WAMG Interview – Circus Legend Hovey Burgess of CIRCUS FLORA

Always exciting and always affordable, Circus Flora is the best circus in America and the best show in town. Circus Flora’s new production Time Flies takes place under the air-conditioned red-and-white Big Top tent in Grand Center next to Powell Symphony Hall (corner of Grand Boulevard and Samuel Shepard Drive.) Time Flies runs June 1st through June 25th and ticket information can be found HERE.

Since 1966, every student to study at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting program has studied circus techniques with Hovey Burgess. He also taught in the Drama Division of The Juilliard School (1968-1972). Hovey created, directed and performed with the Circo Dell’Arte (1969-1970), which included Cecil MacKinnon, Larry Pisoni, Judy Finelli, and Jim Jansen. He taught at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College (1973 – 1975, 1995), and at the Ultimate Clown School (since 1999) with Dick Monday and Tiffany Riley. His instructional book Circus Techniques (1976) is still in print. Hovey choreographed and appeared in the motion picture POPEYE (1980), starring Robin Williams, one of his former Juilliard students. He is the recipient of the Red Skelton Award Gifted Mentor to Clown Theatre Artists (1991), the International Jugglers Association’s Excellence in Education award (1997), and the Downtown Clown Golden Nose – Lifetime Achievement award (2009). While Hovey is in high demand with many circuses around the world, his most enduring relationship continues with Circus Flora (since 1991).

Hovey Burgess took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about his career and the upcoming Tim Flies show at this year’s Circus Flora.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman May 24th 2017

Tom Stockman: You have been with the Circus Flora since 1991. What is special about Circus Flora and what is different about it than other circuses that you have worked with?

Hovey Burgess: I think it has a special character that probably dates back to The people who started it, primarily the late David Balding and some of the people that he put together to produce the show originally.  It’s still seems to have retained much of that same flavor. It’s a real family-oriented situation backstage, and for people who like to work in circuses, it’s not just a job, it’s a fun job.

TS: How long do you stay in St. Louis when you’re here?

HB: I’ve been teaching for the past 50 odd years at New York University. We usually have a graduation and a retreat. I usually skip The graduation but have to go to the retreat to discuss what’s going to happen the following year. I plan my trip so that immediately after the retreat, I head to St. Louis and I usually get here just in time for rehearsals. I’m retiring from NYU next year so I’ll be able to get here much earlier from now on and be able to work on the lot as soon as the lot is available. But I’m usually here for about a week and a half for rehearsal and then for whatever the run is. This year it’s 3 1/2 weeks. We don’t stick around long afterward.

TS: What do you like to do in St. Louis when you have a little spare time?

HB: My idea of a good time in St. Louis is to stay on the circus lot and not leave unless I have to, but I have been to the zoo. You have a wonderful zoo here, but I’m not big on sightseeing. I haven’t been up in the arch.  I come here to work the circus. For people that work in the circus year-round, I’m sure they like to go on trips and canoeing and things like that but on my day off I’m busy doing things like laundry. But my workdays are all fun.

TS: What’s new with this year Circus Flora?

HB: This year were featuring a wonderful young juggler by the name of Kyle Griggs. I first saw him in a show in New York called Queen of the Night, which is a very unusual show. Then I saw him again at a Circus Soleil show called Paramour on Broadway. He also did one of the symphony shows with us. He specializes in juggling umbrellas and rings. We’re working right now on a big production where he will be doing fantastic things with rings in the center ring and he’ll be surrounded by a whole bunch of other jugglers doing simpler things in the smaller rings. It will be a big ring fest!

                                                              Kyle Griggs

TS: I was looking at your bio. You’ve been in the circus business for over 50 years! How is the circus business changed over the decades?

HB: Oh, it’s changing so much right now. That’s really what’s been on my mind lately, just how drastic the change can be. It’s not the end of the world, and it’s not the end of the circus, but one of the major benchmark circuses did their last performance on Monday. That was of course the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. That one goes way back to about 1870 or so. This is not that unusual though, but people are getting very upset about it. The first circus was Philip Astley Amphithéâtre in London which started in 1768 and it ended I believe around 1892, So that lasted almost 125 years. So far, Circus Flora has lasted 31 years. Circuses or like actual beings. They have a birth and they have a maturity, and they have a death eventually. Nothing is forever. But right now the circuses are going through a change. We still have the Pickle Family Circus on the West Coast. The Big Apple Circus, which used to be not-for-profit, has been a model for the industry, but they did not perform last year. They went bankrupt. They had gone $8 million in debt, but it was bought for something like $1 million and is going to be resurrected as a for-profit circus this fall. I just got a notice from my former student that the Bugliosi in winter circus is reconsidering The traditional animal type of circus and we’re going to eliminate wild animals including elephants.

TS: What’s your opinion on using wild animals in circuses?

HB: I think that if humans are depriving animals of their habitat and then turn around and deprive them of the right to work in the circus, I think it’s simply horrible.  I have a strong, negative opinion about that.

TS: Have you ever thought about writing a book about all the things that you have experienced in the circus is over the years?

HB: Yes, that might be fun although I’m still busy acquiring experiences. I didn’t want to write a sort of instructional book on circus skills. That was published in 1976. Have you ever witnessed any circus acts go tragically wrong? Not really. We once had a woman in Chicago who fell off of an aerial chair and that put her out of the show, But it wasn’t really a horrendous or serious fall. But those things do happen, I’ve just never witnessed one. I’d say I’m happy about that.

TS: Since my website is a movie one, I’m going to have to ask you about some of your favorite circus movies.

HB: Oh yes, when I was 16 I saw the movie TRAPEZE which was filmed at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris and was released in 1956, which was coincidentally the same year that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus stopped appearing under a big top. That movie was very influential. When I think of a movie that changed my life, it has to be the movie trapeze.  I’ve seen a lot of circus movies other than that, but that’s the one that really influenced me. Of course I eventually went to the site of where that was filmed. I was involved than in Robert Altman’s POPEYE movie. That was Robin Williams first movie.

TS: Oh, I love that movie I know it was filmed in Malta. What was the atmosphere like on the set of that movie? 

HB: Yes, it was filmed in an unsheltered harbor in the southwest corner of Malta. It was about the least protected be there. It was supposed to represent Maine or something. It was a whole lot of fun. A lot of other circus performers were involved in that film including a lot of my students. But it was like a big party. I knew that whenever Altman filmed a movie, it was like a big party. He was not studio oriented. He hated studios.

TS: What was Robin Williams like at that stage in his career?

HB: Well, he was ‘on’ a lot. It was a very interesting and curious case. He had been a student of mine when I taught at the Juilliard drama division. When he got cast as Popeye, he brought me in to do some of the choreography, and then they gave me a role in the movie as Mort the Tough. Robin would go to the airport with us and people would recognize him if he would want to entertain them. So he was really in character most of the time. Either that or half asleep on the sat. Robin had very serious problems with depression.  That’s not uncommon. He was kind of a clown, but he was going to make him laugh? That was part of his problem. He could make all of us laugh but not himself, and I think that’s what eventually drove him to suicide. I was very close to him. He was both a student and a friend and I felt very bad about what happened to him. I had a great relationship with Shelley Duvall during the filming of POPEYE.  There’s a scene in that movie where she’s been captured by Bluto and she’s on a ship and looking out over one of the sets inside the ship, I was off-camera holding onto her ankles because she was standing on a box.

TS: I thought Bill Irwin was brilliant in POPEYE as Ham Gravy. Have you known him for a long time?

HB: Oh yes. I met Bill at Ringling clown college in 1974. He was a student of mine there. He went on to work with the Pickle Family Circus on the West coast which was started by Larry Pisoni. Bill was part of a show put on for me to celebrate my supposed retirement from NYU, although I actually didn’t retire

TS: Did you ever meet Vincent Price? He’s from St. Louis.

HB: No, I never met him but I knew his daughter. She was a student at New York University. Meryl Streep’s son was also a student of mine at NYU for a while as well.

TS: Kevin Kline is also from St. Louis. You knew him, right?

HB: Yes, Kevin Kline was a student at Juilliard. I remember he was friends with David Ogden Stiers there as well. One time, years later, I was working at the Chelsea area of London and I went to a laundromat to do my laundry and some guy came up to me and said my name, and it was Kevin Kline!

TS: Good luck with this year Circus Flora. I’m really looking forward to attending.

HB: Well thank you. I’m sure we’re going to have a great year