my life without a net

W NET T WITHOUT ITHOUT AA NE ! ! ! ! ! ! FOREWORD BY Flying Funny My Life without a Net Dudley Riggs Foreword by Al Franken University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Flying Funny All photographs courtesy of the author, unless credited otherwise Copyright 2017 by Dudley Riggs Foreword copyright 2017 by Al Franken All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-­2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu isbn 978-1-5179-0167-7 (hc) isbn 978-1-5179-0094-6 (pb) A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Printed in the United States of America on acid-­free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-­opportunity educator and employer 22 21 20 19 18 17 10 This book is for Pauline, my closest friend and loving wife, now for more than a third of a century Contents Foreword  ix Al Franken Flying Funny Introduction  The Polar Prince  11 Vaudeville  28 The World’s Fair  41 The Riggs Brothers Circus  49 School on the Road  63 The Circus at War  68 Flying Funny  80 Clown Diplomacy  88 Fliffus It Is!  102 10 Word Jazz  111 11 Never Let Them Know You Can Drive a Semi  121 12 Change the Act?  131 13 Yes . .  Please!  138 14 Instant Theater  148 15 The New Ideas Program  161 16 Theater without a Net  175 Acknowledgments  183 Foreword Al Franken In 1968, two geeky teenagers went to a show at a small revue theater in Minneapolis called Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop The geekier of the two, me, was a senior in high school The other, Tom Davis, was a junior That night we saw adult people doing what we wanted to do: perform onstage and make people laugh Tom and I had been writing and performing at school, teaming up to morning announcements for laughs Obviously, we had watched comedians on television But for some reason, seeing live comedy on a stage made show business seem like a real option for two kids from Minnesota After the show, the cast did an improv set based on audience suggestions Some of the stuff worked, some of it didn’t But that’s what made it even more exhilarating when the performers scored Improv techniques were also developing at the more famous Second City in Chicago after it opened ix A true child of the circus, I perched in the mouth of a tuba in the spring of 1932 My debut “act” with the Russell Brothers Circus was as the Polar Prince of the North The miniature horse was soon replaced with a polar bear cub left: I grew up watching my parents perform, and learning from them below: Playing “Buck Riggs the All-­American Cowboy” alongside my father, “The King of the Kokemos,” during the circus off-­season in 1937 Riggs & Riggs holiday card, showing my juggling mirror act I’m on the bars practicing my act Note the clown shoes (my feet are not that big) Taking a break with fellow performer Baba Dewyne in Manila, 1952 top left: The E K Fernandez All-­American Circus I’m ringside at bottom left, holding my hat in the air bottom left: Opening Day of the All-­American Circus I am spotting my dad on the bars, with Punch Jacobs at right My controversial handshake with Crown Prince Akihito of Japan, which caused an international crisis and changed Japanese policy Dudley dangling from the trapeze in the early 1950s left: Performers spend a lot of time waiting in between our shows below: Entertaining children in a military hospital at Clark Air Base in Manila, 1952 Program for the Kelly & Miller Bros Circus left: Every few weeks you would receive a new official route card informing you where you were off to next Note that we visited a new town every day below: On the road with the Dolly Jacobs Circus along the Alcan Highway—­the crowds were not huge My first trip to Minnesota with the Shrine Circus in 1952 People told me I wouldn’t be able to winter tour Minnesota and the Midwest in my MG, but after a big snow the MG was always the first one off the lot (but it was “breezy at best”) The New Ideas Program in Minneapolis, 1958 right: Performing with the Instant Theater Company in 1956 below: First promotional shot for Café Espresso in 1959: drinking espresso while doing a one-­arm handstand Photograph by Jim MacRostie right: Posing with the first espresso machine in the Midwest, 1956 Photograph by Dwight Miller below: Always new, always brave Early days at the Brave New Workshop, 1963 Poster by Richard Guindon Photograph by Henri Dauman / Life magazine Copyright Henri Dauman / Dauman.pictures.com All rights reserved ... the off-­season He had been a machinist, a carpenter, a sign painter, an actor, a talent salesman, and even a movie stand-­in for Clark Gable Show people tend to gripe a lot, always threatening... I am not a magician What I do, I without trickery and without any help from the devil.” An Episcopalian by birth, she said she was a rationalist by choice Using the stage name Madame Emma, my. .. (Havana, Cuba), the Al G Kelly & Miller Brothers Circus (USA), Stevens Brothers Circus (USA), the Dolly Ja‑ cobs Circus (Canada and Alaska), the E. K Fernandez AllAmerican Circus (Japan), and