Evans City native cherished time performing in circus
From circus clown to lawyer, Peggy King has lived an eventful life.
The Evans City native spent years with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s and ’80s, overcame personal hardships in the ’90s and became a mediator in family court in the 2000s, using skills from her clowning days to excel at mediation.
But before all that, King was just a kid from Evans City with an interest in theater. She had never even seen the circus as a child.
“(My family) would have had to go to Pittsburgh, which was the big, big city,” said King, 61, who now lives in Las Vegas. “We only went there (during Christmas time).”
King’s initial interest in the arts revolved around theater. She acted in a few plays while attending Seneca Valley High School, including “ playing the role of a pixie named Tink in “The Ghost of the Chinese Elm.”
After graduating high school in 1973, she attended Allegheny College in Meadville, initially majoring in English. However, her major soon changed to theater after she participated in a few plays.
“The English Department, you were having to do all this analysis for the writing, which was OK, but I was much more of a creative writer,” King said.
Her participation in theater changed into a desire to be a clown.
“I was attracted to the role of the clown as somebody who historically could do and say things that were not able to be said otherwise,” she said. “And there’s clowns all through history. Native American rituals have clowns. There’s clowns everywhere. (The) circus is not well-liked now, nor are clowns, but at least back then clowns were kind of cool.”
After she graduated from Allegheny College in 1977, she went to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in Venice, Fla.
King underwent a rigorous, three months of training. She put together an audition piece for Ringling Bros. and qualified for its circus.
King’s act included a parody of a trapeze act, as well as slapstick humor based on good-natured clumsiness.
“The first time I ever performed people yelled, ‘Bravo!’ and I was shocked, because people don’t do that when (clowns) perform because they think you don’t have any skills,” King said.
