Bordentown native Jeff Branin is set to clown around at the Sun National Bank Center May 15-19
After a paint fight and a talent show, Jeff Branin crams himself into a tiny getaway car and checks off another successful day at the office.
The Bordentown native had grown up with a passion for being in the spotlight and making people laugh—and now he’s doing it for a living. When the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s “Built to Amaze!”, the 143rd edition of the Greatest Show On Earth, comes to the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton May 15-19, spectators will find Branin as a member of Clown Alley.
Branin noted the show will feature a number of new acts, including the “Wheel of Steel” and the world’s youngest human cannonball.
Another new addition to this year’s show is the King Charles Troupe, a high-energy basketball-playing unicycle troupe. Other classic circus performances include its animals, such as tigers and elephants, and acrobats and aerialists, to name a few.
One of Branin’s personal favorites is the addition of a 7-year-old elephant.
“She is literally like a typical 7-year-old,” Jeff said. “When you see her backstage, her trunk is wanting to touch everything.”
2013 marks Branin’s third year with the circus. Branin, now 24, had been working as a performer at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson when, after attending a Ringling Bros. circus show in February 2010, “all the puzzle pieces just fell into place.”
At the show, Branin struck up a conversation with some of the performing clowns, voicing his own hopes of becoming a professional clown within the year. Soon after that, he’d learned of an upcoming audition in July, and by November he was out on the road with the very same clowns he’d spoken with the previous February.
Now, Branin tours with the circus 11 months of the year, and expects to hit about 80 cities during the course of the show.
But since the show travels all over the country, audience reactions to the same routines tend to be quite varied.
“No two shows are ever exactly the same, and the crowd strangely enough, even if it’s in the same city, the crowds are always different,” Branin said. “They will always react differently. It always depends on the city itself and their type of comedy.”
The troupe rehearses many of the same acts, yet they always play out somewhat differently, because—inevitably—something forces the clowns to improvise.
At the end of one elaborate paint fight act, Branin recalled, a car was supposed to enter and carry the clowns out of the tent. Yet unbeknownst to the troupe, the crew was dealing with some mechanical issues behind the scenes.
When the car didn’t show up as planned, the clowns began whispering to each other, “Improvise! Keep going!” Branin said. The show continued with improvised physical comedy until the clowns could finally hitch an exit ride.
The benefit, Branin said, is that the audience is never quite sure what to expect.
“A lot of times when the audience is watching, even if they have no idea if that’s the way it’s supposed to go or not, the audience will see we’re having a good time with it, so it’s like subconsciously they’ll enjoy what’s going on,” he said.
For more information about “Built to Amaze!,” go online to sunnationalbankcenter.com.
–Lexie Yearly
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