MARFA — Marfa Live Arts is bringing the circus to the 38th Annual Marfa Lights Festival.
Though elephants and high-flying acrobatics will not be on display, festival goers from Marfa and beyond will be treated to a performance by juggler/comedian Bruce Manners, a clown show featuring Las Vegas-based performer Paul Matthew Lopez with a live music score played by Michael Edwards and Erin Schneider.
“Continuing on the trend of hosting a magician last year, we are upping the ante and bringing the circus to Marfa with clowns and a juggler for a double-trouble situation!” said Marfa Live Arts Assistant Production Director Fatima Anaza. “There will be fun and hijinks, and we’re excited to bring some big top live performances to town.”
For award-winning juggler Manners, whose unlikely career arc started with a stint as an engineer at NASA, the show will delight spectators. “It’s sort of a modern-day vaudeville show,” Manners said of his act. “It’s a combination of world-class juggling and stand-up comedy, with audience participation at certain points of the show where I get people to come up to help me.” Manners, a Houston transplant, has been a festival-act mainstay for nearly three decades. He has shared the stage with magician duo Penn & Teller, and even opened for rock legend Alice Cooper. His passion for juggling began while in high school in Cleveland, Ohio, after his mother gifted him the book Juggling for the Complete Klutz as a joke.
“I didn’t realize it could become a career option,” Manners said. “When I graduated college with an electrical engineering degree, I got a job with NASA, but I still wanted to continue performing. Ultimately, the juggling seemed a perfect fit for me. I saw jugglers on The Tonight Show who did comedy acts, and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s the kind of thing I could do.’ So, I started going to comedy clubs and entering juggling programs, and it took off from there.”
According to Anaza, the call for the clown element of the show was met with high enthusiasm around Marfa. “It’s been exciting, clowns have been coming out of the woodwork. Whether it’s finding a person falling in love with making balloon animals or discovering town acquaintances who are ready to take a leap, proving they’re fearless performers,” she said. “Clowning is one of the most challenging things an actor can do. Seriously, it’s hard to avoid the pun, but there is no safety net, and folks don’t realize how difficult it is to be present and open-hearted with a crowd of friends and strangers. And juggling is such a feat of skill.”
Leading the clown troupe will be Paul Matthew Lopez, whose latest stage credit was a lead role in the “Best-show-on-the-Strip,” ABSINTHE, at Caesars Palace. Lopez is a Marfa native with strong multigenerational ties to town. “It’s going to be a homecoming for him,” Ananza said. “And I have to give a big thanks to Kaki [Auftengarten-Scott] for putting me in contact with him.” Lopez’s film credits include roles in Margarita Man, Velocity Girl, and Teenage Vampire as well as work as a stunt rigger and tightrope walker. Along with his film credits, Lopez has performed in variety shows as a clown, juggler and acrobat.
Marfa Live Arts’ Circus Clown and Juggling Show takes place on Saturday, August 30, at noon in front of the main stage at the Marfa Lights Festival. In case of rain, the show will move to the Hotel Paisano Ballroom. For more information on Marfa Live Arts programs, please visit www.marfalivearts.org.
