Mr. Thom Wall balances a sword on a dagger in his mouth.
A family of three from Tolland, Connecticut, shuffled into their seats in the Paul Mellon Arts Center (PMAC) auditorium for the long-awaited vaudeville show. Peter, the father, is an avid self-taught juggler of three months. His son, Vincent, supports his dad’s hobby by picking up the juggling balls that he drops. Becky, the mother, surprised father and son with tickets to watch world-famous juggler Thom Wall perform at Choate Rosemary Hall on Friday, September 22. After the show, the family exited the PMAC with three books about juggling. They were published by Mr. Wall’s publication company, Modern Vaudeville Press, which promotes research into the history of juggling.
In his hour-long show open to the public, Mr. Wall caught a bowling ball on a wine glass and balanced a spinning plate on top of a single playing card and a dagger held up by his teeth. He also juggled five knives behind his back — a trick he hadn’t quite mastered yet when he first met Mr. Bari Robinson, a Choate theater teacher, a decade ago.
The two first met in 2013 at a devising theater called Celebration Barn in Maine. There, theater professionals and circus performers come together to workshop their own pieces and give each other feedback. Back then, Mr. Wall was still developing the more dangerous tricks that he performs now. “I didn’t use a knife, and I was still using a flat wooden spoon,” he said.
Mr. Wall first dipped his toes into the juggling world in middle school. After checking out The Complete Juggler by Dave Finnegan from the library for a nonfiction writing assignment, Mr. Wall taught himself how to juggle with three balls. “It was a fun thing that I learned how to do myself, and it was kind of empowering,” he said.
He went on to perform with Cirque du Soleil, traveling around the world and sharing his joy for juggling with large audiences.
During the meet-and-greet with audience members after his performance at the PMAC, Mr. Wall recounted to a circle of students his experiences from being a member of Soleil.
Once, while in Paris for a performance, he had to pay a visit to a doctor because his wrists were in pain. “It got to a point where I couldn’t hold up a cup without my hands shaking,” Mr. Wall said, showing off his flexor pollicis brevis — the bulging muscle in his palm he has strengthened over the years. The strain his rigorous performance schedule had on his tendons and joints was one of the reasons Mr. Wall decided to leave the circus to become an independent performer.
Another was that although Cirque du Soleil came with fame, glitz, and glam, Mr. Wall wanted to make the craft of juggling more accessible. As an independent performer, he now has more control over the prices audiences pay to watch him perform. For an upcoming performance next week, he will be traveling to South America with Clowns Without Borders, a non-profit organization that spreads joy through educating about juggling and circus acts.
Besides his performance in the PMAC, Mr. Wall also worked with aspiring actors at Choate. He led a breathwork workshop with the cast of this year’s fall play, Puffs.
“He taught us a lot about breath and how it can control an audience,” said Andra Ionescu ’24, a Puffs actor and member of the theater Arts Concentration program. “When the actor holds their breath, the audience finds themselves holding their breath.”
Mr. Wall also paid a visit to Ms. Deighna DeRiu’s directing class on the day of his performance, who first heard about Mr. Wall while listening to National Public Radio (NPR). She appreciated how Mr. Wall touched on the history of juggling during his performance. “I thought this was really interesting because I felt like it was a little less generic,” she said.
Qin Caldwell ’24, one of the students in Ms. DeRiu’s directing class, ran the lighting cues for Mr. Wall’s performance. With the original technical director falling ill, Caldwell received the lighting cues in an email less than 24 hours before the show and took on the booth solo. “I got there and ran through the act with him a few times so I could get my bearings. And then, I was ready to go!” he said.
During the performance, Mr. Wall spontaneously paused to ask if the audience had any questions. Immediately, the hands of some young audience members shot up. “I’ve never had people actually ask questions during a performance,” Mr. Wall said.
Max De León’s question was, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how much fear do you experience as you juggle knives?” Mr. Wall followed this question with a sharp inhale, after which he said, “Next question!”
With a combination of comedy, artistry, and athleticism in his performance, Ionescu commented on how the connotation of the term “juggler” doesn’t do Mr. Wall justice. “When you hear juggler, you think of someone who came to your third-grade party,” she said. “But if they showed a video of what he did, I think a lot more people would have shown up because it’s not [just] juggling. It’s crazy. It’s a whole performance.”
