Noted Name Helps Latest Frediani Launch Juggling Career

 

In a big-business city like Las Vegas, it doesn't hurt to have connections if you want to get work as a juggler. But, you still have to have an act once you get inside the producers door...

 

Romano Frediani seems to qualify on both counts, but the 18-year-old eighth generation circus showman is taking neither for granted as he begins to break into the business. His father, Nino Frediani, has played night clubs and circuses all over the world for 40 years, and knows producers all over Las Vegas.

 

Romano got his first break on the Strip when Nino, who has a long-term contract at the Flamingo Hilton, received a slight eye injury. Bill Moore and George Arnold, producers of the City Lites show at that hotel, asked Romano to take over for his dad. He did so successfully, and was invited back a second time to cover for another injury, and then for two weeks in mid-August while Nino took vacation. That led to a two-week "working audition" at the Sands Hotel in mid-September that he hopes will lead to his first extended contract in Las Vegas.

 

Romano knows that connections may make it easier to get in the door, but only a good act will keep him on stage. He offers producers and audiences both the new and the tried and true. His act begins with a blacked out stage. Spotlights and music come on simultaneously to reveal Romano poised with three cigar boxes, which he then manipulates energetically to the pop tune, "Everybody Dance Now." He chose to begin with boxes, he explained, because "It lets them know I can do conventional juggling, but still its a punchy opening."

 

The second third of his act is played out standing on a platform between a drum at his right and one at his left that are tilted inward toward each other. He bounces four balls on the platform to music, beginning with synchronous patterns and switching to asynchronous. He doesn't turn toward the drums until he finishes with four and casts one aside. With three balls he beats out "The 1812 Overture" on first one drum, then the other. His big trick is bouncing a ball off of one drum to pass over his head, then turning to catch it as it bounces off the drum head on the other side. Obviously, with the drums set about eight feet apart, doing the trick the four times he repeats it in his three ball routine requires great precision.

 

Romano then picks up two more balls and bounces five in time to a French can-can tune off of the drums and the floor. The balls coming off of the drums into his hands create a particularly nice visual effect. He said his most difficult trick is letting one ball from the five cascade bounce over his head, the turning and

integrating it into a new cascade of five on the other drum head as it bounces off of that one. He would like to bounce more than one ball from drum to drum, but finds that the reverberations of the drum as one ball hits causes too much inconsistency in the bounce of the next ball to make the trick stage-worthy. He began working with his drums two years ago, and debuted them in a three-month engagement in St. Thomas a year ago.

 

He borrowed his finale straight from his father. Romano does his father's ring routine, beginning with various three ring tricks, and concentrating on catching everyone on his head and removing it with the other hand in a cascade pattern. He then picks up the microphone for his first words of the act, greeting the crowd and inviting members of the audience to throw rings for him to catch. The introductions and their invariably erratic throws provide great fodder for comedy.

 

Romano is banking on his drum set as a signature piece that will give him an identity among juggling acts. "I know bouncing balls off of drums isn't new," he admitted. "Rudy Horn did seven off a drum. But people haven't used two drums before, nor put it in sync to music."

 

It seems he chose a prop that comes with its own set of challenges, however. Besides being heavy and not easy to move and assemble, the noise of the drums prevents pre­show rehearsals. "The drums are so loud I couldn't rehearse backstage at the Hilton because people in the audience would hear it," he said. "So I had to rehearse five hours ahead and go on cold for that segment."

 

The current efforts represent Romanos second beginning on a juggling career. As Nino's infant son, he traveled wherever his performer father went and learned three balls by the time he was four years old. He debuted in the act at age seven at the Copa Cabana Club in Greece and did a one night show in Las Vegas and worked for Princess Caroline in Monaco at age 12. But then he ignored juggling for five years and went to school in England. In the summer of 1990 he joined his father in Las Vegas with the determination to make his own name in show business.

 

"For the first year of building my act my father spent three hours a day at my side," said Romano. "I came up with the ideas but he shaped them into a format because he knows what works with producers and audiences. He's seen it all and knows it all and he's very rarely wrong.

 

"There is one disadvantage to being the son of a big name juggler, though - he sets a very high standard of practice. He was raised in the circus where there's absolutely no room for error, and insisted that I keep doing it until I did it right."

 

Romano has put in his three hours a day for the past two years, and has created an act that is unique. Poised on stage, red­headed, tall and handsome, with the love and help of one of most respected names in the business cheering him on from the wings, it would be wise to bet on Romano Frediani's success!