Genre:
Musical Comedy
Runtime:
100 - 110 mins
Cast:
6 male(s), 3 female(s), gender-flexible
Synopsis:
Sometimes, it takes losing all your dreams before you can discover the one dream that truly matters. "Big Top" is a campy love story amidst the mayhem, attempted murder, passion, and undaunted determination at a struggling traveling circus.
BILL, a talented hick from Homefork, population 23, arrives at the circus determined to fly under the big top with the trapeze artists, "THE FLYING RATCHADENIVEJS", IGOR, REX and IVAN. As with all the men who see her, Bill is immediately smitten with SANDY, the beautiful, young tightrope walker, whose earnest desire is to dance with the man of her dreams, Mikhail Baryshnikov, at the Bolshoi. Bill reveals he always flies without a net, which challenges the trapeze stars and results in Rex's near-death on a faulty trapeze. Replacing Rex, Bill gets a chance to join the act, but his experience swinging on a vine in Homefork doesn't prepare him for a swing on the high trapeze, and he is booted unceremoniously from the team. Unable to leave Sandy, Bill practices doggedly at the low trapeze as increasingly gruesome "accidents" continue to occur at the circus, much to the relief of the owner and ringmaster, GEORGE. With each accident, the circus' blood-thirsty audiences grow ever larger, and the circus is, at last, destined for success. However, as the gore continues, it becomes apparent that an evildoer is behind the accidents. Although everyone in the circus is under suspicion, the preponderance of evidence points to Bill, who is forced to leave Sandy to escape the wrath of the performers and the arm of the law.
Act two opens with the surviving circus performers nervously trying to prepare for a performance. In the opening clown act, a phone booth falls on a clown, putting her in a coma. In hiding, Bill approaches ESTELLE, the circus's most talented tumbler and gullible clown, convincing her to help him discover the culprit responsible for the myriad "accidents". Desperate for love, Estelle finds it impossible to say "no" to a man, even though she suspects Bill could be a murderous fiend. Disguising Bill as her cousin, PETUNIA, Estelle convinces George to hire him/her to take the injured clown's place. Bill's "dressed as a woman's intuition" finally helps him discover the true villain is the seemingly mild Ivan. Knowing people believe he is guilty, Bill is forced to leave when Ivan threatens to reveal Bill's presence and to harm Sandy. When Sandy again rejects Ivan's attempt to woe her, he cuts her safety net, and Bill, who can't leave the woman of his dreams, is the only one who can save her. However, he is paralyzed with fear when he climbs up to the platform, until he finally cuts one side of the trapeze, converting it into a "vine". Bill is able to follow his heart and his dream of flying, Sandy reveals an unexpected truth, George is thrilled with the world's only "vine/trapeze act", and Estelle finally realizes that the man of her dreams is the roustabout ZEKE, who has been desperate for her love all along.
Notes:
Actors need to simulate circus acts: female tightrope walker; four male trapeze artists. Roles can be multi-cast to 9 actors
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