Step right up, Newcastle.
The circus is in town.
At least that's the vibe that comes when Strut & Fret set up their iconic Spiegeltent in Civic Park and offer a night of absolutely alluring dance and acrobatics.
The five-week run for a brand new show, The Party, begins Thursday night and runs through May 7.
The cast of nine, with serious international circus and theatre credentials, will dance, foot juggle, do aerial acrobats, mime and sing, with plenty of audience participation and a wee bit of nudity.
"We've really been developing the [Newcastle] audience," said Strut & Fret director Scott Maidment (who also created The Party show).
"It started out smaller and has grown, and grown, and grown.
"Now when we start setting up, people go, 'oh, it's the Spiegeltent!'. They know what it is.
"We've had 10s of thousands of people coming through the tent over the five to six weeks we are here.
"We sold 5000 tickets before we even opened the season."
Maidment has plenty of faith in the new show and in Newcastle to know the run will be a success.
"Sometimes it's not so much about creating a show as deejaying the vibe in the audience," he said.
"Sometimes I know I'm on it because the audience is clapping and cheering, sometimes if they are looking a little confused, then I'll change it.
"With this type of experience, you want to push the audience and give them something they will never have seen anywhere else before.
"And so they remember it, and that's part of it.
"It's not like having a passive experience at the theater.
"The tent brings this great energy to it."
English actor Danny Collins, who portraits the emcee in The Party, is excited about the show.
"We can just come in and be super crazy because there is a lot more freedom in cabaret and circus to choreograph your own stuff which you don't get in musical theatre," he said.
Read the Weekender in the Newcastle Herald on Saturday for an in-depth feature on stars of The Party.
