PBS Spotlights Inner Workings of the Circus

LOS ANGELES, January 8:
Slated to premiere in fall 2010 on PBS, the new multi-part series Circus will offer a revealing look at what goes on within
the business of a traveling big-top amusement and entertainment group.

From Show of Force, the
team behind the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Carrier, Circus looks at a group of performers—clowns, tightrope walkers, trapeze
artists and animal trainers—as well as carpenters, electricians,
concessionaires (known in circus lingo as "butchers"), musicians,
ushers, cooks, teachers and even clergy. With unprecedented access granted by
the Big Apple Circus, the filmmakers will follow the traveling company over the
course of an entire season.

Circus will feature an interactive, web-based educational
outreach component that will further the ideas and issues raised by the
programs, as well as the circus's history in the U.S. The website will feature
a broad range of components, including outtakes, circus trivia, online
interactive debates and exclusive video clips that reveal the secrets of the
modern circus.

"Circus will let viewers escape into this world, see it as
never before and understand what it takes to live this life—virtually an
art form— that dates back centuries," said John Boland, PBS's chief
content officer. "We will enrich the revelations and discovery even more
through deep and dynamic online and educational components."

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski