Friday, September 9, 2011


Circus is in the blood of Cornell Nicholas

from: CourierPostOnline.com

Sep. 8, 2011

Cornell “Tuffy” Nicholas never could make it as a clown, so running off with the circus wasn’t a career option.
So Nicholas did the next best thing: He bought the circus. Actually,
several of them.“I was a much better acrobat than I was a clown,” said Nicholas, the owner, producer and self-described “show maker” of a company that presents several cirque-style programs. Two of those shows — “Cirque Polynesian” and “Cirque Risqué: The Naked Circus” — are encamped at Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City through September.In late July, Nicholas had actually rolled out three circuses at Resorts in a massive, 1,800-seat air-conditioned tent pitched on a parking lot at the casino. But when Hurricane Irene began bearing down on Atlantic City in late August, Cornell and the casino decided to strike the tent and move two of the three shows into Resorts’ Superstar Theatre.“We decided it just didn’t make sense to put the tent back up for just a couple of weeks, so we moved everything inside,” he explained. “And I’m glad we did. The tent was great, but it’s much more comfortable and intimate (indoors).”Nicholas and Resorts mutually decided to scrap the Great American Circus because the end of summer was looming and the family audience the show catered to was going to disappear as kids headed back to school.Moving the productions indoors presented a new set of challenges to Nicholas and the cast of the shows. Instead of performing in a tent with plenty of overhead space for the performers, the acts had to be adapted for a showroom that has virtually no fly space over the stage.That meant that the so-called “strap acts” — aerial artists whose routines are performed high above the stage — had to adjust their performances for a stage that had less than 15 feet of useable space above it.“But as circus performers, that’s what we do,” said Nicholas. “You adapt to the space that’s available. It’s been challenging, but it’s also been a lot of fun.”Nicholas is a circus brat, born and bred. His father was a longtime circus ringmaster who coined the circus-opening phrase, “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages.” His mother was a bear trainer who toured the world.READ MORE:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20110909/ENT/309090008/Circus-blood-Cornell-Nicholas

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