Come Alive plays in the round. There is no back wall to hide the rig, no wings to mask a scene change, and an audience on every side while performers fly over their heads. Every piece of scenery has to look right from every seat, and every move above the ring happens in full view.
The scenery, drapes, flying and rigging all came from one team. The hippodrome set and the entrance ring portal frame the show. Fourteen swags in purple and burgundy, each thirteen metres long, fan out across the roof of the tent to give it colour, cut and sewn in TSA’s own workshop on a short turnaround. The band sits in a platform dressed as a hot-air balloon basket, put together at floor level and raised to height on its own self-climbing frame. The Showman wagon, finished in deep red and gold, stands at the centre of the ring as the hero piece. Above it all, the system that carries the aerialists and the flying performers moves to a cue, every performance.
Theatre Safe Australia engineered, built and supplied the whole package as a single show, so one team drew it, built it and flew it, rather than a row of separate suppliers meeting for the first time on site.
Then came the harder part. A circus in the round does not stay in one place. Everything above has to come down, travel to the next city and go back up exactly as it was, on a show deck that can be levelled from the top whether it is standing on concrete, bitumen or grass. Season after season.
Read the full story: How one team keeps it show-ready, city to city
Image caption: Come Alive in the round: TSA’s roof swags and circus rig overhead, the Showman wagon at the centre. Image: Theatre Safe Australia.
