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GENO: You're a violinist as well, aren't you?

ROBERTSON: Yes. I fiddle on the wire. I made , my living as a street performer doing just that between trees in parks. It was almost directly as a result of that that I got a part in "Bamum." Someone who saw me knew Joe Layton and made sure I got an audition.

STEVEN MICHAEL: I was with Ringling for a couple of years as a clown and did a little ringmaster for the show. I had left Ringling and was moving around when I heard of "Bamum." I started juggling, though, when I was sitting on the bench in Little League and had nothing to do but juggle baseballs.

GENO: What about your balancing of the trombone in the show. Do you ever drop it? It seems a little dangerous.

MICHAEL: It's not that hard to balance really. I've had a couple of little things happen like the mouthpiece dropping out and hitting me in the head. But the real difficult part is playing it while I'm balancing it. ·

ROBIN MORGAN: I'm an acrobat and do a lot of flipping all over the stage. I also do trapeze at the end. I didn't juggle balls very well before the show, but everybody was juggling when I got here. Eddie gave me some clubs and really got me interested. Now I'm learning to pass. I've been in the show over six months and now I'm juggling my brains out! We all juggle; it's really neat.

BARBARA NADEL: Interestingly enough, I started juggling when I was a physical therapist at a hospital in Boston. I used to try to juggle Ace bandages, but never figured out the pattern or got past two. It wasn't untill got to Ringling Brothers Clown College that someone showed me that pattern with three.

GENO: I get the feeling that "Barnum" is a fun show to be in. I also get the feeling that certain little nuances were added during rehearsals when the director asked, "Can you do that?"

ROBERTSON: That's just what happened. When we first started rehearsing we basically had a room full of toys. I remember one morning Joe Layton said, "Let me see what you do," and we all went and played. It gave him a lot of ideas. The cigar boxes that Eddie does for the brick number started that way. They had written a musical number, "One Brick At A Time," before they even found out that cigar boxes could be juggled. So they made up the boxes to look like bricks and now they're juggled during that song in the show.

GENO: It seems that this show is a great mixture between theatre and circus, blending music in a theatrical environment and allowing you to use your circus skills at the same time. Do you find it to be expanding your horizons?

WITTER: I don't know if it's expanding, but I do see it as using all the skills I have available, learned to be an actor, then went off to be a clown and learned other skills. Now I've found a wonderful place to blend them all together

NADEL: There aren't too many places in legitimate theatre where you can use your circus skills. That's one of the joys of this show.

ANDY TlERSTEIN: I'm the only white faced person in this show. Basically, though, I'm a muscian and play the violin, viola, piano, guitar, banjo, mandolin and lots of little instruments like the harmonica, spoons and concertina. I learned juggling from Fred Yokers who taught at State University of New York in Purchase. I also trained in Mexico with Aguilar before he was really well known. He's a Mexican Indian who used to teach at Ringling Brothers Clown College.

When I found him, nobody had signed up for his class, but he agreed to work with me for three hours a day. A couple of others came soon and we had class eight hours a day. It involved a heavy physical warm-up with juggling and tumbling. Though juggling was just part of what he taught, he used it to demonstrate the process of other things. Juggling is like construction --- a simple process of attempting one skill on top of the next. You start with one thing and go on to the next and somehow by its nature each thing interests you in the next thing. Start with one ball, go on to two, then three and then the tricks lead into each other, sort of like music.

GENO: Aguilar is basically a mime teacher if I'm not mistaken. I

TIERSTEIN: Yes. But his strong field is the awareness of the clown. His main emphasis is clarity: All things have contrast and clarity. Now his school has become a smooth operation, but is just as intense as ever.

GENO: When they cast "Barnum," did they advertise for jugglers or for particular roles?

WITTER: The paper said, "Singer, dancer, actor. Must do all three and have circus ability.

JACOBS: Circus ability was a must. So, when you came you had to be ready to show all kinds of skills. It wasn't your average audition. I would have loved to have seen all the auditions. We saw the last 100 and some were bizarre!

WITTER: I had just finished teaching at Clown College a month before I got a call in Seattle. The Felds, who are producers of the circus and part producers of "Barnum," called me to come to New York. I auditioned on my unicycle with all my juggling stuff, back pack on my shoulder and a ladder in one hand. They decided to give me the job, so I signed a contract and moved my family here.

GENO: For those people who don't know the New York audition scene, what's it like to audition for a role on Broadway?

WITTER: It depends on the show. Most chorus lines are huge. You can end up being one of 2,000 people auditioning. You show up at 6 a.m. for an 8 a.m. start and sign up as number 629 to go in. But for something like this not as many people show up. A lot of people might be able to sing and dance, but they can't tumble, juggle, or do trapeze.