FLYING FUNNY: MY LIFE WITHOUT A NET Tells Tales of Growing Up in the Circus

The forthcoming memoir Flying Funny: My Life without a Net (April 2017, University of Minnesota Press) by Dudley Riggs, a fifth generation member of a distinguished show business family, is about his life growing up in the circus and vaudeville.

Pretty much born into the circus life, Riggs began performing at the age of five, eventually touring with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey, and his family's own troupe. Riggs has worked his whole life in show business, having worked as a circus aerialist, vaudevillian, comedian, clown, movie actor, writer, stage director, and producer. It was this early life in the circus and vaudeville that provided the impetus, influences, and instincts that allowed him to create the "next wave" in American theatrical entertainment, improvisational theater.

Widely considered the father of improvisational theater, Riggs is the well-known founder of Minneapolis's Brave New Workshop. Riggs created the Instant Theater Company in New York in 1954, which he then moved to Minneapolis in 1958, becoming eventually the Brave New Workshop in the early 1960s. The Brave New Workshop is now the longest running comedy satire improv theater in the United States. Many notables came up under Riggs's mentorship at the Brave New Workshop, including Al Franken, Del Close, Lizz Winstead, Louie Anderson, and John Belushi, among many others.

The unusual gravity-defying first act of improvisational theater's founding father; the fun of storytelling with the wry insights and observations of growing up in show business.

FLYING FUNNING: My Life without a Net
By Dudley Riggs
Foreword by Al Franken
University of Minnesota Press | 160 pages | April 7, 2017
ISBN 978-1-5179-0167-7 | hardcover | $22.95

Dudley Riggs shares many highs and lows while describing circus life and the evolution of America's popular entertainment during the twentieth century. From his early life in circus and vaudeville to his creation of the Brave New Workshop, we see how his show business experience and instincts helped him create in Minneapolis what became the "next wave" in American entertainment-improvisation.

Dudley Riggs is a fifth-generation member of a distinguished show business family. He has worked in circus and vaudeville as aerialist, clown, movie actor, comedian, writer, stage director, and producer. Since the early 1960s, Riggs's Brave New Workshop-where he is artistic director emeritus-has produced topical and political satirical shows and regular improvisational performances for enthusiastic audiences and for entities such as NPR's All Things Considered, International USO shows, and colleges.

Al Franken, an American politician, writer, actor, and comedian, is a United States Senator from Minnesota. He began his career in improvisational theater and political satire as a member of the Brave New Workshop.

For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book's webpage:
www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/flying-funny.