Roustabout was first created and produced in 2006 by the Chicago theater company The Neo-Futurists and received its second production as part of Chicago’s Theater on the Lake season. It has won numerous awards and was showcased in Milwaukee as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. At the time of its creation, I was drawn to this story having visited the Woodlawn Cemetery. I was moved and fascinated by the tiny mass grave that still exists where a group of unknown circus performers are buried in an area marked “Showman’s Rest.” I wanted to know their story and share it. What I learned and love about circus performances like the Hagenbeck Wallace Circus are that circus acts are based in many things such as awe inspiring skillful physical stunts, freak show wonderments, beautiful spectacles and deceitful tricks and illusions as well. Whenever a circus would roll into town, all of those things would emotionally collide in the three rings of a big top performance. And you never knew exactly which was coming when. So as you watch Roustabout: The Great Circus Train Wreck!, you might notice three performance structures at work alluding to the nonfictional historical truth of the actual train wreck, to the absurd comedic farce about the meta theatrical nature of performance and lastly the heart felt pathos in the dramatic narratives of the historically forgotten performers. In the end, I hope the show shares a cheerful eulogy in memory of and in tribute to the Hagenbeck Wallace performers and their lost performance on that fateful day almost 100 years ago just outside of Hammond, Indiana. I'm particularly honoured to have the Hobart High Theatre Department share this production as it is the first production in the state Indiana - so closely nestled to the origin of the historical story itself. If I could instruct you how to watch this play, I would tell you to lean forward with your heart open to the potential laughter, gasps, joy and the beauty that is a circus.
i'm here to join your circus
Jay Torrence
Playwright
