Cirque du Soleil carves out a new home at the Garden

Artist renderings depicting scenes from Wintuk, Cirque du Soleil’s newest show, scheduled to premiere November 1 at Wamu Theater at Madison Square Garden

By Tatyana Shumsky

Cirque du Soleil is about to pitch its tent near Chelsea.

The Canadian group’s newest production, Wintuk, is scheduled to premiere November 1 at Wamu Theater, formerly the Theatre in Madison Square Garden. After several attempts to secure a permanent home for a Cirque project, producers settled on securing a seasonal run lasting 10 weeks leading up to and following Christmas.

While Wintuk’s run is to last a minimum of four years, Cirque du Soleil has long struggled to secure a permanent space for their projects in New York City. The company is one of the partners involved in a controversial Pier 40 proposal to transform the community hub of sporting and playgrounds into a vast entertainment complex. That plan is currently being reworked after running into community resistance, while Wintuk’s executive producer Aldo Giampaolo said Cirque is exploring alternatives.

“New York is a big entertainment market. We have to be here,” Giampaolo said. “We’ve wanted a permanent spot in New York City for a long time. Being at Madison Square Garden part of the time was a bit of a compromise, and our effort with Pier 40 is just one of the ways we’ve tried to gain a permanent home here.” Giampolo, however, would not comment on the other options the company is exploring in New York.

Wintuk is a story of a boy’s journey from the gray bustle of the city to a magical arctic country in search of snow, told through a mix of acrobatics, song and puppetry. “We wanted to do a show for a family market because we’re here in New York during the Christmas time period,” Wintuk’s producer Scott Zeiger said. And extending Cirque du Soleil’s appeal to children represents a departure from its core demographic of 35 and up, according to Giampaolo.

Part of that effort was to introduce a concrete story line, which diverges from the concept-driven shows Cirque du Soleil has presented in the past. “People say they’re great shows, but they never understand the story. I think this time they will,” Wintuk’s director of creation, Fernand Rainville, said.

Wintuk also adds large-scale puppetry to the Cirque du Soleil repertoire. Younger audience members can look forward to 13-foot mobile lampposts and a pack of adorable snow dogs, some of which weigh more than 80 pounds. “The general idea was to explode the imagery and try to do that with puppets that are huge, that are impressive,” Rainville said.

The production cost $20 million in development, which Giampaolo expects to recoup in two years, though the show will only play 10 weeks a year. By contrast, permanent installations like O in Las Vegas play all year round but require a $40 to $50 million investment that takes an average of four years to recoup. “Longevity is what makes it successful. We have proven product,” Giampaolo said, noting that O has been running for nine years with audience members still keen to see the show.

Wintuk runs November 1–January 6 at Wamu Theater at Madison Square Garden. Ticket prices range from $30 to $110.