Ladies and Gentleman! Orchard School (a K-6th elementary school) presents CircOrchard, its 9th annual
children’s circus, featuring the entire 59-strong student body performing clown
antics, juggling, acrobatics, unicycling, stilt walking, and circus spoofs. The not-to-
be-missed public shows will be on Saturday, May 3rd, 2:00 p.m. and Sunday May 4th,
at 2:00 p.m. at The Landing in Scotts Valley. A second show has been added this year because of the overwhelming attendance last year.
Over the years, audiences have been wowed by the expertise and creativity of the
school’s young performers, as well as impressed by their confidence level and
powerful stage presence. The show, under the direction of teacher and professional
performer, Rock Lerum, is created fresh every year with the addition of new, kid-
generated skits, and an ever-growing student skill level that infuses new energy and
ideas into some of the old standards.

Lerum has been teaching at Orchard School
since 1998 and won a Gail Rich award in 2003 for his work in the community. In
2007, he took nine of the school’s students to New York City where they rode 6-foot
tall giraffe unicycles, danced on stilts, sang and clowned in the Good Morning
America studios in Times Square, as finalists in a national contest for the Oreo
Cookie Jingle.

Over the past decade, the entire school has packed up props, costumes, performers,
music and sets to perform free shows, namely a rendition of the Yellow Submarine
Magical Mystery Tour and more recently, CircOrchard, at local schools including
Gault, Calabasas, De LaVeaga, Green Acres, Tierra Pacifica, Ohlone, Monarch,
Gateway, and Pacific School. You may have seen Orchard School students when they
delighted the Santa Cruz Warrior’s crowds at half time show, or when they
performed with the Santa Cruz County Symphony as part of their family concert
series, in the programs Here Comes the Circus and Under the Boardwalk, at the
Santa Cruz Civic Center and the Mello Center in Watsonville in 2010 and 2012.

Orchard School is a small, non-profit, private K-6th school located on 14 beautiful
acres in Aptos. The school’s mission is to bring learning to life with a comprehensive
hands-on curriculum that celebrates childhood and focuses on the arts as well as
traditional academics. The teachers are specialists in their field who share a
commitment to make sure students get out in nature and move their bodies as much
as possible. They believe that kids need this to fully exercise and develop their
brains and inspire their curiosity to want to learn.