circus artists and poke my nose into the writers room as much as possible. The Big Top Academy writers may not do circus, but they have put a lot of heart, care and sweat into best representing circus in the show.”

I like to think that knowing circus schools are out there, even fictions ones like Big Top Academy, would have saved me years of indecision.

Haglund recognizes the importance of a show like Big Top Academy in the world of children’s entertainment. She laments the fact that her own journey to circus was so circuitous, “A TV show like Big Top Academy changes the landscape of children’s imagination. I almost didn’t have a career in circus because of my own failure to dream. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a ‘trapeze artist when I grow up’,  but then there were no circus classes in Madison, Wisconsin. My dad rigged a trapeze in the backyard but I still thought circus was something you had to be born into.”

Haglund found other creative and athletic outlets for her artistic nature, but eventually she circled back to her childhood dream, “ By the time I graduated from college and moved to San Francisco, I thought I was too old ever be a professional. I’d basically given up before I even started! Then, the first time I walked into the San Francisco Circus Center and looked up at the trapeze rig, aerial equipment, and people stretching–I started to cry. I’m so grateful to have been working ever since I left Circus Space and I like to think that knowing circus schools are out there, even fictions ones like Big Top Academy, would have saved me years of indecision. And, of course, when I was a girl, I would have been a huge fan of the show.”

Haglund credits the flexibility inherent in a circus artist’s life as the reality which make working in television show as an actor and coach feasible for her, “As a circus artist and director, I’m used to doing many different things on and off stage in order to make the show work. It’s the norm for small companies and I thrive on the challenge of variety.  As a television actor, you generally do one job. My circus background lead me to want to learn more and be more involved in other aspects of the production. Wearing many hats suits me!”

But Haglund says working in a new medium has had its challenges, “Television has definitely been a learning curve. But, I’ve found the process of how TV is made, and the ways circus is portrayed on screen fascinating. I’m really proud to be part of the first major circus TV series.”

On IMDB, Big Top Academy is rated 9.5 out of 10. Although it is too soon to predict if the show will be another feather in the cap of Cirque du Soleil, or if it will get lost in the sea of children’s entertainment, it seems possible that this new angle on circus will strike a note with the underage population who grew up on America’s Got Talent and other reality TV shows. Perhaps it will show them an actual pathway to becoming a performer rather than just the outcome of being a star. Maybe it will lend inspiration to the children with dreams similar to Haglund’s, providing a road map rather than uncertainty on how to get from step A to B. At the very least, it may reinvent the concepts of circus for youth, mingling the traditional romance of the traveling family circus with the athletic demands and disciplines of contemporary circus.

Kim Campbell

Writer -USA

Kim Campbell has written about circus for CircusTalk.News, Spectacle magazine, Circus Now, Circus Promoters and was a resident for Circus Stories, Le Cirque Vu Par with En Piste in 2015 at the Montreal Completement Cirque Festival. They are the former editor of CircusTalk.News, American Circus Educators magazine, as well as a staff writer for the web publication Third Coast Review, where they write about circus, theatre, arts and culture. Kim is a member of the American Theater Critics Association.

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