Cast member Sam Kellar-Long talks about training at Circus Juventas throughout childhood and his experience as an acrobatic swing in his first Broadway tour.
By Madeline Cisneros, Mpls.St.Paul Magazine
When Sam Kellar-Long’s parents decided to sign him up for his first class at Circus Juventas, they had no idea that performing would become his life’s passion. For 14 years he spent all of his free time at the St. Paul circus school, then continued his training at San Diego Circus Center and the National Circus School of Montreal.
After graduating from the Quebec school just last year, he now brings circus thrills to audiences all over the country on tour. The next stop: his home state. “The fact that it’s at the Orpheum, where I grew up going to see shows; and now to get to perform there, it’s kind of hard to conceptualize, but I’m really excited,” Kellar-Long says. With childhood dreams of being on Broadway, this tour feels like a backdoor entrance to professional musical theater, which has added some new abilities to his high-flying skillset.
You began attending Circus Juventas when you were 4-years-old. What was your experience like training there at such a young age? My parents signed me up because I was a little too rambunctious in my life and they thought that circus would be a good place for me. And at first, they said that I had a really hard time with it and that I was crying a lot while I was there, and I was like, I wanna go [home], and they’d be like, No, I think that this will be good for you. I came around to it actually quite quickly, so I just started taking more and more classes. There are so many classes there that you can take, and I just kept trying new ones and kept loving all of them. So it kind of took over all of my after-school time while I was growing up because that was just the only place that I wanted to be.
There’s a group from Circus Juventas attending one of the shows in Minneapolis. Are you still close to that community? Not living in Minnesota anymore, I don’t get to go back very often. But when I do go back, I see coaches that I loved and even students that I knew or coached that are now older. It’s always special to go back and I feel connected even though I’m not there every day like I used to be.
You’re a swing, meaning you learn several ensemble roles in case you need to cover for a cast member. What are the biggest challenges in that role? I’m specifically the acrobatic swing, which means that I cover all the other male acrobats in addition to having my own track in the show. So the challenge is that, in addition to the normal swing responsibilities of learning the blocking and the singing and the dancing and all of that stuff, I also have to feel comfortable doing all the acrobatic skills that they do every show. So it’s kind of trying to stay updated on all of the organizational parts of it and just the multitasking, remembering all of their tracks while also making the time to make sure that I’m ready to step into their tracks acrobatically when that’s necessary. That’s definitely been a big challenge with this role.
How do you feel about taking on that responsibility? It’s definitely stressful, but it’s also a very fun stress. It’s an invigorating stress. And it’s cool to have reasons to be training so many different disciplines. If I weren’t a swing, I might be spending all my time just doing like Chinese pole or just doing like an aerial act. But because I’m a swing, I get to feel connected to a lot of different parts of circus, which I enjoy. I think that I developed this love of enjoying doing a lot of different acts at Circus Juventas before I became specialized in specific things. I just love circus as a concept, and that’s what I get to do through the swing role with Water for Elephants.
What’s your favorite thing about Minnesota? I think the thing that I love and that I can really appreciate, looking back on my childhood, is just how important the arts are in Minnesota and how much of a priority it feels like they are. I think that my childhood was really enriched by how many artistic experiences I was exposed to and how much there was going on in the Twin Cities. And I think that getting to see and be a part of so many cool arts experiences made me want to be an artist growing up, and I think that’s awesome.