John Cameron Mitchell, Mandy Patinkin and More Set for ORBITING HUMAN CIRCUS (OF THE AIR) Podcast

Night Vale Presents, the team behind Welcome To Night Vale - one of the most downloaded podcasts of all time - today announced the debut of a new program, The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air). Written and created by musician and storyteller Julian Koster (Neutral Milk Hotel, The Music Tapes), The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) is the story of a mysteriously impossible variety show broadcast from the ballroom at the top of the Eiffel Tower and the janitor who longs to become a part of it.

This surreally imaginative, intricately produced show arrives at a time when the artistic boundaries of fictional narrative podcasting are expanding and features the voices of Tony Award winner John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Academy Award winner Tim Robbins, Tony and Emmy Award winner Mandy Patinkin, Charlie Day, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Drew Callander, Welcome to Night Vale's Cecil Baldwin, Susannah Flood, and more.

Season One premieres on October 12th, and new episodes will post every other Wednesday through February 1, 2017.

Co-directed by and developed with noted boundary-pushing New York Theater director Ellie Heyman and produced by Christy Gressman, The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) continues Koster's fascination with and exploration of layering of sound environments, stories, and songs.

"When I was growing up, I loved records because you could lose yourself in them. They could become a friend, a part of your life. You could listen to them over and over - and you'd be rewarded by discovering something new," says Koster. "Podcasting, to me, feels like it can be such an exciting new incarnation of that feeling."

The Orbiting Human Circus offers an invitation to a world you can return to again and again. In furtherance of this idea, the show's unique, unstuck-in-time soundscapes were achieved via a mix of modern and antique recording technologies, including a 1930s wire recorder, a 1940s ribbon microphone, and a 1960s tape machine.

The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) marks the first independently produced podcast being presented by the new Night Vale Presents network.

"Our goal in creating the Night Vale Presents network is to find brilliant artists who exist outside of radio and comedy, and to bring them into the world of podcasting. We love the podcast medium, and we want to bring as many inventive stories and storytellers as we can to this community," says Jeffrey Cranor, co-founder, Night Vale Presents. "We're excited to share Julian's unique vision as our first Night Vale Presents podcast created outside of the Welcome to Night Vale team. The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) creates an elaborate world in which listeners can be immersed in beautiful music and a strange fiction adventure."

In its nine-episode first season, The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) follows a lonely janitor, played by Koster, working atop the Eiffel Tower, who stumbles into a series of alternately surreal and comic adventures as he becomes part of a mystery: what is the secret behind the wildly popular, bizarrely impossible live radio variety show being broadcast from the tower's top? "We all know what it's like to feel left out of something wonderful, so it's easy to fall in love with this janitor who desperately wants to be on the broadcast. As he clumsily follows his dream, we follow both the show's wildly weird stories that spin out in unexpected directions and the janitor's pursuit," adds Ellie Heyman.

Catch the unique acts, custodial mishaps, and offbeat characters of The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) by subscribing to the Podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.

The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air) will also kick off a live tour later this fall. For more information, go to www.orbitinghumancircus.com, and check out a preview below!

The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air)

A Podcast by The Orbiting Human Circus

Part of the Night Vale Presents Network

Written and Created by Julian Koster

Co-directed and Developed by Ellie Heyman

Produced by Christy Gressman

Performers: Julian Koster (Janitor); Drew Callander (The Narrator); John Cameron Mitchell (Mr. Cameron); Susannah Flood (Leticia); Tim Robbins (The Cricket); Dan Solomon (Jacques); and featuring (in alphabetical order): Cecil Baldwin; David Barlow; Meg Bashwiner; Ben Chase; Shannon Conley; Robbie Cucchiaro; Charlie Day; Brian Dewan; Mary Elizabeth Ellis; Chris Ferry; Joan Hirsch; Eric Lochtefeld; WalteR Lowery; Mandy Patinkin; Ratso Sloman; and Jessie Shelton

Inspired to "keep finding new ways to tell stories within what is still a very young medium," Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink launched the Night Vale Presents network in early 2016, continuing their mission to encourage independent podcasting from writers and artists who haven't worked in the format before. The cornerstone of the network is Welcome to Night Vale, which has grown to be one of the most downloaded podcasts in the world since its debut in 2012. There have now been over 140 million downloads of the twice-monthly show, which is presented in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.

Fink and Cranor's other original series -Alice Isn't Dead and Within The Wires- both debuted in the iTunes top 10 and have gone on to critical and listener acclaim. Additional podcasts will follow under the Night Vale Presents network in 2017 from the Night Vale artistic team and from other artists with a similar vision for independent, original podcasting. For more information, go to www.nightvalepresents.com.