johnny

The world’s only authentic (and most kickass) Dime Museum and Sideshow Stage opened 12 years ago. I was given a show (and the name) by the proprietors, along with complete freedom to create a variety/Sideshow as I saw fit. The Professor and the Show were site-specific creations - a Talker who had seen the end of the great eras of vaudeville, burlesque and sideshow, and now played this monthly “museum show,” with acts drawn from all three eras and beyond. Presided over by Talker, Lecturer, Ringmaster and Host Sprocket, the show featured whatever it was you weren’t expecting next - sideshow stunts, acrobats, clowns, oddities, belly dance, circus arts, vaudevillians, magic, burlesque, freak and geek acts, jugglers, contortionists, music, fire dance, working acts, trick roping, escape and impalement arts, aerial acts, comedy, and all things incredible, incredulous, incomparable, and incomprehensible, interspersed with Sprocket’s trademark pitches, ballies and lectures on the acts on view, and the greatest pitches, acts and facts of sideshow history (known as “jackpots” in the biz). The first night, we had no idea whether the Show would fly, but by the second show, we were making quite a splash and filling up the joint. We were the first sideshow/circus/burlesque showcase for local performers, and drew the top acts in the industry down from NYC and across the country.  It was a good time to be alive, and offered me a second (or third, or fourth?) career. This was after running my own avant-garde/postmodern theatre company for 20 years, writing snd directing unique stagings of the works of Mr. E. A. Poe for five years, and being a journeyman theatre worker for decades - but we’ll @cut up those jackpots down the road.” Unfortunately, the fabled Palace of Wonders time has come and gone, and the Weirdo Show, under (completely) new management and artistic leadership, still continues to pack the houses 12 years later… Please see my album SPROCKET for actual, genuine documentary ZPhotographic Evidence!