How to go
What: Ringling Bros. Presents Built to Amaze!
Where: Wright State University Nutter Center, 3640 Colonel Glenn Highway, Fairborn
When: Sept. 25-28. Show times are 7 p.m. Thursday-Friday and 1 and 5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday.
Tickets: $15-$70, available at the Nutter Center box office and Ticketmaster.com
Also: All-access pre-show free for all ticket holders one hour before the show
More info: (937) 775-4789 or www.ticketmaster.com
Kip Jones could hardly believe his eyes when he first stepped foot in the door.
“My buddy asked me if I wanted to try out for a team, and I thought it was a regular team – like basketball or baseball,” Jones said. “We walk in and there are guys riding unicycles. I was just stunned by what they could do.”
Jones, then 15, was both amazed and intrigued. Fast-forward more than three decades and the now 48-year-old Bronx, N.Y., native is the troupe leader of the legendary King Charles Troupe, a group that combines the skill and precision of riding unicycles with the athleticism of basketball to the delight of audiences young and old.
And instead of being amazed, as he was as a teen, Jones — who recently completed a record-setting 164 single jumps on a unicycle while double-dutch jump roping — now amazes audiences himself. The 13-member King Charles Troupe is just one of the many acts that will take center stage as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Presents Built To Amaze! tour comes to town for six shows Sept. 25-28 at the Nutter Center.
“The amazement on the kids faces is, honestly, the best part,” Jones said.
While the King Charles Troupe might be new to local audiences, the act has been performing for close to half a century. In fact, its roots go back almost 100 years as, in 1918, a young boy named Jerry King snuck under the tent to watch The Greatest Show on Earth. The two acts King remembered were the elephants and the unicyclist on the high wire.
Forty years later, in 1958, King – then a father – started a unicycle club for the youth in his Bronx neighborhood, stressing discipline. A decade later, the troupe auditioned for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey producers on the sidewalk of Madison Square Garden and, shortly thereafter, became a part of The Greatest Show on Earth.
Ringmaster Andre McClain, and his horse Comanche, will take the lead as more than 110 performers from 17 countries and 95 exotic and domestic animals will perform at the Nutter Center this week. New to the Ringling Bros. this year are the Tower Tumblers, a troupe of competitive aerial athletes from the Ukraine who launch themselves from trampolines to scale, repel and, even, pass through a three-story high translucent tower.
“There’s nothing better than watching the audience sitting on the edge of their seats and they do that with this show,” Jones said.
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