Or so says the New York Times. A mere five days after a lengthy profile of Cirque du Soleil co-founder and owner Guy Laliberté, which I wrote about in this post, the Times is back with a three-page preview of Cirque’s upcoming debut at Radio City Music Hall, the stage show Zarkana. And though their previews tend to be fluff pieces, the Times is again raising questions about the Cirque’s artistic direction, comparing Zarkana to Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and wondering out loud about the caliber of the theatre and clowning components.
Guy Laliberté, co-founder and owner of Cirque du Soleil, has done well enough for himself to afford to pay $35 million to be a space tourist. Yes, you read that right; yes, out of his own pocket. Not bad for someone who started as an accordion-playing street performer!

My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin