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TagsBY ANTHONY STOECKERT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Billy Murray spends lot of time clowning around — and getting paid for it.
For the past five months, the Clinton native has been touring the country as a clown in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' newest show, "Funundrum." His life on the road means sleeping on a train with circus folk, making audiences laugh, and helping the clown-ophobic overcome their fear. That train has pulled into the Meadowlands, where Ringling Bros. "Funundrum" is being performed through March 14.
One of Murray's favorite parts of the job is meeting audience members during the circus' pre-show event, when the audience can go to the floor, talk to performers, try on costumes, and get an up-close look at the tricks of the trade.
"I really love being in the pre-show, being with people face to face, interacting with them, talking to them, hearing their stories of how they've come to the circus every year," he says. "And then when the show starts, that's what's really incredible because everybody's in their seats, you can see how many people are actually there. So just being in the show, for me, really gets me amped."The seeds for Murray's career, with its seltzer bottles and tiny cars, were likely planted when he taught gymnastics at a school owned by Mary Kelly Rayel, a former trapeze artist for Ringling Bros.
"I was always very, very intrigued by her stories about being on the road and living on the train and traveling around the U.S. performing in front of thousands of thousands of people at these huge arenas," Murray says.
Murray graduated from North Hunterdon Regional High School in 2004. In the summer between high school and college (he attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia) he signed up for the New York Goofs Ultimate Clown School in New York City.
"I didn't know specifically that I wanted to be a clown in the circus but I've always had a very goofy personality, and I always liked performing," he says. "So I knew that I wanted to be entertaining in some way or another."
He moved to California, and auditioned for Ringling Bros. last July. In December, he presented his conception of what his character would be to the show's producers.
"It is very much up to us to come up with our face and our makeup, but they have a say," he says of the show's producers. "They've been doing this for years and years, so they know what will work and what won't work."
There are people out there who are afraid of clowns, kids, adults and, in the case of Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer, fictional characters. Murray says he takes effort to help the frightened overcome their apprehension toward the makeup- and red shoe-wearing pranksters.
"Sometimes I do experience people who are afraid of clowns," he says. "But I'm very, very easygoing and I'm usually able to talk to somebody and get them to realize, ‘Although I may have been scared before, there's really nothing to be scared about.'"
Ringling Bros. finds a way to make each year's circus sound like a momentous occasion. This year marks the 200th anniversary of P.T. Barnum's birth, and Murray would do Barnum himself proud when he describes the show.
"If we had five motorcycles in the Globe of Steel last year, we're doing it with six motorcycles this time," he says. "If we did a triple somersault on the flying trapeze this year, we're doing a quadruple, if we had eight elephants, this time we have nine. We're really showing everybody that we've got the greatest show on earth this year."
The circus' schedule is offering Murray a chance to spend time close to home. He recently performed in Philadelphia, and finished up a run in Newark before heading to the Meadowlands. Next up is New York and, in May, a return to Jersey with a string of performances at Trenton's Sun National Bank Center.
Murray says he's looking forward to performing at Madison Square Garden, which he's never seen before. And because one of his jobs is to walk elephants back and forth from arenas to trains, he'll be accompanying the beloved pachyderms through the Lincoln Tunnel when the circus train heads to Manhattan.
When it comes to clowning, Murray is a pro, but one thing he can't do is juggle. He says he makes up for that with his other skills, particularly his gymnastic talents.
"Everybody is a clown," he says. "Whether you're a professional clown or not, everybody's got a little funny bone in them, so you have to wear that on the surface and that's pretty much what a clown is."
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus' "Funundrum" is being performed at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands through March 14. For information and tickets, go to www.meadowlands.com. The circus will be at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, March 25-April 4 (www.thegarden.com) and at the Sun National Bank Center in Trenton, May 13-23 (www.sunnationalbankcenter.com).
E-mail Anthony Stoeckert at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/astoeckert
