Big Apple Circus

In the words of Goldilocks," says The New York Times, "the Big Apple I Circus is not too little, not too big, but just right." In the words of the New York Post: "Paul Binder's brainchild of a circus seems to get better and better. It looks fantastic just like circuses should but rarely do. Even if you don't like circuses, this is a circus you will like."

Paul Binder founding impresario, artistic director extraordinaire, handsome master of awesome ceremonies, ebullient ringmaster sansegal of the greatest one-ring circus in the history of the United States of America—is also a graduate of the class of 1963. Sixteen years ago he invented the Big Apple as a non-profit enterprise that now plays to nearly half a million customers a year. Each season begins in Lincoln Center with a three-month run under the bigtop next to the Metropolitan Opera House a long way from his days as a counterculture street juggler in Paris and San Francisco. (Those hippie days followed not only his B.A. from Dartmouth but also an M.B.A. from Columbia. Subsequently Dartmouth awarded him an honorary doctorate of fine arts in 1987.)

This gift to the world is likely to continue indefinitely, since Binder and his equestrienne wife Katja Schumann have two children who also perform with the Big Apple. Maybe someday he will have to add a second ring.