Flea Circus Featured in New York Times!

My show was featured in the New York Times on Sunday, November 23 (Arts and Leisure, page 5) in an article about the revival of Vaudeville. I've attached the first part of the article here. (To find out about the logistics of seeing the show, CLICK HERE)

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Old-Time Vaudeville Looks Young Again.
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

You won't believe your eyes and you'll be scratching your heads in amazement!" the barker beckons.

The appeal is irresistible--- a genuine flea circus on 42nd Street. Has time spiraled in reverse? Maybe. We venture into the Palace of Variety and take in the cluttered lobby. Prominently displayed is the sturdy stool that once supported Helen Melon, the fat lady of Coney Island.

"She's so big and so fat that it takes four men to hug her and a boxcar to lug her," a sign proclaims.

We plunk down $4, and within minutes are listening to Professor Adam Gertsacov, every bit the fantastical impresario, in his purple top hat and cash-register voice, introducing us to the wondrous insects itching (sorry) to perform. Yes, they can pull objects more than 100,000 times their weight, and, yes, Shakespeare wrote his most famous line about the species: "To flea or not to flea."

Midge and Madge are the stars of the Acme Miniature Circus of Performing Fleas: they pull chariots, walk the high wire and, truth to tell, are visible only through the magnifying glass Professor Gertsacov uses to move them about with tweezers. The finale comes when he puts the fleas in a cannon and blasts them through a ring of fire.

Were there really fleas? Maybe, maybe not. What surely existed was a high-spirited glance back at an entertainment form that had been dead as a doornail on 42nd Street since Professor Hecker's Show at Hubert's Dime Museum closed in 1957. It is part of a revival of old-time show business in New York City ? with plenty of echoes nationally ? that includes vaudeville, burlesque, sideshow, baggy-pants comedy and the circus arts, all with more than a dash of the urban self-consciousness associated with performance artists.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.