ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Once percussionist Steve Weiss was old enough to get his driver's license, he would spend his summer days driving from his home in Broomall, Delaware County, to Allentown.
There, drum and bugle corps from throughout the nation would gather for the Drum Corps International Eastern Classic, among the largest DCI competitions.
"I would start going up to Allentown to go watch the drumlines," Weiss said. "And that’s the funny thing — a lot of people go for the show; I was going to just hang out in the parking lot to watch the drumlines warm up.
“And to me, that was really the event. That was, like, watching the drummers get into the right mindset. And that’s a show in itself."
In his early 20s, Weiss even competed — performing with The Reading Buccaneers drum and bugle corps.
Two decades later, Weiss is an accomplished professional percussionist who has performed with the Philadelphia Eagles drumline, the stage show "Stomp" in New York, "America's Got Talent Live" in Las Vegas, Cirque du Soleil and more.
“I grew up going to J. Birney Crum [Stadium], that’s for sure."Steve Weiss
But today through Sunday, Nov. 1-3, Weiss will be back in the Lehigh Valley.
He's a featured performer in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which will perform at PPL Center at 7 p.m. Nov. 1; 11 a.m. and 3 and 7 p.m. Nov. 2; and 3 p.m. Nov. 3.
Tickets, at $15-$68, are available at the PPL Center website, and at the box office at 701 Hamilton St., Allentown.
“I have a bunch of family and friends who are going to make the trip up from Philly," Weiss said in a recent call from his home in Las Vegas. "It’s going to be a bit of a homecoming for me.”
“I grew up going to J. Birney Crum [Stadium], that’s for sure."
And since, he said, "It’s been a fun life and interesting career all over the place.”
A new circus show
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is just a year revived from a 6 1/2-year hiatus after what organizers said was weakening attendance, animal rights protests and high operating costs.
The show now is animal-free, with "the focus on the performers," Weiss, 37, said.
"The show is designed to be forward-thinking and focus more on the individual talent of the performers and the technology we have in the show, as opposed to the old-school circus, which was more just, like, people doing crazy things."
In its legendary hyperbolic style, the circus describes itself in publicity as "never-before-seen stunts, acrobatic displays and comedic acts from a globally diverse cast."
It offers "a variety of unbelievable circus acts," including:
- The Triangular Highwire, in which, 25 feet above the ground, four performers do stunts on and around a bike
- The Double Wheel of Destiny, with four daredevil performers leaping and somersaulting on top and across two spinning wheels that hang 30 feet in the air.
- Comedic Performance by characters Nick Nack and the Equivokee Trio, with juggling, acrobatics, dancing and balancing skills.
- The Ultimate Playground, with BMX bikes, an extreme unicycle and more, using a trampoline launching pad for tricks and flips.
- Criss-Cross Trapeze featuring nine trapeze artists.
- Closing the show with a bang will be the Ringling Rocket, which will launch Skyler Miser across the entire arena at 65 mph.
Throughout it all are performances of original music, pop cover tunes and live rock-inspired drumming "to help shape the audience’s emotional journey throughout the show."
Penn State and the Eagles
In the show, Weiss plays Stix, a character who plays drums and does choreography, and with other characters, Aria (the singer) and Nick Nack (an acrobat) guide the character Wesley through his first day at the circus.
It's the latest in a series of prominent roles Weiss has portrayed professionally.
After graduating from Marple Newtown High School in Newtown Square, Delaware County, Weiss attended Penn State University where he was in the Blue Band.
"It’s a big football school, so the marching band is big. And it set me up for success in the sense that the stadium is massive. There’s 100,000 people watching when we were out there performing."Percussionist Steve Weiss
"Which is kind of a big deal there," he said. "It’s a big football school, so the marching band is big.
“And it set me up for success in the sense that the stadium is massive. There’s 100,000 people watching when we were out there performing.
"And you cut your teeth in that way — getting used to being on a big stage.”
After a year in The Buccaneers drum corps in his early 20s — "It's kind of a young man's game," he said — he was a founding member of the Philadelphia Eagles drumline.
“I didn’t create the drumline, but I was in Year One of it," and did the first four or five seasons.
"So I do have some ownership to that, ‘cause I was there when we really got off the ground. I’m a huge football fan and being from that area, a huge Eagles fan.
"There were a few guys that I knew just from the drumming community, and they were part of this group that was building a drumline for the Eagles."
Weiss said he's trying to do something similar for the Las Vegas Raiders.
'It's really the nuance'
It was a show called Recycled Percussion that took Weiss to Las Vegas in 2013.
"I was living in New York City and head of this Vegas show called Recycled Percussion, and just went to an audition in New York and they liked me and flew me out to Vegas," he said.
“Recycled Percussion was great. That was my introduction to Las Vegas and basically a show where the drummers take center stage and we play on recycled objects.
“And that’s one thing I really love about music and performance in general, is the balance of things, the dynamics. And that’s something I’m trying to bring to Ringling Brothers, too."Percussionist Steve Weiss
"But it’s a big smoke-and-mirrors and lights and fire Vegas show. We’re playing on recycled objects, but there’s microphones underneath them.
“I ended up doing that almost three years and we traveled a lot. We ended up doing cruise ships with that show and guest entertainers.
“Of course, there are loud parts, but it’s really the nuance, the subtlety, the jokes, the tongue-in-cheek stuff that really wins people over by balancing that loud with quiet.
“And that’s one thing I really love about music and performance in general, is the balance of things, the dynamics. And that’s something I’m trying to bring to Ringling Brothers, too.
“You don’t have to always play everything full volume. If you show some range, it makes the loud seem louder, and it takes people on a journey, as opposed to just slapping them in the face.”
'The perfect thing to me'
Later in Vegas, Weiss joined an "America’s Got Talent Live" show.
"It would take acts from the TV show and the audience gets to see the acts they saw on TV," he said. "I wasn’t on the show, but basically they needed some locals to fill in the spaces."
He also was with a Cirque du Soleil show called "Zoomanity" before the coronavirus pandemic.
"It was an incredible show," he said. "There was incredible depth and nuance and artistry. It was kind of a celebration of the human form in all different ways.
“That was a very fun time in my life playing drum set. And I was onstage for a bit of a solo moment.
But after less than a year, the pandemic hit, "and then everything shut down. And the show I was doing, they chose not to reopen," he said.
“It just opened up a whole new world. To me, I just kind of leveled up in my performance career. Doing a show like that, you think, ‘I’m really performing something. I’m entertaining people.'’'Steve Weiss, about his time in the stage show "Stomp"
But Weiss said that among his favorite jobs was with "Stomp."
"Stomp is an iconic show, just like Ringling Brothers is," he said. "‘Stomp’ really taught me a lot about performance in that, because it’s English, the humor and the wittiness of it has this bite that’s just so fantastic.
“Yes, there are trash can lids and wild, stomping sounds, but then we’d go out on stage with little matchbooks and shake matchbooks around and tell a whole story for five minutes.
"And it's just incredible how you can get the audience to laugh and be on your side, and they hate this character and they love this character. The show is totally nonverbal; there’s no dialogue.
"The whole time we’re just playing music and acting and using facial expressions and looking in different directions.
“It just opened up a whole new world. To me, I just kind of leveled up in my performance career. Doing a show like that, you think, ‘I’m really performing something. I’m entertaining people.'’'
Weiss said it was all those experiences that helped him bring together his Ringling Brothers character.
“I’ve been all over the place and I think that's why this Ringling Brothers is the perfect thing to me," he said.
"From all those experiences, I’m bringing them together for this character of Stix.”
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 7 p.m. Nov. 1; 11 a.m. and 3 and 7 p.m. Nov. 2; and 3 p.m. Nov. 3, PPL Center, 701 Hamilton St., Allentown. Tickets: $15-$68, www.PPLCenter.com.
