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At 22 years old, Kevin Venardos rode an elephant across Manhattan wearing a top hat, NYPD in front and NYPD behind, leading thousands of parents and children to Madison Square Garden for a Ringling Bros. opening night.
He had landed the ringmaster job straight out of an open call audition and performed before 38 million people over five years. It was, by any measure, the gig of a lifetime.
"I was just a paid actor," he said. "But being there and being a part of bringing something joyful to so many people, that was extraordinary."
More than two decades later, Venardos is still in the business of extraordinary, just on a very different scale. His Venardos Circus, a Broadway-style, animal-free big top built from scratch with debt, a six-person cast and a dream, arrives at Mercer Boardwalk in Farmers Branch on April 2 for an 11-day run. The production is called ALICE, and it is the first time the circus has ever played this city.
The show's 500-seat, custom Italian-made tent, red and white striped, is intimate by design. No upper deck. No binoculars required. Wherever you sit, you are close enough to watch the performers sweat.
"Magic is not a force," Venardos said. "It is an effect, the result of a million details that have been lovingly cared for. And when all of those things play out before an audience, they feel magic."
Venardos never set out to own a circus. He studied musical theater at Ithaca College, moved to New York, and was cater-waiting and auditioning for Broadway when that open call found him. Smaller gigs followed, each one less promising than the last. Out of frustration as much as vision, he launched a fair act at the L.A. County Fair in 2014. That act became two touring circus units. Some cities have had them back nine and ten years running.
"The only way I would really have any consistency, the ability to control my future, is if I created a platform myself," he said.
This year's platform is ALICE, and the cast leans deep into the theme. There is an Alice on trapeze. A Red Queen and White Queen face off atop walking globes, a nearly vanished circus discipline, in a croquet match straight out of Wonderland. A Chinese pole. Production numbers that open and close the show. And the act that tends to silence the room.
Angel Ramos is 21 years old and a seventh-generation circus performer. His specialty is a cane-stacking hand balancing act that ends with Ramos doing a one-armed handstand 27 feet in the air. His father, Douglas, manages circus operations. His mother, Derileisy, performs alongside him in a troupe act. Three members of the same family, working the same show, in the same tent.
"When my prop first comes on stage, no one would ever know I'm about to hand balance on it," Ramos said. "But then I start getting higher and higher and higher, and the audience gasps every time there's a new level. At the end it's very silent in the tent because the tension is so high. But as soon as I finish, the audience erupts and it's a fantastic feeling."
Ramos spent ten years as a gymnast before a Cirque du Soleil performance changed everything. The hand balancer he watched that night is now his coach. This season he rebuilt the act, adding new elements and climbing roughly two feet higher than last year.
"Staying calm was the hardest part," he said. "You're always nervous, always have a lot of adrenaline. But after a lot of practicing, it's become almost like second nature."
For Farmers Branch audiences, the show carries a particular local thread. Tour manager and dancer Carina Torres grew up in Dallas, earned a BFA from Sam Houston State University and came home to spend years teaching circus arts at Lone Star Circus School, which is located in Farmers Branch. She joined Venardos Circus after a touring props job convinced her she wanted to perform and travel at the same time.
Now she does both, in the city where she used to teach.
"The artists I perform next to are amazing," Torres said. "They're doing amazing things, and they're all professionals, and it's nice that you get to see them in such an intimate setting. You can see them sweating as they attempt these difficult tricks on stage."
The performers are also the crew, setting up the tent, scanning tickets and greeting guests before they take the stage. Some families have traveled with Venardos since 2018, purchased homes with their earnings and watched their children become American citizens.
"We live and work together all day long, all year long," Venardos said. "The bond is really extraordinary."
Venardos Circus presents ALICE at Mercer Boardwalk opening Thursday, April 2, and running through Sunday, April 12. Tickets and the full schedule are at venardoscircus.com.
"Once we get people into our tent, they become fans for life," Venardos said. "They become rabid fans and they tell people about it. I'm very excited to meet the folks in Farmers Branch."
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