The New York Times: The live-events company Feld Entertainment is best known for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which closed in May 2017 as slumping ticket sales and rising concerns about animal mistreatment ended a cotton-candy-filled era in arena entertainment.
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It seems like no corners were cut in the making of this production. I’m amazed that they still believe in a market for this type of show, which I presume costs a lot to attend. In this day and age with cheap, on demand entertainment, I wonder if this show is going to be as successful as it’s projected to be. The biggest reason I think people may be interested in this production is the puppets and the fact that it can’t be CGI. I’m fascinated with puppets and I bet that’s one of the biggest draws for the show. The artistry on the dinosaurs is very detailed and their control systems I’m sure were fun to work on. It’s also interesting how they’re feeding off an existing franchise, which is probably both a blessing and a curse. Having that baseline will attract fans of the franchise, but if they’re not big fans, my guess is they’ll say “I’ve already seen the movie.” I’m interested to hear how the tour goes.
I never realized that the old Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus had been owned by a larger company. But, sure enough, Feld Entertainment, a live events company, takes that title. I believe live circus animal shows definitely became ill-fated with this increase in vegan and vegetarianism, as well as animal rights activism. When it came to light just how poorly animals were treated behind the scenes of these shows, it was only a matter of time before the demise of this old style of circus. Feld Entertainment’s new show, however, based on the current Jurassic World series doesn’t have to worry about this. Their impressive collections of animatronics and wearable dinosaur costumes will not harm a single animal. Nonetheless, the dinosaurs they have created are incredibly realistic. The worn dinosaur costumes are especially impressive. The brief clips on the article showed graceful, natural movement, which is impressive considering the weight of the costumes themselves. Nonetheless, the actors inside move with beauty and grace, to strengthen the illusion of real dinosaurs on the stage.
I honestly did not know that the Ringling Brothers Circus was owned by another company. I thought they died and that was it. But apparently the mother company, Fed, is not only alive, but also kicking. It is really interesting to learn that Disney and NBCUniversal do not actually produce the shows, but rather license their IP to a production company to produce. Now I understand why the Fed did not shutdown after losing the Circus. Disney on Ice alone makes a ton a money. This new venture that NBCUniversal proposed is super interesting and complex. Not only did the company have to create the 21 dinosaurs for the show, but they also had to find puppeteers to move most of them. This operation was highly complex and I don't doubt that it took 3 years just to plan and get up and running. From the pictures in this article, it looks like the Fed not only achieved their task, but exceeded it. The life likeness of the dinosaurs are incredible and shows off the teams extensive research. Though the story has been told many times with the amount of movies and reboots over the years of Jurassic World, this seems like a different take on the story, one with actual dinosaurs that achieve the danger that only live theater can. I honestly now want to go see this show.
First off: dinosaurs!!! Secondly, I never knew that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus wasn’t owned by some extension of either the Ringling siblings or P. T. Barnum/James Anthony Bailey’s descendants. As it turns out, the Ringling Bros.’s parent company - live entertainment company Feld Entertainment - is very much still in existence. While the Ringling Brothers Circus had to close due to the falling interest in live animal shows (probably due to the increasing amount of people being vocal about animal rights). The interesting thing about “Jurrassic World” is that, unlike the movie, the dinosaurs must be real. (Well, not real, but at least tangible pieces instead of CGI.) The puppets must also be able to be controlled without interrupting the audience too too much. From the pictures in this article, the puppets seem absolutely beautiful! The amount of detail with which the technicians have sculpted and painted the puppetry seems so life-like that I can’t imagine anyone disputing their legitimacy…except for the fact that dinosaurs haven’t been around for ages.
The move from live-animal circuses to animatronics seems almost inevitable in this day and age, but jumping straight into dinosaurs is a giant leap. Dinosaurs and the Jurassic franchise are almost ubiquitous at this point; everyone generally knows what dinosaurs look like and they have at least an idea of how they move, but the puppeteers do not have an exact replica of movement to go off of, save for the Jurassic movies, which are still just grasping at the best straws that they have. The puppet crafters and puppeteers had to devise a unique system of construction and control, making the dinosaur puppets/suits realistic (to whatever degree) and believable but also controllable and capable of expression and dynamic movement. One of the general rules of puppetry is to never let a puppet be still, to always keep movement in some part of the body, and it would be fascinating to be in the rehearsal process of this show, to watch the process of the director, choreographer, and the puppeteers, to see how they bring life into this animal that no one’s ever actually observed.
This is such an interesting article by the New York Times. Growing up I used to love going to the circus. Getting to see the Barnum and Bailey train when you would drive to the circus was so cool. However, getting older made me realize that the animal mistreatment was very real and im glad they are no longer touring. They then decided to move from live animals to animatronic dinosaurs. I think this is such a good idea. You are able to now tour big spectacle show around the country that is good for families. The dinosaurs are pretty advanced so if they market this correctly they should be able to keep this show running for a while. One thing that was really interesting was the rehearsal stage. It is so huge and shows the difference of how a production will be handle when you have a large amount of money involved.
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