Links about clowning!

International Clown Hall of Fame to Open Doors on May 21.

2010-04-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

ENTER LAUGHING!

Baraboo’s International Clown Hall of Fame & Research Center Opens For Funny Business On Friday, May 21, 2010

Baraboo, WI (April 29, 2010) -- The world’s foremost organization dedicated to the preservation of the art, craft and history of clowning will open its doors in Baraboo on Friday, May 21, 2010 at 10 am.

The International Clown Hall of Fame & Research Center is located at 102 4^th Avenue in historic Downtown Baraboo, the city that gave birth to Ringling Bros. Circus.

“Over the past four months we've been involved in the happy task of sorting and cataloguing the world's largest archive of clown artifacts,” says Greg DeSanto, Executive Director of the Hall. “From the cash box built by August Ringling for his sons’ very first circus performance to the scrapbooks of legendary circus clowns such as Poodles Hanneford, Mark Anthony, the Sherman Brothers to authentic vaudeville contracts, personal effects, costumes, props and correspondence of some of the greatest funnymen on earth, it is our honor and privilege to preserve this priceless resource.”

“The clowns who left their professional lives in our care loved their work and their careers, opening their hearts to audiences on a daily basis. We are extremely excited to be able to share these artifacts and the fascinating stories behind them.”

In addition to the priceless archives, visitors will see a clowning “Wall of Fame,” honoring the exceptional group of international funny folk who have been enshrined in the Hall.

“The ICHOF has been embraced by the Baraboo community in every sense of the word,” DeSanto adds. “Without the support of downtown businesses, local government officials, circus fans and enthusiasts and friends, this opening would have never happened.”

The Clown Hall of Fame will be open six days a week from 10am to 5pm. Admission is $5 for adults; $4 for children and seniors. Rates for groups are also available.

For further information, call (608-355-0321) or visit the Hall’s website at www.theclownmuseum.com

“We are honored to join the Circus World Museum and the Al Ringling Theater as key spokes in Baraboo’s celebrated wheel of circus history,” DeSanto concludes. “We look forward to welcoming you to the legends of laughter.”

9th Annual Juggle This! At Pratt in Brooklyn April 8-11

2010-04-09T07:31:00.000-07:00

NYC's 9th Annual Juggling Festival!
Thursday April 8- Sunday April 11, 2010

At Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY

Juggling, workshops, games, shows, prizes, special guests, a raffle and more!!

For more information click the links to the right. All events open to the public.

JUGGLING AT PRATT STUDENT UNION
Thursday 7-11 pm (open juggling)
NOTE: NYC Jugglers will not be meeting at the Tony D Rec Center.

JUGGLING AT PRATT ACTIVITIES RESOURCE BUILDING
Friday 5-10:30 pm (open juggling)
Saturday 10 am-7 pm (open juggling & workshops)
Sunday 10 am-5 pm (open juggling, workshops, & games)
FREE and open to the public. Appropriate for all ages. No experience necessary.

SHOW SPECTACULAR AT PRATT MEMORIAL HALL
Saturday 7:30 pm
Featuring world-class local and international talent.
General Admission $10
General admission $10 BUY TICKETS NOW
Advance purchase recommended as the show will sell out.
Online ticket sales end Friday at 7pm.
Tickets will also be available in the ARC on Friday & Saturday.

LATE SHOW AT PRATT STUDENT UNION
Saturday Following Show Spectacular (approx. 11pm)
FREE Open Stage "Renegade" Show.
Parental discretion is advised.

Juggle This is hosted by Jugglers Anonymous: the Pratt Chapter with support from the NYC Jugglers.

Find out more about NYC juggling clubs here.

For full details including directions , visit the Juggle NYC website: http://www.jugglenyc.com

NY Downtown Clown Golden Nose Awards

2010-04-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK DOWNTOWN CLOWN
GOLDEN NOSE AWARDS

The New York Downtown Clown Golden Nose Awards

Monday, April 19th, 2010
Red Carpet Arrivals 7:30 pm
Presentation set to begin at 8pm
The Kraine Theatre 85 E 4th St (btwn 2nd Ave & Bowery)

Tickets are not for sale.
To request tickets email info@newyorkdowntownclown.com

Dress: Formal Attire- Noses Optional

Winners of Audience Choice Awards will be announced on April 19th 2010 at The Golden Nose Ceremony and award statues will be given out to the winners.
...

THE 2010 New York Downtown Clown GOLDEN NOSE AWARD NOMINEES ARE:
(nominees appear in alphabetical order)

Audience Choice Best Clown Act:
ICETACLES! The Last Chance of A LIfetime, Created and performed by: Lynn Berg, Audrey Crabtree, Jonathan Kaplan, Maria Parra, Jeff Seal and Shawn Wickens
Choreography by Ronald Hoffman
Kiki and Ted, by Aya Tucker and Aram Alan Aghazarian
Magic!, by Joel Jeske, Mike Richter, and Christopher Lueck
Otto and Lewis, by Matthew Duncan and Brian Foley, aka Bambouk Clown Theatre.
Audience Choice Best Clown Character:
Brett Alters- Squeeks the Clown
Eric Davis- Red Bastard
Olivia Lehrman-Ms. Pretty Smart
Roland Zwicker Jr.- Roland Zee
Clown of The Year:
Eric Davis will be awarded the 2010 Clown of the Year Award for his unparalleled service to the clown community. This year alone Mr. Davis directed Kill Me Loudly: A Clown Noir, taught workshops in Bouffon and Clown, was a finalist for the Andy Kaufman Award at Caroline's Comedy Club, and is a curator for the upcoming NY Clown Theatre Festival. Mr. Davis’ artistic work serves as an ambassador of American performance to the world. He has performed his famed Red Bastard character around the globe including shows in Canada, Europe, and Australia. His work is completely valued by his peers and therefore has workshopped Ovo and the new Kodak Theater project, both for Cirque du Soleil. It is with great respect and gratitude that New York Downtown Clown presents the 2010 Clown of The Year Award to Eric Davis.
Clown Organization of The Year:
Big Apple Circus Clown Care

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees.

-----------------------

New York Downtown Clown is proud to present the ONLY Clown Awards Show in North America- The New York Downtown Clown Golden Nose Awards.

This fourth-time annual event will honor Clown Excellence from performances of the New York Downtown Clown Monthly Revue’s 2010 year. In addition to the awards presented, the evening will include performances, door prizes, red carpet, and audience participation games with prizes. The show will also feature Clown Superstar Presenters.

WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT THE SHOW

AWARD CATAGORY EXPLANATIONS

The Audience Choice Awards go to the clown or clown group which receives the most votes over the past year at The New York Downtown Clown Revue performances in a specific category. The four Nominees are the top four most voted for in each category. The one with the most votes in a category is the winner of that category and will be announced at the Golden Nose Awards Ceremony on May 19th.

Clown Organization of the Year goes to the company or group that has accomplished an outstanding clown achievement. This award goes to large scale achievements which serve the clown community as a whole or to achievements of clown work for commercial/mass appeal. Nomination and Award are at the discretion of New York Downtown Clown producers.

To be eligible for the Clown of the Year category, the clown must have appeared on stage or in a film of the current year’s Clown Revue. This award is for individual clowns that work professionally and artistically and have also made contributions to the larger clown community through education, mentorship, directing, producing, and/or other forms. Nomination and Award are at the discretion of New York Downtown Clown producers.

This is the only Clown Awards Show in North America.

Call for submissions 2010 Toronto Festival of Clown

2010-03-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

Call for submissions 2010 Toronto Festival of Clowns

From June 3rd to 6th, 2010, some of the World's best Clown and Physical performers will take over 6 Noble Street, the beautiful Pia Bauman School of Creative Movement.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL.

The Toronto Festival of Clowns aims to bring together clowns and physical theatre artists of all disciplines and backgrounds and provide a common space to showcase their work.

Now entering its 5^th year, the festival continues to encourage the risk and exploration of the clown, hosting new and established works that inspire and delight.

Past festivals have hosted some of North America’s top clowns, including David Craig (Roseneath Theatre, Napalm the Magnificent), Eric Davis (Red Bastard), Michelle Smith and Dean Gilmour (Theatre Smith-Gilmour), Sue Morrison (Institute of Canadian Clowning), John Turner (Mump & Smoot), and Leah Cherniak (Theatre Columbus).

Call for performers
They are looking for 4 full-length productions with a maximum show length of 60 minutes. All forms and styles of clowning and physical theatre are encouraged to apply – Red nose, mask, bouffon, character pieces, acrobatics, et al. Please note that the festival is not tailored towards children.
How to Apply
Your application should include the following:

Primary contact name, phone, snail and email addresses
The title of your piece, playwright, genre and running time
Performer/company names and bios
Short description of piece/Letter of intent (maximum 3 pages)
Photos are very important for us to have to get some visual sense of your show/what you’re working on. Hard copies are great or digital files – send to festival@torontoclown.com
Video (optional)
Technical or other special requirements (we may be able to accommodate these with enough notice)
2 cheques/money orders payable to Canada Clown:

a non-refundable $25 CDN administration fee
$150 production fee: This will ONLY be cashed if your show is accepted into the Festival – if your show is not accepted, the cheque will be destroyed

They must receive your application on or before Monday March 22^nd, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. On or before April 5^th you will be contacted regarding the status of your application. Should your show be accepted, you will be notified at this time of performance dates and times.

NOTE: If you withdraw from the festival after April 19^th, you will lose 50% ($75) of your production fee. If you withdraw from the festival less than one month prior to your performance date, your $150 production fee will not be refunded.
To apply send your submission to:
Toronto Festival of Clowns
551 Concord Ave. #1
Toronto, ON, M6H 2R2
What you get:

2 performance dates and times over the duration of the festival.
All performances in a newly renovated 115 seat theatre, with back stage access and a back cross
Basic festival lighting and sound capability
2 lighting specials per company
A green room
Blanket festival publicity – the Festival has been featured in the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, CBC, Andy Barrie in the morning, NOW Magazine and the Festival has also served as a scouting ground for Cirque du Soleil.
75% percent of the ticket money sold for your show. Single tickets will cost $10.

NOTE: You must PROVIDE YOUR OWN STAGE MANAGER for your production should you be accepted into the Festival.

If you have any questions please feel free to email: festival@torontoclown.com

The Holey Trinity of Festival Producers:
Dave McKay, Adam Lazarus, Sarah Buski

I am my own commedia mask

2010-02-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

In honor of International Commedia Dell'arte day, I took a series of self-portraits with my ibook camera that I am titling "I am My Own Commedia Mask"

Masks? I don't need no stinkin' masks! :o)

I've attached the slideshow here. But if you can't see them because you don't get flash, visit http://bit.ly/commedia_faces for the FLICKR page.

February 25: International Commedia Dell'Arte Day

2010-02-19T03:00:00.000-08:00

(Thanks to new papa Brian Foley for bringing this to my attention!) He'll also be performing at the View Theatre, Roy Arias Studios on Feb 25 in celebration. See the postcard below for details)

Associazione SAT

has proclaimed February 25, 2010, a worldwide Commedia dell'Arte Day

Simultaneous events will occur all around the world as theatre companies, scholars, students, and audiences celebrate Commedia dell'Arte on Feb 25, 2010. There will be shows, conferences, lectures, and workshops in dozens of global cities. This worldwide festival is promoted by the Italian cultural association SAT and organized by Faction of Fools using viral and grassroots tools, such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

View the current list of worldwide participants!

For more information, email them, join the Facebook group “Commedia
dell'Arte Day,” and become a "Facebook fan" of Faction of Fools.

Theatre companies--large and small--will produce shows in the style of Commedia dell'Arte using traditional character types and scenarios. On Feb 25th, events will occur in hundreds of cities as diverse as Boston, Barcelona, Bangkok, and Beirut. The flagship event will be in Bologna where SAT and La Fraternal Compagnia will host an international conference of prominent European scholars and performers. Other companies are invited to produce events in their own cities and may utilize the free scripts and performance guides that are available on the Faction of Fools website http://www.factionoffools.org.

Commedia will also be in the classroom as theatre instructors dedicate their February 25th class time to Commedia dell'Arte at drama schools and universities around the world. Primary and secondary school teachers in the US can find easy-to-use, free curriculum that will aid them in teaching a lesson on Commedia dell'Arte tailored to their theatre, art, history, literature, or language classes. Curriculum will be available on the Faction of Fools website in January.

Did you know that Commedia dell' Arte is not recognized
as a "World Cultural Heritage"?

The United Nations' cultural wing (UNESCO) has officially recognized indigenous theatre traditions such as Japan's Noh and Kabuki; however, the famous "stock characters" of Commedia dell'Arte--Arlecchino (Harlequin), Pulcinella, Dottore (the Doctor), Pantalone (the Pantaloon), Scapin (Scapin), and Scaramuccia (Scarmouche)--have yet to be acknowledged.

The Italian cultural association SAT is petitioning the nation of Italy and the United Nations (UNESCO) for official recognition of this famous and monumental theatre form, and Faction of Fools is proud to support this appeal.

To organize a “Commedia dell'Arte Day” event in a theatre or classroom near you or for more information about SAT's petition for recognition of Commedia dell'Arte as "World Cultural Heritage," email Faction of Fools Artistic Director Matthew R. Wilson.

Commedia dell'Arte Day is promoted by SAT and is organized by Faction of Fools and the SAT project incommedia.it.

Clown Car Commercial for KCI

2010-02-18T06:10:00.000-08:00

This commercial has a lot of great elements in it, and to my mind, uses the clowns in just the right way.
(Thanks to Toto Johnson for pointing this out, and being in the commercial to boot!)

Rhett and Link's T-Shirt War

2010-02-16T05:54:00.000-08:00

Not saying these guys are actually clowns, but there are a lot of great clown ideas here, and really well executed use of stop motion. The gag of pulling real stuff out of the shirt or vice versa is really well used. Almost an object lesson in one-upsmanship and clowning, but in a film form that would be a little harder to pull off on stage. And their marketing of the shirts afterward is great too.

A couple of these effects have me thinking...

You can find out more about these guys at their website: http://rhettandlink.com/

I'm definitely planning on taking a look at the rest of their pieces, based on this one.

Flying Karamazov Brothers in NY through March 7

2010-02-14T03:00:00.000-08:00

World renowned juggling group who don't fly, aren't brothers, and aren't Russian, the Flying Karamazov Brothers are performing their show 4Play at the Minetta Lane Theater until March 7th. If you don't know them, you should. They are fantastic! Actually, an earlier iteration of their show that they performed one summer at Trinity Rep got me interested in vaudeville. I must have seen that cabaret 10 or 12 times as an usher! (Yes, FKB, it's ALL your fault!)

If you go to the box office at the theater, you can avoid the $7 "service" charge from Ticketmaster.

If you're on the fence, just watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gALkHQnPPn0

Click Here

Call 212-307-4100

Minetta Lane Theatre
18 Minetta Lane
New York, New York

1pm- showtime

Don't miss THE FLYING KARAMAZOV BROTHERS in 4PLAY!

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT
February 8 thru March 7 ONLY!

The Flying Karamazov Brothers are preparing for lift-off from the Minetta Lane Theatre from February 8 through March 7th for a run of their non-stop hit show "4PLAY". An innovative blend of comedy, theatre, juggling and music, this exuberant and hilarious theatrical event is recommended for ages 5 through 95. For tickets as low as $10 you get to ride a rocket to Planet K. The Karamazovs, master practitioners of cheap theatrics, juggle 'til they drop. The audience is invited to bring objects to the theater for Karamazov's Champ to juggle, making each show unique."4PLAY" shows NY's favorite multi-faceted, new-vaudevillians at the apex of their ambidextrous ability. Come watch the Flying Ks as they prove with each performance that chaos and unexpected events in our lives are the best part of being human. Four Weeks, Four Brothers, For Everyone, 4PLAY.

"Book passage now! An evening of airborne hilarity! These four unrelated American lunatics know exactly where they are going — to the moon and beyond!"
- The New York Times

"Drop everything and go see them!"
-The Today Show

"So much fun that anyone you take to see it will want to go to bed with you!"
-Chicago Reader

INSANELY CHEAP!! TICKETS STARTING AT $10!

WEEK 1 February 8 - 14
$10 - $50

WEEK 2 February 15 - 21
$20 - $55

WEEK 3 February 22 - 28
$25 - $60

WEEK 4 February 28 - March 7
$30 - $65

Performance schedule:
Tuesday - Friday at 8pm
Saturday at 2pm & 8pm
Sunday at 2pm & 5pm

Special performance: Monday, February 8 at 8pm

February 8th - March 7th

www.fkb.com

Silent Clowns Film Series Winter/Spring 2010 (NY)

2010-02-13T03:42:00.000-08:00

The Silent Clowns Film Series under the direction/curation of Bruce Lawton and Ben Model has created another stellar lineup of classics and gems for cineastes and physical comedy aficionado's to drool over. This time it's films that are held in private collections, so these are RARELY seen. If you fall into either of those categories (film lover or physical comedy lover) you owe it to yourself to take a Sunday and spend it in the dark with Ben and Bruce. It will be well worth it.

All programs will be held at the Arclight Theatre, located at 152 W 71st Street, between Broadway and Columbus.

Tickets are $10 for all adults, and $5 for seniors, kids and members.

Live piano accompaniment by Ben Model at all shows.

Visit http://www.silentclowns.com/ for more information and to purchase tickets.

I've also put the program descriptions below.

Sunday, February 21 at 2pm Films from the Jack Roth Collection If Mack Sennett was "The King of Comedy" then Hal Roach was its "Crown Prince." After starting as an extra in 1914, Roach was instrumental in making Harold Lloyd a comedy star, and along the way developed a school of comedy that consisted of recognizable everyday people trapped in outlandish and embarrassing situations. Today’s selection of 1927 releases includes the Stan Laurel vehicles DUCK SOUP, EVE'S LOVE LETTERS and WHY GIRLS LOVE SAILORS, plus Max Davidson in JEWISH PRUDENCE and Charley Chase in THE STING OF STINGS.
Sunday, March 14 at 2pm Films from the Streamline Films Collection: Johnny Hines was a very popular clown who made many Harold Lloyd-type of comedy features in the 1920s, but is unjustly overlooked today. CONDUCTOR 1492 (’24) gives a good look at Hines’ ability with sight-gags, not to mention his engaging smile, and breezy personality. Opening for the feature is Glenn Tryon, another neglected clown, in the Hal Roach short WHOSE BABY ARE YOU? (’25).
Sunday, March 21 at 2pm More films from the Streamline Films Collection When the cinema began every film was a short subject, but as the industry grew so did the length of its films and shorts became a pre-feature special attraction. Comedy shorts were a standard part of the typical theatre bill, and this program provides a wide sampling of the art form. Our line-up is Ben Turpin in LOVE’S OUTCAST ('21), UP ON THE FARM ('25) with Lee Moran, Lupino Lane in MOVIELAND ('26), WHAT! NO SPINACH? ('26) with Harry Sweet, and Snub Pollard as THE OLD SEA DOG (’22).
Sunday, April 11 at 2pm Films from the F.I.L.M. Archives Collection Throughout the silent era there were numerous "fun factories" that specialized in producing and distributing silent comedy one and two-reelers. From giants like Sennett and Christie to micro units like Tenneck – they all worked overtime to supply a steady stream of movie laughter. Our cross-section of producers include Harry Cohn (Sid Smith in A DOG-GONE MIX-UP, ’21,), Larry Darmour (Mickey McGuire in MICKEY’S CIRCUS, '27), William Fox (Arthur Housman in JUST A HUSBAND, '27), Louis, Adolph, & Max Weiss (Ben Turpin in THE EYES HAVE IT, '28), and Hal Roach (Snub Pollard in STRICTLY MODERN, '22, and Stan Laurel in COLLARS AND CUFFS, '23).
Sunday, April 25 at 2pm More films from the F.I.L.M. Archives Collection Known as “The King of Comedy,” Mack Sennett was actually the Henry Ford of slapstick, as he was the first person to create a film studio devoted to turning out comedies on an assembly-line schedule. The main targets for the rough and rowdy Sennett crew were order, pomposity, and social standing. Having discovered most of the big names in the genre, today’s sampling highlights the year 1926 and stars such as Billy Bevan, Ralph Graves and Ben Turpin in the shorts WHISPERING WHISKERS, HUBBY’S QUIET LITTLE GAME, YANKEE DOODLE DUKE, WHEN A MAN’S A PRINCE, and ICE COLD COCOS.

NY Clown Theater Festival Sept 3-26, 2010: CALL FOR ARTISTS

2010-02-12T08:16:00.000-08:00

Just received this from the NY Clown Theatre Festival-- they are on again! This is year #5.

NY Clown Theatre Festival 2010

September 3-26th, 2010

New York Clown Theatre Festival is an annual celebration of the art of clown. Every fall the Brick Theatre presents the very best of clown performance from around the globe as well as hosting classes and workshops by world-renowned teachers. We host a bevy of outrageous events, including a massive pie fight, clown parade, and a clown funeral. The festival enters its 5th year this fall. We look for full shows, cabaret pieces and shorter (20minute) pieces. We do a mix of new and established work and focus on presenting a wide range of clown theatre and building our international community.

Last year we scaled the festival back to "Amuse Bouche" a small number of invited shows and will stick with this format every other year. We are gearing up for the full scale festival September 3-26th, 2010. Let the application process begin! You can find information on the space, details about requirements and the online-application here:  http://www.bricktheater.com/applications  .

Deadline for applications: May 15, 2010. Please email completed application, all supporting materials, and questions to: clown@bricktheater.com.

Also join us on our new facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=293300703234

Pochinko workshop in Brooklyn 3/21-4/22/10

2010-02-06T16:01:00.000-08:00

WORKSHOP
Character Mask to Clown With Deborah Kaufmann
Inspired by the teachings of Richard Pochinko, Canadian clown master teacher

"If we face the six directions of self, we can't help but laugh at the beauty and ridiculousness of all that we are." -- Richard Pochinko

This investigation is an inspiring way for the artist to make direct connection to aspects of his/her true self. In the spirit of physical discovery and playfulness we will visit our childhood room, experience a bittersweet goodbye, and find the personal meaning in the colors of the rainbow.

Then we will each make six masks: North, West, South, East, Above and Below. We will connect to and physicalize each direction and then create a clay mask. The masks are explored and a character is developed for each one. All six characters are combined to create a persona that is unique, with a deeply personal mythology and imagined environment that can be used for exploration and the development of new material.

For artists in all disciplines and the seriously curious.
March 21 through April 22, 2010 (First Day of Spring to Earth Day).
Sundays and Thursdays; 5 weeks
March 21 3-8 pm, Then Thursdays, 6-9 pm, Sundays, 4-7 pm
$500.00, Scholarship available
Maximum 12 Students
Brooklyn Studio

Deborah Kaufmann has performed and taught Clown and Hospital Clowning in the US, and around the world. She has been the National Creative and Educational Coordinator of Big Apple Circus Clown Care since 1994. In that capacity she trains, coaches and directs, as she oversees the artistic quality and growth of more than 80 unique “clown doctors.” Of her 2006 performance at the New York Clown Theatre Festival, nytheatre.com said, “this performance gleams most brightly, with true mischief and solid will operating unfettered at maximum strength.”     http://www.tooshorttofallover.com

“It's a dream to find a teacher who combines a sharp directorial eye, intuition as a clown, and a deep knowledge of techniques and material.
                  --Tanya Solomon, clown and burlesque performer

The supportive way in which Deborah taught really resonated for me.”
               --- an Australian Student

CONTACT: debdib@verizon.net
            www.tooshorttofallover.com

Coppelia Project: A Clown Ballet in 3 Acts

2010-01-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

Heidi Stubblefield, actor/creator, is the creator and director of The Coppelia Project: a clown ballet in three acts, which was a commission by Accessible Arts. It was produced at the Kansas City Fringe Festival and had extended runs at the Off Center Theatre and Lawrence Arts Center.

She is a Kansas City, Kansas native. She received undergraduate training in Theatre at the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth, KS and went on to further study Physical Theatre and Ensemble Theatre at the Dell' Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, California. Heidi has performed with many theatre companies in the KC area, including the Kansas City Rep, Unicorn Theatre, Coterie Theatre, American Heartland Theatre, and Actor's Theatre of Kansas City. She has toured nationally with the Lawrence-based company Seem-to-Be Players. As a creator of original work she has created works for Princess Squid Productions, Byrd Productions, and the Coterie Theatre.

Heidi has also featured as an Emerging Artist by the Kansas City Star for her work with Arts in Prison, Inc., where she works with adult and juvenile inmates to write and perform original shows.

Heidi doesn't seem to have a website, but if you know of one for her, please post it here!

Finding Your Funny Bone! by Nancy Gold

2010-01-21T19:28:00.000-08:00

In 1991, I traveled to Philadelphia to the International Clown Congress. There I met a number of other clowns, many of whom I continue to be friendly with to this day (I also met a guy who was from Rhode Island, and we had a number of friends in common, but strangely had never met-- and we've worked on a number of projects together, including 3 original circuses and a large-scale festival. But that's a different story!)

While I was there, I took workshops with Bolek Polivka and Fred Curchack. I also met Ctibor Turba, who intrigued me enough that in 1992, I went to Czechoslovakia to study with him.

One of the people I met there was Nancy Gold, a clown teacher and performer from San Francisco. She was taking Turba's week long workshop, (which was opposite my Polivka/Curchak classes) and I asked for (and received) her meticulous notes about the class. I think I gave her my much less meticulous notes about Polivka and Curchak back too. I got a much better bargain out of the deal.

Lo and behold, she's got a recent book out, Finding Your Funny Bone!, about learning physical comedy for actors. Nancy has been teaching at A.C.T. and Berkeley Rep for a number of years, and has compacted all of her teaching into this book. I haven't delved into the book yet, (she's promised me a review copy though, and when I get it, I will review it right here.)

The little that I've seen of the book from her website, it looks like it's going to be very good. Nancy writes and teaches with a lot of enthusiasm, and the excerpts from the book show it clearly.

If you've read the book, feel free to write a comment and tell us what you think about it.

WEBSITE: http://www.findingyourfunnybone.com
BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON.COM: Finding Your Funny Bone!

ICHOF Names Greg DeSanto Executive Director

2010-01-18T04:19:00.000-08:00

Couldn't happen to a nicer (or more deserving) guy. Greg was one of my instructors at Clown College, and I've seen him a few times, including the couple of days that I was researching in Baraboo. He's a very funny clown, and a historian and collector-- with one of the largest collections of clown video in the world (perhaps with a close second with Pat Cashin) Anyway this is a great development, and will hopefully continue to advance the field of clowning.

---

INTERNATIONAL CLOWN HALL OF FAME AND RESEARCH CENTER SENDS IN THE CLOWNS–AND BRINGS MUCH MORE – TO BARABOO

World’s Foremost Organization Dedicated To The Preservation Of The Art, Craft And History Of Clowning Names Greg DeSanto Executive Director

Baraboo, WI (January 18, 2010) – A bright addition to Baraboo’s unique circus heritage was revealed today as The International Clown Hall of Fame and Research Center announced the opening of its new headquarters in America’s Circus City.

Internationally renowned for its research and involvement in the art, craft and history of clowning, the ICHOF boasts the world’s most wide-ranging collection of clown artifacts and memorabilia, including wardrobe and props from many of the most famous names in clowning history.

“We are delighted to send in the clowns – and send them to Baraboo, back home where they belong,” said Greg DeSanto, recently named the ICHOF’s Executive Director. Himself a celebrated clown and circus historian, DeSanto, a Baraboo resident, performed at the Circus World Museum for over seven years. He’s also been featured in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, the Big Apple Circus and other major shows around the world.

As we expand our presence in Baraboo, we hope that scholars and historians and the public at large will experience our fascinating exhibits and extensive archives,” DeSanto says.

Founded in Delevan, WI in 1986, the ICHOF was created as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization, honoring and supporting the international art of clowning. The first and only group of its kind, it provides both rich research opportunities and educational outreach, along with the world’s largest collection of artifacts and collections concerning the art of clowning.

In 1988, the ICHOF began enshrining international artists who have enhanced and advanced the art of the clown. Since then, sixty-one performers have been inducted into the Hall, including Red Skelton, Lou Jacobs, Emmett Kelly, Otto Griebling, Felix Adler, Barry Lubin, Bobby Kaye, Jimmy Williams, Frosty Little, Steve Smith, Grock, Charlie Chaplin and Bill Irwin. The prestigious Lifetime of Laughter achievement award is also presented annually.

Fulfilling its commitment to community outreach, the Hall’s Caring Clown program provides therapeutic humor for children and their families at the Milwaukee’s Children’s Hospital. With Long Term Laughter Care, the ICHOF brings fun and comfort to residents at skilled nursing facilities and assisted living centers.

“We are honored to join the Circus World Museum and the Al Ringling Theater as key spokes in Barboo’s celebrated wheel of circus history,” adds DeSanto. “We welcome residents and visitors alike to join us in our ongoing efforts to promote and preserve the grand and glorious history of hilarity.”

Flaming Idiots at New Victory now through January 3- Discounts!

2009-12-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

I saw this show today, in the midst of my wacky craziness.

(One of my very good friends is their stage manager.)

The show is delightful- funny, quickwitted, and well-done. The Idiots are legendary on the RenFaire circuit, and this show shows them off quite well. Still going after 20 years-- their show is even more finely honed.

Some jugglers are about juggling, but these jugglers are about comedy. In fact, if you are a juggling aficianado, you might be disappointed. Not that there isn't some great juggling in the show, because there is. But the juggling is stuff you've seen before (admittedly, very well done)

It's the comedy that makes this show great (and at $12, a steal)

This is the first time I've seen pedological leger-de-main, and it's simply beautifully done and handled. And hilarious. (You want mayonaise with that?)

And they get a nine year old girl to kick the droppers of a complicated passing routine in the shins. Very funny.

Go see it, you won't be sorry.

To get your discount:

For a limited time only, Playbill® Members can save 20% with code PBIdiots1700.

THREE EASY WAYS TO SAVE

1) Click here to visit NewVictory.org

2) Call 646-223-3010 and mention code PBIdiots1700.

3) Show this offer to the New Victory box office.
209 W 42nd Street, just west of Broadway
Box office hours: Sun & Mon: 11am - 5pm | Tue - Sat: 12pm - 7pm

Troy Wunderle directing Ringling clowns.

2009-12-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

'Incredibly serious work'

Local man trains Ringling Brothers clowns

By HOWARD WEISS-TISMAN

CircusSmirkus artistic director Troy Wunderle of Cambridgeport gets a kissfrom his daughter Ariana Wunderle during the Circus Smirkus performancein Brattleboro. (Reformer file photo)

CAMBRIDGEPORT - There is a lot of pressure in being one of the most important clowns in the country. For the past month, Rockingham resident and Circus Smirkus artistic director Troy Wunderle has been in Tampa, Fla., training two groups of clowns for the upcoming season of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Wunderle, 36, was invited to go to Florida and even though he was already busy with Circus Smirkus, as well as with his own company, Wunderle's Big Top Adventures, he could not pass up the opportunity to work with Ringling Brothers.
"Clowning is incredibly serious work," Wunderle said while taking a break from his 12-hour work days. "Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey have been producing the best American clowns for generations and this was a golden opportunity. There are very high expectations. There is a lot of weight on my shoulders."
Wunderle graduated from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1995 and has been working with Circus Smirkus for 13 years.
Although at this point he is a seasoned performer, and professional clown, Wunderle admits that the time he has spent over the last three weeks has been very intense.
Along with working with the young clowns, Wunderle has also been responsible for developing all of the routines. He is in constant communication with costume designers, makeup artists and prop specialists, along with pyrotechnic experts, sound engineers and circus producers.
He went to Florida with the intention of developing the main show that Ringling Brothers will take across the country next year, and last week he accepted the offer to also develop the clowns for a secondary show that is performed in smaller venues around the country.
To further challenge his sense of humor, and every clown needs a sense of humor, Wunderle is working with aspiring clowns who speak six different languages, and his crew in the smaller circus is from Italy and does not speak a word of English.
And though he is being pushed and challenged, Wunderle said he would most likely return if he is invited.
"As far as clowning is concerned, this is the pinnacle," he said. "One person gets to be the director of clowning for Ringling Brothers. This is what I love."
The call from Ringling Brothers came out of the blue, Wunderle said.
After graduating from the Clown College, he kept in contact with circus producers and invited them to Vermont to see Circus Smirkus.
He did not apply for the position, and was not even sure he would be able to fit it into his schedule. When the offer came, he could not turn it down.
"The ideal candidate for this job is not just someone who is funny," said David Kiser, director of talent for Ringling. "We look for someone with excellent communication skills, someone who can communicate not just with performers but with the entire creative team. We found that in Troy."
Once the circus starts touring, Wunderle's work will be mostly over.
All of his work is compacted into about a month and he expect to be home just in time to direct Circus Smirkus performers at First Night in Burlington on Dec. 31.
He will hand over the day-to-day responsibilities at Ringling Brothers to the boss clown, and will also be around to answer questions.
If there is a major problem while on tour, Wunderle might be asked to fly to wherever the circus is set up.
Along with the creative satisfaction of designing a full show, Wunderle said it has been special for him to work with young entertainers who are just entering the world of clowning.
Wunderle graduated from the Maryland Institute of Art, and got into clowning after enrolling in the Ringling Brothers Clown College.
His decision to pursue a life of clowning has taken him across the country, and world, and now he is helping other clowns as they begin their careers.
"In my opinion, clowning is one of the hardest disciplines in the circus and now I am working with the best of the best," he said before finishing his interview and getting back to work. "This is the ring where I started my career and it's great to come back and be able to give back to the next generation of clowns."

Very funny Bud LIght Clown Commercial

2009-12-16T07:51:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Johnny Xod and Django Edwards for bringing this to my attention.

Physical Limits in Technical 3 and 4 ball juggling

2009-11-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not generally a big fan of technical juggling, but this video is pretty astounding.

Suzanne Santos Clown Character Workshop Dec. 5/6 (SF)

2009-11-11T06:58:00.000-08:00

Character Clowning and Clowning in Ensemble Workshop
with Suzanne Santos
At the Flying Actor Studio

December 5th and 6th, Saturday and Sunday
10 am – 5 pm both days, with a 30 minute lunch break

$125

This 2 day intensive clown workshop is for anyone who wants to furtherdevelop a clown character that has already been in performance, or for birthing a new clown persona. We will work solo, as well as in duos and trios, using exercises emphasizing appetites, hierarchy, presence and play.
Most importantly, we will work on how you are funny by incorporating mask technique, improvisation, physical expression, and commedia dell arte.

Please come prepared with at least one costume, a red nose, a lunch and a notebook.

The Flying Actor Studio is located at 40 First Street, 3rd Floor in San Francisco. Walking distance from Montgomery and Embarcadero stations.

For questions or to register for the class please email or call:
suzsantos@gmail.com or 818-414-1967

Suzanne Santos is in her second year performing with San Francisco's Pickle Family Circus School Tour in over 40 Alameda County Schools. She has also been seen with her original clown piece "The Damsel's Demise" at the New York Clown
Festival (Brick) and FOOLSFury Festival (Traveling Jewish Theatre).

Suzanne is also a company member of 108 Productions, with whom she performed and toured Terrence McNally's "Corpus Christi" internationally (Zephyr Theatre, LA; Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh; Voice Factory, SF; Smock Alley, Dublin) and off-Broadway (Rattlestick Theatre) for the last 3 years.

Suzanne is the resident circus teaching artist of San Francisco Arts
Education Project, where she teaches at ARTSummer and San Francisco public schools. Suzanne is the lead Clown Therapist at Edgewood Center for Children and Families. She also has taught the Circus Apprentice Program at the Circus Center. She has worked with Dell'Arte International since 2005 as a Stage Manager ("Flock", "Circo Stupendo") and Assistant Director for Dell'Arte Youth Academy (2006, 2008). Summer of 2009, she was Director of the Youth Academy. As a teaching artist and clown therapist, she gets to inspire a diverse population of students while forwarding the social circus movement for positive community change.

Suzanne holds a BA in Theatre from George Fox University, an MA in Theatrical Clowning from New College of California's Experimental Performance Institute, and is a graduate of Clown Conservatory (2007) and Dell'Arte International (2005).

For more information about Suzanne's work, visit her website listed below:

http://www.suzsantos.com

If the Nose Fits...

2009-11-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

Great article about Stanley Allen Sherman and his clown nose making career.

READ THE ARTICLE

Find out more about Stanley Allen Sherman at his website listed below:

http://www.maskarts.com/

There's also a YouTube video:

Inside Out (Cirkus Cirkör at BAM- NY) Nov 12-15

2009-11-07T03:03:00.000-08:00

Part of the 2009 Next Wave Festival
Cirkus Cirkör
Live music by Irya's Playground
Directed By Tilde Björfors

"...A magical breathtaking performance...a powerful inter-disciplinary work of art..." —Skånska Dagbladet (Sweden)

The human body unfolds as a surreal rock and roll fantasy in Inside Out, Swedish troupe Cirkus Cirkör's phantasmagoric journey into the outer reaches of inner life. Accompanied onstage by dub-punk-new wave-electro-inspired band Irya's Playground and featuring a mix of highly skilled acrobatics, musical theater, and spectacle, Inside Out boggles the mind by way of the body. Actors and acrobats course through veins, explode through space like uncoiled strands of DNA, and lunge across synapses to become the body electric. Don't miss this if you have the chance to see it.

Nov 12 & 13 at 7:30pm
Nov 14 at 2 & 7:30pm
Nov 15 at 3pm
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
110min with intermission
Tickets: $25, 45, 60
In English
Appropriate for ages 5 & up

Splinterhead Clown Noses in Union Square November 7 (NY)

2009-11-06T03:09:00.000-08:00

Splinterheads Takes Union Square

Saturday Nov 7, 2009

at Union Square Park:

In support of the upcoming independent film, Splinterheads, Come get down with the clowns in Union Square Park on Saturday 11/7/2009!

They are handing out over 3000 RED NOSES to create one of the most unique iconic New York photograph that Union Square has ever seen.

Where: Union Square Park South, facing the DSW store sign
When: 4:30 PM (and not a minute later!)
What: don your nose, raise you hands and look into the sky for the coolest aerial photo Union Square has ever seen!

There are a couple of ways to get your nose.

1pm-5pm "Joey The Clown", the rudest dunking clown in the business, will be set up on 13th street between 4th and Broadway accompanied by a carnival atmosphere with fans, cast and filmmakers, and carnival attractions. Come and show off your Yankees pitching skills and try and drown the clown. Free noses will be handed out from 1pm-4pm.

Splinterheads will be playing at the Regal Union Square Theater
Noses will also be handed out at the 11:50am and 2:20pm showings.

*2:20pm - Chris McDonald and Lea Thompson will give a Q and A

See the trailer at: http://www.splinterheads.com and buy tickets at http://www.Fandango.com

Call for Female Clown Shows- 2010 Festival (Austria)

2009-11-02T07:36:00.000-08:00

Clownin, the biennial Austrian women’s clown festival ( I really like it in German- Clownfrauen Festival) will hold its third festival at the Kosmos Theater in Vienna, Austria from November 26-December 4, 2010.

It is one of two other international women's clown festivals (in Andorra and Rio)

Following the big success of their 2006 & 2008 festivals , they wish to continue to promote international exchange between artists, and display the full diversity of women clowns. They also expect to host workshops, panels, and promote theory, pedagogy, and a healthy dose of networking as well.

They are looking for shows played mainly or only by women clowns for an adult audience- shows for children or only acrobatic presentations wil not be accepted.

They'll choose about 12 evening shows and several short numbers (for the Opening and Cabaret-Program).

Applications are due March 31st, 2010

The curators for this festival are Pamela Schartner, Gaby Pfluegl and Kosmos Theater artistic director Barbara Klein.

For more information or an application
Contact: info@clownin.at

Website:http://www.www.clownin.at/

SPOOKAPALOOZA (Chicago)

2009-10-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

Speaking of the Midnight Circus, I nearly forgot that they are doing their annual set of Halloween Free shows in Daley Plaza again this year. This year the show is called SpookaPalooza!

They've been doing it all week, so you've missed a lot of shows, but there's 7 shows you can still see. The cast features a rotating round of Chicago variety performers, clowns, and eccentrics doing really fun stuff in Daley Plaza. The show is completely free. I caught it a couple of years ago and had a great time.

FRIDAY OCT 30: 11:30am, 12:45pm, 2pm, 5:30pm

SATURDAY, OCT 31: 11:30am, 12:45pm, 2pm

More about the Midnight Circus

Chicagoist is featuring interviews with clowns

2009-10-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

The Chicagoist, an online news blog, is featuring interviews with clowns all this week, in honor of Halloween.

The series, called FACE YOUR FEARS, is intended to get to know people behind the greasepaint.

It's pretty good, as far as it goes, but nearly all of the clowns interviewed are Primarily Birthday Party clowns and not circus clowns. Who knows, maybe Jeff Jenkins of the Midnight Circus is the last person interviewed (their Friday interview has not yet come out). That might give this a little balance.

UPDATE: They balanced it in a different way-- the fifth interview was with LezBobo the Clown, who does more alternative clowning. I've updated this post to reflect that.

Here's links to the interviews:

LezBobo The Clown

READ THE INTERVIEW

Website for more information.

Kooky Da Klown

READ THE INTERVIEW

Websites: Clowns For Hire and Kooky's Myspace.

Patricia "Dimples The Clown" Koopmann

READ THE INTERVIEW

Website for More Info

Don "Tricky the Clown" Bothwell

READ THE INTERVIEW

Website for more info

Mirelle "Twinkles the Classy Clown" Gross

READ THE INTERVIEW

Website for more info

Jango Edwards 3 day intensive workshop Nov 9-11 (NY)

2009-10-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

Jango Edwards Clown Workshop Nov 9–11

Jef Johnson's Clown Lab and Nouveau Clown Institute present:
Clown: Formulas and Theory
With Jango Edwards

Jango Edwards is one of the founding fathers of the Nouveau Clown Movement. This is a rare opportunity to study with one of the world's great teachers. Jango was last here in 1982. The work he has done in Europe is the basis for much of the world scene these days.

About the Instructor:
Jango Edwards has dedicated his life to the study of comedy and the art of clown; not a job but a life style.

His first company, The Friends Roadshow, formed in London with Nola Rae, exploded into a theatrical community with bases in London, Amsterdam, and Detroit. Over 400 members from around the world have actively participated.

In 1975, after moving to Amsterdam, he gave birth to the internationally renowned Festival of Fools, which continued annually until 1984 and became the world's first comedy convention of the Nouveau Clowns. It set the foundation and form for a new trend in comic festivals, an annual gathering of a clown tribe, where all performed, taught, and exchanged the secrets to a new direction and the rebirth of an all but lost tradition.

During the 1980s and '90s he had a performing tour schedule of more than 200 performances per year. In theaters, concert halls, stadiums, music clubs, open-air festivals, and venues as diverse as an amphitheater in the Sahara desert, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Ronald McDonald Comedy Awards, the International Banking Conference of Switzerland, a nudist beach, half-time at a football match, the Olympic Village in Barcelona, and a bathroom at the Majestic Hotel in Cannes. His devout fans include Salvador Dali, The Queen of Holland, the Chancellor of Germany, Catherine Denueve, Fedrico Fellini, Francis Ford Copola, Xaviera Hollander, and the Rolling Stones, to name but a few.

In 2004 he moved to Barcelona and at the International Forum Festival he created The Fools Militia, a team of clown actors to create large scale clown performances and animations.

From this he developed a special World Clown Theater Series at the Almazen Theater where each week international clown artists present their productions and where every Saturday night he writes, directs, and performs with selected guest artists at the Cabaret Cabron. During the first two years of Cabaret Cabron and with the cooperation of over 100 clown artists he wrote, directed, and performed ove 100 different productions.

He is artistic director of Monsters of Comedy Festival in Rome and runs training programs for Clinic Clowns, Clown Doctors, and Doctors with Red Noses.

In October of 2009, he launched the Nouveau Clown Institute.

When:
November 9, 10, 11
12–6pm each day

Where:
The Brick Theater
575 Metropolitan Ave.
(between Union Ave. and Lorimer St.)
Brooklyn, NY 11211
bricktheater.com

Cost:
$200; Space is limited. Reserve your place with a non-refundable deposit of $100
(PayPal accepted)

Contact/Enrollment:
Jef Johnson
jefjohnson@nyclown.com

Dick Van Dyke on Slapstick

2009-10-26T12:40:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Drew Richardson, Dramatic Fool for pointing this out -- a hilarious mini-lecture about how slapstick is no longer funny, and then Mr. D.V.D. proceeds to schlap the shtick all over it.

This is an object lesson in how to build a physical routine where the audience know what's coming, but they can't help themselves from laughing anyway.

Clown Axioms at La Mama (NY)

2009-09-25T06:25:00.000-07:00

Clowns ex Machina is Kendall Cornell's continuation of her work with groups of female clowns. (which started as Kendall Cornell's Soon-to-Be-World-Famous Women's Clown Troupe)

Clown Axioms is a show of 12 women clowns that "create a poetic yet preposterous world" Expect some interesting takes on female stereotypes, and by extension female clown stereotypes.
Last July they did a workshop showing, and now they are doing an expanded show.

the show features a number of clowns, including:
Amanda Barron, Christine Bodwitch, Kendall Cornell, Melinda Ferraraccio, Kathie Horejsi, Emily James, Ishah Janssen-Faith, Mona Le Roy, Judi Lewis Ockler, Julie Pulmettaz, Maria Smushkovich, and Virginia Venk.

where: The CLUB at La MaMa ETC 74 A east 4th St. (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue)
cost: Tickets $15 $10 student tickets with valid I.D.
call: Box office: 212-475-7710
when:
Friday, October 9th at 10pm
Saturday, October 10th at 10pm
Sunday, October 11th at 5.30pm
Friday, October 16th at 10 pm
Saturday, October 17th at 10pm
Sunday, October 18th at 5.30pm

Find out more: clownsexmachina.com, www.lamama.org
(and by the way, I know I'm being incredibly un p.c.-- but www.clownsexmachine.com is available.

Possibly Kendall and Co. should snatch that up before someone else does and uses it for their own nefarious purposes. Clown porn could be a big business! and works pretty contrary to the whole ClownsExMachina.com theme.)

Obit: Frank Santos, R-Rated Hypnotist, Dies

2009-09-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of the Providence Journal

Comedy hypnotist Frank Santos, 60, remembered

6:20 PM Tue, Sep 22, 2009 | Permalink
Donita Naylor

Providence Journal file photo / Mary Beth Meehan
In this 1998 file photo, hypnotized 10th-grader Jacqueline Papa tells Frank Santos that her tongue is hopelessly stuck to her lower lip.

CUMBERLAND, R.I. -- Frank Santos, who billed himself as the R-rated hypnotist and always had a following, died Tuesday morning in his sleep, his son by the same name confirmed Tuesday. He was 60.

Rhode Island magician Bruce Kalver said he sold Santos his first book on hypnosis, for $2, when Kalver had a magic shop in the 80s. "Two months later he was booked at Periwinkles," Kalver said Tuesday.

It wasn't quite that quick. Santos was working at Big G Supermarkets and saw a hypnotist perform at a company party, Michael Janusonis reported in a story about the entertainer in 1990. Santos took classes in hypnotism, opened a hypnosis center in Cumberland and put together an act, which quickly packed rooms.

"We all started doing comedy at the old Periwinkle's at the old Arcade," comedian Charlie Hall said Tuesday. Although Santos had a following that jammed the club, "the genius of Frank was that he knew that he wasn't the star of the show." Audiences loved seeing their friends on stage, singing as if they were Madonna or Mick Jagger. "He got people to laugh at themselves," Hall said.

Hall said he never really believed in hypnosis before working with Santos. "But to see these body builders from Johnston coming out of the men's room wearing nothing but pantyhose made me a believer," Hall said. "I guess it worked."

Hall remembers Santos as "the sweetest guy in the world. He never had any ego," even though his "was the biggest money-making act in New England"

Comedian Frank O'Donnell also opened for Santos at Periwinkles in the 1980s and has performed with him every Friday night for the last year at Twin River's Catch a Rising Star Comedy Club. He said he's done close to 100 shows with Santos and "I've never seen the same show twice." The two Franks performed at colleges together, as recently as two Fridays ago at Tufts.

The news hit hard at Catch a Rising Star. "We're all really shaken by it," said their boss, Jim Wright, general manager for the company's five comedy clubs. "Fank spent his life bringing out the inner performer in each of us," Wright said Tuesday. "His was a singular and unique talent that touched countless lives, and we are all blessed to claim him as one of Rhode Island's favorite sons. He will be truly missed. "

Wright also said Santos was the busiest performer he's ever known, often performing an 8 p.m. show in Saugus, Mass., and "driving 80 miles an hour" to make the 10:15 show at Twin River.

For many years Santos was a regular at The Riviera in Las Vegas, where Steve Schirripa of Sopranos fame booked him two or three times a year. "Frank was a very dear friend of mine," a saddened Schirripa said Tuesday from the airport in Los Angeles. When Schirripa had book signings in Rhode Island, Santos would always come see him, and when Santos traveled to Las Vegas, Santos would bring food from Providence "and coffee syrup for my kids when they were little."

"He was very liked," Schirripa said.

Wright said he doesn't know what they'll do with Santos' regular Friday night spot, or who will perform on New Year's Eve, for which Santos was already booked. He said he's thinking about a remembrance in Santos' honor.

Silent Clowns Film Series Fall/Winter 2009 (NY)

2009-09-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

THE SILENT CLOWNS FILM SERIES

MEETS "THESE TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES" HEAD-ON...

WITH SLAPSTICK SALUTES TO

FOLKS JUST TRYING TO GET BY!

( NOTE NEW THEATER LOCATION!!)

The Silent Clowns Film Series has become the place for film buffs and families to go to see classic silent comedy films. Presenting its programs on Sunday afternoons from fall to spring the series has offered hundreds of classic film fans and young people all over the tri-state region the chance to see Chaplin, Keaton, and everyone in-between. All shows feature live piano accompaniment by Ben Model.

The Silent Clowns' Fall / Winter 2009 season tips its hats (all of them) the slapstick art of survival with five programs of classic silent comedy shorts and features helmed by the likes of: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Our Gang, Ben Turpin, Charley Chase, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Harry Langdon. All this culminates in a December showing of Laurel & Hardy silents where the audience will vote online for their faves to be screened.

The Silent Clowns Film Series is held at

THE ARCLIGHT THEATRE

152 WEST 71st STREET, betw B'way and Columbus)

Subway: 1, 2 or 3 W72. or C to W72
Tickets are $10.00 all adults and $5.00 for kids and seniors.
Live piano accompaniment by Ben Model
Tickets are sold at the door. For more information visit www.silentclowns.com or call 212-712-SCFS.

THE SILENT CLOWNS FILM SERIES

2009 FALL/WINTER SCHEDULE

All programs feature live musical accompaniment by Ben Model.

Sunday, October 11 at 2pm

Comedy on the Bum

- or -

The Elegance of Indigence

Tramps (a.k.a. “Knights of the Road”) were popular comic characters on stage, in comic strips, and in early films. While Charlie Chaplin used it for his regular screen persona, most of the other big name comics spent some time cinematically "on the bum". Today’s down-and-outers include Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in Fatty's New Role ('15), Charlie Chaplin’s Easy Street ('17), Harold Lloyd in From Hand To Mouth ('19 ), Buster Keaton’s The Goat ('21), and Fiddlesticks ('27) with Harry Langdon.

Sunday, October 25 at 2pm

Harold Lloyd in "Dr. Jack" (1922)

Remembered today as the "third genius" of silent comedy, Harold Lloyd was always first at the box office.Dr. Jack ('22), although not as well known as Grandma's Boy ('22) or The Freshman ('25), is equally funny and presents Harold as a country doctor who uses scares and thrills to help a young rich girl get rid of parasitic doctors. Also on this Halloween program is Buster Keaton surrounded by eerie goings-on inThe Haunted House ('21).

Sunday, November 8 at 2pm

Slapstick Show-Biz Part One:

Stagecraft Shenanigans

Since most of the silent film comedians came from the stage, it was only natural that they would use their theatre background and experiences for comic material. Tough company managers, over-ripe melodramas and fly-by-night theatre troupes are some of the subjects at hand today in the Thanhouser company’s The Soap Suds Star (215), Charlie Chaplin’s The Property Man ('14), The Play House ('21) with Buster Keaton, Charley Chase’s Bromo and Juliet ('26), and Lupino Lane in Drama Deluxe ('27).

Sunday, November 22 at 2pm

Slapstick Show-Biz Part Two:

Chaos on the Set

The second part of our Show-Biz programs finds our silent clowns poking fun at themselves and their style of filmmaking. Nothing could be simpler or handier (not to mention cheaper) than using their own studios as background for slapstick antics, which today gives us precious behind-the-scenes glimpses of where and how these films were made. On the bill is Everett True Breaks into the Movies ('16), Charlie Chaplin’s Behind the Screen ('16), Hey There ('18) with Harold Lloyd, Our Gang’s Dogs of War ('23), and The Daredevil ('23) starring Ben Turpin.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, December 6 at 2pm

Laurel & Hardy: U-Pick 'Em!

*Audience Favorites*

After years of solo work, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy came together at the Hal Roach Studio in 1927.In their comedies human foibles and the frustrations of everyday life were magnified a hundred times over. Now you have the opportunity to select which of their silent shorts you’d like to see. Vote online on our website, and the four finalists will be screened at this show! Visit our website to go to the voting page.

Fettucini Brothers in China... and Blogging!

2009-09-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

In the next couple of weeks (Sept 28-Oct. 9), the Fettucini Brothers (Mike Heidtman & Steve Langley, otherwise known as Alfresco and Alfredo) will be going to Hangzhou China to participate in the Golden Week Events there.

The Hangzhouians are crazy for American clowns, and over the last couple of years there have been lots of festivals there chockful of American clowns.

There are lots of performers going. Here's a list of them (per their blog)

Stage Performers

Seth Bloom

Christina Gelsone

Matthew Duncan

Brian Foley

Mike Richter

Keith "Bindlestiff" Nelson

Andrew Scharff

Bryan Fulton

Mike Smith

Mark Lohr

Steve Langley

Mike Heidtman

Ron Hoffman

Julie Pasqual

Josh Eldeman

Anatoly Valiev

Nadezda Andreeva

Balloon Artists

Micha de Haan

Christopher Charlot

Suzanne Harring

Todd Nuefield

Strollers/Street Performers

Lara Heidtman Smith

Brad Bodary

Michael Sabb

Irene Fong

Cheryl Schrueffer

Mitchell Yosheda

Raquel “Rocky” Giberstein

Chelsea Conklin

Aaron Watkins

Chris Shelton

Margaret Carr

Alice Farley

Rachel Ann Whitman

Sharon Livardo Du Maine

Martin Ewen

Reuben Haller

Ted Lawerence

Charalambos “Harry” Mavromichalis

Paul Michalec

Face Painters

Liz Bolick

Derrick Little

Patricia Russell

Mike & Steve will be blogging about their experiences and posting lots of photographs at the blog listed below.

Make sure to check in and follow their adventures-- I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.

Blog: http://web.mac.com/fettucinibrothers/iWeb/China%20II/Blog/Blog.html
Fettucini Brothers Website: http://www.fettucinibrothers.com/

Kill Me Loudly Opens Tomorow!

2009-09-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow!

Fools on Fire presents

Kill Me Loudly: A Clown Noir

Sept 16-20, 23-25 at 8pm

Triskelion Arts, Williamsburg

118 N. 11th between Berry and Wythe, 3rd Floor

A brutal comedy about desire, betrayal and murder. Done by clowns.

KILL ME LOUDLY.

Very Good Intentions. Very Bad Clowns.

It's a nice, intimate theater,

so buy your tickets today.

This just in!

After the show, go to the cast party at The Gibson on the corner of N. 11th and Bedford.

Show your program at the bar and get 2$ off drinks all night long!

       L Magazine calls KML one of the       

        20 Must-See Fall Events.       

KILL ME LOUDLY is created by the company and directed by Eric Davis (Cirque Du Soleil, Red Bastard, NYIT-award winning Bouffon Glass Menajoree). The show has been workshopped at Clemente Soto Vele and the Brick Theater's Clown Theatre Festival in 2008, and at the Celebration Barn and Amherst College's Ko Festival in 2009.

Fools On Fire makes dark, idiotic comedy for dark, idiotic times. For full show and company info visit www.foolsonfire.org

All of Seinfeld for $100!

2009-09-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while Amazon comes out with a deal that is too good to resist, this is such a deal.

NOTE: This is now $140! It's still a pretty good deal, but obviously $100 is better!

Every episode of Seinfeld for $100 . While it's not clowning per se, there are great archetypes at work here, and the physical work of Michael Richards and his myriad jitters, sputters, spewers, and oh yes, can we mention his door entrances?

This is one of the funniest television shows ever, and you have the opportunity to own it all for less than $100. What are you waiting for?

If a Clown: poem by Stephen Dunn

2009-08-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite poets, Stephen Dunn, has a poem in the New Yorker titled "If A Clown" It gets into a lot of issues about fear of clowns, the magic of clowns, and a certain amount of the silly/hokey/crazy stuff you might do while dressed in white paint. Quite simply, this clown could have been me (although I rarely do birthday parties...)

In the comments feel free to write a poem in response-- if we get a good one, we'll send it into the New Yorker.

If a Clown
by Stephen Dunn
August 24, 2009
newyorker.com

If a clown came out of the woods,

a standard-looking clown with oversized

polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,

a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him

on the edge of your property,

there'd be nothing funny about that,

would there? A bear might be preferable,

especially if black and berry-driven.

And if this clown began waving his hands

with those big white gloves

that clowns wear, and you realized

he wanted your attention, had something

apparently urgent to tell you,

would you pivot and run from him,

or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed

to understand here was a clown

who didn't know where he was,

a clown without a context?

What could be sadder, my friend thought,

than a clown in need of a context?

If then the clown said to you

that he was on his way to a kid's

birthday party, his car had broken down,

and he needed a ride, would you give

him one? Or would the connection

between the comic and the appalling,

as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear

that you'd be paralyzed by it?

And if you were the clown, and my friend

hesitated, as he did, would you make

a sad face, and with an enormous finger

wipe away an imaginary tear? How far

would you trust your art? I can tell you

it worked. Most of the guests had gone

when my friend and the clown drove up,

and the family was angry. But the clown

twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird

and gave it to the kid, who smiled,

let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,

the birthday boy, what from then on

would be your relationship with disappointment?

With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

If a Clown: newyorker.com

CWB Fundraiser this evening! (NY)

2009-08-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

Fantastic photos - Inspiring Stories - Exciting Entertainment

Photo & video presentation of CWB projects to Thailand, Cambodia and Haiti together with a benefit party for further Haiti trips and upcoming project in Indonesia! MC'd by the ever-funny (and usually bald) Brian Foley of Circus Bambouk.


Type:	Causes - Fundraiser
Network:	Global
Price:	Suggested Donation $10-30 sliding scale

Date:	Thursday, August 27, 2009
Time:	7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location:	At the Center for Remembering & Sharing
Street:	123 4th Avenue (13th St)
City/Town:	Manhattan, NY

Phone:	9178043362
Email:	anna@lokamaer.org, info@clownswithoutborders.org

Description

Photo and video presentation of Anna Zastrow's trip to Thailand and Cambodia, and of Olivia Lehrman's CWB team expedition to Haiti.

Come experience what we’ve been up to and see the kids in action!

Contribute to the upcoming project: Clowning with youngsters in Indonesia!

Here’s your chance to get in on the game and be part of a wonderful humanitarian venture.

In November Anna will travel to Indonesia to join Clowns Without Borders partner Dan Roberts, and, together with an Indonesian musician, we will bring laughter and excitement to kids in homeless shelters, community centers and schools in Jakarta and in the Aceh region, where many children are suffering psychological trauma from the 2004 tsunami and years of civil strife.

Clowns Without Borders is also working on making further trips to Haiti possible and to establish an ongoing presence there, where children are enduring extreme poverty.

* * * * *
THE EVENT:

Laugh! Eat! Drink! Mingle! Have fun!
• Join us on a photographic journey
• Enjoy fun(ny) entertainment with special guest
• Bid on fabulous items in our Silent Auction: (Cambodian silk, Thai massage, Haitian rum, and more)

Scrumptious scones from Alice's Teacup and refreshing brew from Singha Beer! and more

* * * * *
CLOWNS WITHOUT BORDERS offers laughter to relieve the suffering of all persons, especially children, who live in areas of crisis including refugee camps, conflict zones and territories in situations of emergency.
We bring levity, contemporary clown/circus oriented performances and workshops into communities so that they can celebrate together and forget for a moment the tensions that darken their daily lives.

For more information: http://www.clownswithoutborders.org
or
http://www.lokamaer.org/lokahumana

+ + + + + + +
IF YOU CAN'T COME, PLEASE CONSIDER MAKING A DONATION! Go to http://www.clownswithoutborders.org and click on Support Us! Please mark your donation Indo/Haiti.
THANK YOU!

Vote For Coney Island Chris! Tonight! Vote Often!

2009-08-25T05:51:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: THE NUMBER TO VOTE FOR CHRIS:

1-866-602-4807

My good friend and hilarious clown Coney Island Chris (former Ringling Clown Chris Allison, and current head of Cirque du Jour) will be on Americas Got Talent this Tuesday 8/25/2009. (That's tonight!)

http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/contestants/chris.shtml#bio

Please vote for him. You can vote up to 10 times per phone number, but you must watch the show to know which # to vote for him at.

Link to voting procedure: http://www.nbc.com/americas-got-talent/vote/rules.shtml

More about Chris: http://www.coneyislandchris.com

Benefit for Fools On Fire Sat. Aug. 29 (NY)

2009-08-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

Fools On Fire presents

The-Good-Time-Watch-Your-Back Show:

A Gritty Cabaret at Dead Herring

3 aerialists.

ridiculous comedy.

tantalizing burlesque.

rousing music.

cheap drinks.

dance breaks.

optional dress code: apocalypse-chic.

All this for $10

141 S. 5th Street between Bedford and Berry

L train to Bedford

MAP

THIS SATURDAY: AUGUST 29th 2009

Doors at 8pm, show at 8:30pm

www.foolsonfire.org for more info.

A full on, stuck in the box, walking in place, Marcel Marceau, "Pantomime-Blanche," mime class

2009-08-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

A full on, stuck in the box, walking in place, Marcel Marceau, "Pantomime-Blanche," mime class. Taught by Clown Conservatory grad Jeff Seal. For more about Jeff, visit our previous post about him.

http://www.houseofyes.org/events/

Night School: Beginning Pantomime with Jeff Seal!

August 25th

$5-15 sliding scale donation.

9pm-11pm

@ House of Yes

This class will give you the basics of "pantomime blanche" or
white-faced illusion-based mime. Students will learn exercises
involving fixed-point, isolation, resistance and the other building
blocks of pantomime and physical acting in general. These skills can
help a performer more effectively communicate his/her ideas and
emotions with an audience through clear and precise physical
articulation. They are useful for any performer from an improviser to
an aerialist.

--
http://www.houseofyes.org/events/
House of Yes
342 Maujer St.
Between Waterbury and Morgan Ave.
L Train to Grand St.

Clown Make Monster

2009-08-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

500 CLOWN, the genius clown trio from Chicago, has a documentary coming out about their work (and about the making of their show 500 Clown Frankenstein. Title of the show CLOWN MAKE MONSTER.

Here's the description of the documentary:

What happens to a group of clowns in a theater company that push against authority when they believe that theater itself is the authority?

Popskull Video and Darryl Miller present Clown Make Monster, a documentary web series exploring the relationships between 500Clown ensemble members Molly, Adrian, and Paul as they take great physical and emotional risks to push their own boundaries as actors, performers and clowns. Revealed in multiple episodes, the filmmakers show the method and the madness behind creating improvised based clown theater spectacles where failure is used as a learning and narrative tool for both the clowns on stage and the audience in the seats. The web series gives an unprecedented behind the scenes look at the history of the group as they create their show “500Clown: Frankenstein”, the constant evolution of their shows as they push the boundaries of theatrical convention, and their drive to train, teach, and help others through their lives as Clown Performers.

Below is the Youtube teaser for the documentary, that will come out in October.

For more information, you can also visit http://www.clownmakemonster.com

Cirque du Soleil Anniversary DVD collection on sale TODAY

2009-08-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, you have slowly over time collected Cirque du Soleil videos- mostly either at shows, or if you are cheap like me, you've taped them from Bravo (and/or TIVO'd them) Here's an opportunity to clear up a lot of your TIVO space!

On Sale Today NEW for just $58.99! 12 DVD's of Cirque-- that's around $5 per show. Definitely worth it.

I just ordered mine!

Here's the info:

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Cirque du Soleil's Anniversary Collection 1984-2005 is a 12-disc retrospective of the Canadian troupe's distinctive brand of performance, involving the fantastic feats of acrobatics and athleticism, balance and contortion; the single-ring techno circus; the multicolored lights and costumes; the abstract story lines of fantasy and self-discovery; the music that fuses rock, New Age, and various world influences; and the madcap clowns that prey on their live audiences. The programs included are La Magie Continue (1986); Cirque Reinvente (1989); Nouvelle Experience (1991); Saltimbanco (1994), the 1994 documentary retrospective A Baroque Odyssey; the Amsterdam-set Quidam (1999); Allegria (1999), the live Sydney show; the Chinese-influenced Dralion (2000), in its standard, non-Superbit release; the relatively short IMAX film Journey of Man (2002); Varekai (2002), from Toronto; La Nouba (2003), from Walt Disney World; and Midnight Sun, strikingly staged outdoors at the 2004 Montreal International Jazz Festival.

That's a lot of aerial feats, tricks, and tumbling, but the set is not designed to absorb in one sitting. Rather, viewers can sample both the simpler early shows and the stunning later performances that, with their 5.1 sound and widescreen pictures, are perfectly suited to home theaters. Compiling 12 previously released DVDs in space-saving Thinpaks at an economical price, the Anniversary Collection is nearly all the Cirque du Soleil you could ever want, but completists should note that the set does not include the feature film Allegria: An Enchanting Fable, the bonus disc of Varekai, the reality-TV show Fires Within, and the 13-part variety series Solstrom. --David Horiuchi

Product Description
This anniversary collection celebrates the achievements of the world renowned Cirque du Soleil. The collection includes 11 Cirque du Soleil productions plus a bonus DVD of Midnight Sun, a once-in-a-lifetime special event captured on DVD. The title within this colorful collection are: A Baroque Odyssey, Allegria, Cirque Reinvente, Dralion, Journey of Man, La Magie Continue, Nouvelle Experience, Quidam, Saltimbanco, Varekai, and La Nouba.

Guy LaLiberte (Cirque du Soleil founder) is from outerspace!

2009-07-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

Actually, he's just GOING to outer space-- as part of a tourist moon mission.

Read the article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090723/ap_on_sc/us_space_shuttle

And here's a little excerpt for you:

Circus performer's flight preview steals NASA show
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer-- Thu Jul 23,2009 4:42 pm ET

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A former stiltwalker and fire-eater stole NASA's show Thursday, saying he'll be "like a kid in a candy store" experimenting with zero-gravity tricks on his upcoming tourist trip to the international space station.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte is shelling out a reported $35 million for his round-trip ticket aboard a Russian spacecraft. He will rocket into orbit from Kazakhstan at the end of September with a professional astronaut and cosmonaut, and spend more than a week at the space station.

At a news conference in Houston, as 13 people circled overhead on the shuttle-station complex, Laliberte was bombarded with questions from journalists, most of them gathered in his home country of Canada.

"As you know, I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. I'm not an engineer. I'm an artist. I'm a creator, and I'll try to do and accomplish this mission with my creativity and what life has given me as a tool," said the Quebec billionaire, who turns 50 in September.

Laliberte assured reporters that he will not play with any fire in space — for obvious reasons. But he hopes to try some acrobatics in weightlessness and may teach his crewmates a card trick or two.

"I don't know how we'll be using stilts up there," he said. "But I think there are a couple little things, hopefully, that I have learned in my career of street entertainer that I will try to apply up there."

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE

upcoming Helen Donnelly Workshops (Canada)

2009-07-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Find out more about Helen's work in a previous clownlink.

She'll be teaching a few upcoming classes in Canada.

August 10-14, Haliburton, Ontario
Clown: the discovery of your persona
Suitable for actors and non-actors alike, adults only.
This 5-day workshop is a level one approach to theatrical clown for students with limited or no clown experience. Drawing on various approaches, we uncover your clown persona through the use of the world’s smallest mask-- the clown nose. Both character and costume will be explored.

www.haliburtonschoolofthearts.ca to register

_______________________________________________
September/October:
Discover Your Clown
Suitable for actors and non-actors alike, adults only.

This 6-night workshop is a level one approach to theatrical clown for students with limited or no clown experience. Drawing on various approaches, we uncover your clown persona through the use of the world’s smallest mask-- the clown nose. Both character and costume will be explored.

6 Monday nights September 14, 21, 28, October 5, 19, 26 6-9:30pm
$255 ($204 for Equity actors)
Labspace Studio, 2A Pape Ave Toronto, Canada
Limit: 12 students
to register, email: info@helendonnelly.com

_______________________________________________
Develop Your Clown

This level 2 clown class is a continuation of the work from “Discover Your Clown”. Students will further develop their clown persona, using rhythm, movement and verbal/non-verbal communication. Duo and group work will be explored. A short presentation will give the opportunity to prepare and play in front of peers.

Prerequisite: “Discover Your Clown” or an equivalent class

6 Wednesday nights September 16, 23, 30, October 7, 14, 21 6-9:30pm
$255 ($204 for Equity actors)
Labspace Studio, 2A Pape Ave Toronto, Canada
Limit: 12 students
to register, email: info@helendonnelly.com

Hotel Bananas - This week at the Flea Theatre (NY)

2009-07-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hotel Bananas

The NY Goofs
July 23 – 25
Clowns check in but they don’t check out

at the Flea Theater, 41 White Street (between Broadway & Church Streets)

An evening of raucous laughter with the New York Goofs

America’s Got Clowns, Season Two, proves exactly what the title says, that America has some rocking physical comedians. New York Goof co-founders Dick Monday & Tiffany Riley bring together their Clown School faculty and professional clowns to create a hilarious show. Expect to see eccentric dance, musical entrees, bad magic, feats of tossing and manipulation (juggling), Godly and unGodly characters, and a lot of very physical comedy.

The New York Goofs have presented three original clown theater productions at The Flea over the last ten years.

The performances are July 23 – 25 at 7pm. Tickets may be purchased by visiting the Flea website here

More information about the goofs at http://nygoofs.com/

Celebration Barn - Big Barn Spectacular, South Paris Maine.

2009-07-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Celebration Barn, one of the great places to study during the summer, has all sorts of stuff going on performance-wise. Next week, it's the The Big Barn Family Show at 4 p.m. is a chance for kids of all ages to enjoy a great cast of favorite Barn performers. The 60-minute matinee at will feature physical comedy, amazing mime, and spectacular juggling to captivate the imagination of young audiences. Tickets are $12 all seats.

The 4 pm show will feature: Randy Judkins, Jackie Reifer and Jon Saccone.

The cast expands for The Big Barn Spectacular at 8 p.m. with knock-your-socks-off variety and a star-studded silent auction. Tickets for the 8 p.m. show are $20 and $16. The year's roster includes:
* Karen Montanaro
* Fritz Grobe
* Michael Lane Trautman
* Mike Miclon
* Rick Adam
* Amanda Huotari
* Clare Vadaboncouer
* Plus a wicked fun silent auction!

Shows begin at 8:00 P.M. or 4:00 P.M. Doors open at 30 minutes before showtime. Seating is general admission. Reservations are recommended and may be made by calling the Barn's box office at (207) 743-8452.

The Barn has a lot of other great events going on for the rest of the summer too!

Schedule is here (or look below): http://celebrationbarn.com/main/shows.html
Find out more about the barn at http://www.celebrationbarn.com

CELEBRATION BARN SUMMER SCHEDULE JULY 24-AUGUST 29

Friday, July 24, 8 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Karen Montanaro
Maine Arts Commission Fellowship recipient Karen Montanaro shares her unique approach to fusing mime, dance and improvisation, illustrated by work with her students.
Tickets: $8

Saturday, July 25, 4 p.m.
Big Barn Family Show!
This 60-minute matinee is a chance for kids of all ages to enjoy a variety of favorite Celebration Barn performers!
Tickets: All seats $12.

Saturday, July 25, 8p.m.
Special Event! BIG Barn Spectacular!
4th annual alumni show celebrates the spirit of the Barn with knock-your-socks-off variety and star-studded silent auction!
Tickets: $20 adults, $16 seniors and students.

Friday, August 7, 8 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz of Eepybird.com
Famous for their Diet Coke & Mentos and Sticky Note Experiments, the duo discuss their groundbreaking work in viral videos.
Tickets: $8

Saturday, August 8, 8p.m.
Marta Rainer in Unaccustomed to My Name.
This outstanding one-woman show has received rave reviews across the U.S. and Europe.
Tickets: $14 adults, $12 seniors, $8 students and kids

Friday, August 14, 8 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Avner the Eccentric and Julie Goell
Avner the Eccentric and Julie Goell introduce the world of clowning and celebrate the comic art of succeeding in the face of failure, as they present new works from their Eccentric Performing students.
Tickets: $8

Saturday, August 15, 8 p.m.
Bill Bowers in It Goes Without Saying
International mime sensation and broadway veteran presents his solo play.
The NY Times called it, "Zestful and endearing... full of life."
Tickets: $14 adults, $12 seniors, $8 students and kids.

Friday, August 21, 8 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Davis Robinson
Davis Robinson, author of The Physical Comedy Handbook, Davis delves into how to develop funny, honest and imaginative theater.
Tickets: $8

Saturday, August 22, 8 p.m.
The Early Evening Show
A wild night of comedy and surprises in this late-night talk-show spoof hosted by Mike Miclon,
Jason Tardy and Matt Tardy!
Tickets: $14 adults, $12 seniors, $8 students and kids.

Friday, August 28, 8 p.m.
Meet the Artists: Deborah Henson-Conant
Grammy-nominated Deborah Henson-Conant explores the power of the performer behind the music, and hosts the work of her Performance for Musicians students. Tickets: $8

Saturday, August 29, 8 p.m.
Special Event! Jazz Harpist: Deborah Henson-Conant Solo!
This Grammy nominated wild woman of the harp is back by popular demand!
Tickets: $20 adults, $16 seniors and students.

Keith Michael Johnson: Forever Blowing Bubbles - July 24 Matunuck, RI

2009-07-21T17:50:00.000-07:00

Keith Michael Johnson :: Forever blowing bubbles
by Joe Siegel
EDGE New England Editor

(Originally appeared in Edge Magazine)

Keith Michael Johnson (as seen on the Discovery Channel’s Time Warp) became the first Soap Bubble Artist in America to create a Bubble-Show with the help of public funding through Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, an appropriation from the Rhode Island General Assembly and private donors.

The 44 year-old Connecticut native has performed at schools, museums, festivals, and family and corporate events all over New England.

"The Secret World of Bubbles is my chance to share with a room full of new friends the amazing things I’ve discovered bubbles can do," Johnson told EDGE. "And I spend a lot of time encouraging everyone to try the tricks at home. To remember them. To notice for themselves what tricks their own bubbles are doing in the dish water."

The show features "frighteningly massive bubbles, bigger than bathtubs, floating & wobbling around loose on stage," Johnson noted. "Also tiny, intricate, fog decorated, helium filled bubble sculptures that spin in circles as they float straight up to pop on the ceiling. Snow-person bubbles. My famous dinosaur in a bubble called The Jurassic Bubble. One of the audience members might even find themselves encased in a bubble, cut off from the outside world, wrapped-up like a sausage in a casing of rainbow colors... if only for a second."

After graduating from Roger Williams University in 1986, Johnson wrote and performed humor-based educational programs for elementary schools. He began doing bubble art in 2002. The practice evolved from Johnson’s fascination with science.

"My career as a bubble artist was born of necessity," Johnson explained. "No commercial solutions would make a bubble live for more than 30 seconds. It became my quest to find or invent a stout soap bubble formula."

Johnson has visited research libraries and spent 18-hour sessions of experimenting and inventing in his studio to perfect the bubble formula.

"I expected that there was a lot of bubble-science to be learned. Chemistry, physics & all that. I didn’t anticipate I would be introduced to bubbling as a hobby, craft & performance art," Johnson said.

Audiences are continually amazed and fascinated by Johnson’s work with bubbles. Their reactions also enhance his feelings about bubbles.

"Through them I re-experience the thrill of seeing for the first time the surprising behaviors of soap films - behaviors presented to us every day with every washing of our hands or dishes. For me bubbles exemplify the kind of natural magic in our lives which is plain to see if we take the time to observe rather than glance. That’s fascinating to think about," Johnson added.

The Secret World of Bubbles will be presented on Friday, July 24, 2009 at 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. The theatre is located at 364 Cards Pond Road, Matunuck, RI. Single tickets are $10.00 each with a three show package for $24.00. Discount rates are available for groups of 20 or more by calling (401) 782-3800 x18. Tickets are on sale at the box office Mon-Sat from 10:00 am-4:00 pm, online 24-hours-a-day at www.theatrebythesea.com and via telephone during normal box office hours by calling (401) 782-TKTS (8587).

Commedia at Lincoln Center (July 22-26)

2009-07-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

The New York Premiere of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano's production of Goldoni's classic work: Trilogia della villeggiatura

Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni’s 1761 three-part satire of the Italian middle class was given new life more than 50 years ago by Piccolo Teatro di Milano’s late founder, Giorgio Strehler.

With a nod to Strehler and in the spirit of Goldoni, Italian actor and director Toni Servillo continues this legacy of innovation that helped to redefine commedia dell’arte nearly 250 years ago.

Recently appearing in the Italian films Gomorrah and Il divo and “widely reputed to be the best Italian stage and screen actor of his generation” (The International Herald Tribune), Servillo stars in and directs his own company, Teatri Uniti di Napoli, in a co-production with the famed Piccolo Teatro di Milano in this fresh and charming version of a seminal work. This remarkably timely piece of comic theater reminds us that the masks we wear to escape from ourselves hide nothing and only serve to draw attention to the complicated realities of our everyday lives.

Performed in Italian with English supertitles

This performance is approximately two hours and forty-five minutes with one intermission.

FIVE PERFORMANCES ONLY!
Wed, July 22, 8 pm
Thurs,July 23, 8 pm
Fri, July 24, 8 pm
Sat, July 25, 8 pm
Sun, July 26, 3 pm

at the Rose Theater, Broadway at 60th Center (Lincoln Center)

Buy tickets at this page: http://www.lincolncenter.org/search_results.asp?showcode=32269

Jay Stewart & Big Apple Clown Care Unit/Boston

2009-07-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

They care enough to clown around | CapeCodOnline.com

By CYNTHIA McCORMICK

cmccormick@capecodonline.com

July 16, 2009

BOSTON - Wearing a big red nose and black clodhopper shoes, Jay Stewart of Harwich bungles his way — on purpose — into rooms at Children's Hospital Boston.

He and fellow Big Apple Circus clown Brian Dwyer are there to entertain young patients recuperating from surgeries and medical treatments. And while these youngsters might be considered a captive audience, they can be a tough crowd.

A young boy tells the two clowns that under no circumstances should they make him laugh out loud. He's afraid convulsive movements of his chest will hurt a port that's been installed to deliver medication.

But it's OK to make him giggle gently and smile, so Stewart and Dwyer deliver a performance that's big on magic tricks — a ripped-up paper napkin knits itself back together — and short on slapstick.

In a ninth-floor room, intense physical comedy seems to be the order of the day. Stewart has to bang into a door — hard — several times to bring the faintest glimmer of a smile to the face of a bed-bound girl. She may not have much control over what medical procedures are being done to her, but, by gum, she can make the clown dance.

In the meantime, her relatives are unleashing peals of laughter that sound suspiciously like relief.

"Every door you knock on is a completely different opportunity," says Stewart, who started doing clown work twice a week at Children's Hospital for the Big Apple's hospital outreach program two years ago. "You don't even know if they're going to let you in. I'm going to be Mr. Flexible."

Stewart, who has worked for Ringling Bros. and a circus in Japan, says this is the first clown gig where he feels he is actively helping someone.

"It's nice to lighten the mood, even for a little while," he says. As part of the team of clowns that works Children's, his goal is to change the energy in a child's room, for the better.

"Every kid there just wants to be a kid," Stewart says. "They love it when we come in and start doing things you're not supposed to do."

The first thing the clowns do is poke fun at hospital authority figures, starting with the doctors.

The name tag on Stewart's white lab coat announces that he is Doctor Mhrahfhauer. Try pronouncing that. Dwyer's name is easier: "Dr. Gon Golphin."

These "doctors" wear face paint, sing and juggle.

They bark and do breed-specific imitations for Elaina Savino, 14, of Malden, whose stuffed-animal-strewn room indicates she's a dog enthusiast.

"Well, Elaina, I'm sure it's been a real big pleasure for you to meet us," Stewart deadpans.

They do a rapid-fire hat-switching routine for a wide-eyed toddler and obey Garrett Poirier's commands to keep the hilarity to a minimum.

The trick with paper-ripping magic is to "rip up, not down," Stewart tells the 7-year-old from Wrentham. Garrett giggles when the paper magically becomes one whole piece again after his father gives the magic word, "sarsaparilla."

Stewart also plays a loving, if gigantic, nurse and is not above having fun at the expense of the child-life specialists who advise him on which children to visit.

Child-life specialist Lakeisha Ruley says she's had to deny ownership of a gigantic pair of clown underwear.

While the clowns deliver a child-safe brand of humor, sometimes they are really there to relieve the anxiety of adult caretakers, Ruley says. "If I know the parents are having a difficult time, mom and dad might benefit."

Children's Hospital also brings in magicians and musicians to entertain the children and their families and lighten the mood.

"It's not a total shock when we come walking onto the floor," Stewart says.

Working in a hospital setting two days a week wasn't on his radar when Stewart studied theater in graduate school at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

After being cast as the fool in plays and told by a director that he did physical comedy well, Stewart went to Ringling Bros. Clown College, for which he eventually toured and taught. He met his wife and fellow clown, Kristen (Stearns) Stewart, while working in Las Vegas, and after traveling with the circus the two eventually settled with their two children in Kristen's hometown of Harwich.

The Stewarts and their two children - Karen, 10, and Nick, 8 - have their own clown entertainment act and also perform with Harwich Junior Theatre, where Karen is development director and Jay currently has a one-man show called "Elvis ... The King and Me."

Jay Stewart got his job as part of an eight-member clown troupe at Children's Hospital after trying out for the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program.

The Big Apple has outreach programs in 18 hospitals across the U.S., and working for them takes a little bit more than clown training, Stewart says. He and his fellow clowns are trained in proper hygiene — possibly no performers have cleaner hands — and were coached on being sensitive to children's psychological states.

One child might benefit from a gentle song, Stewart says, while another young patient will get a kick out of having the whole room covered in toilet paper.

"I'm very proud to be part of the team and doing that kind of work," Stewart says. "Whoever is in that building could probably use a laugh."

To learn more about Clown Care

Visit www.bigapplecircus.org

Circus Contraption ...The Show to End All Shows is Ending.

2009-07-16T02:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Trav S.D.'s blog Travalanche I learned of sad news this week-- Seattle based Circus Contraption is ending. Here's an article from Fremont Universe (a local Seattle blog) with photos and an interview:

http://www.fremontuniverse.com/2009/07/12/circus-contraption-says-farewell-this-week

Circus Contraption says farewell this week

July 12th, 2009 ·

The “Show to End All Shows” has ended, and Fremont’s Circus Contraption is calling it quits this week after 11 years in Seattle.

“It takes an enormous amount of time and makes people a very little amount of money,” said Erin Brindley, Circus Contraption’s managing director. “Everyone’s ready to move on.”

This last weekend, they put just about everything up for sale in a big rummage sale in the circus’ performance space at Theo Chocolate.

Even this original handmade prop that once took Bunny Lamont around the world was up for sale. The tongue-in-cheek price tag? $300,000 or best offer. A farewell celebration is scheduled for this coming Saturday, July 18th, with favorite vintage performances, special guests and a live auction “to help us bury our debt in the smoldering embers of greasepaint and poodle fur,” the website explains. As of this writing, tickets are still available.

But this might not be the end of Circus Contraption. “We’re keeping the set of the Show to End all Shows with the hope we can scrounge up enough money to take the show to New York for one final hurrah,” Brindley said.

Clown training in Boulder with Giovanni Fusetti

2009-07-09T02:52:00.000-07:00

Giovanni Fusetti (who we've profiled here before) is giving some workshops in Boulder this summer, and there are still some places available.

Boulder, COLORADO-USA
August 2nd to 23rd

THE RED NOSE
International Training on Theatre Clown
6th Edition

Two places are still available !!!

http://www.giovannifusetti.com/en/workshops-detail.php?nav=1〈=en&post=40

Boulder, COLORADO-USA
August 25th to September 6th

CLOWN’S LIFE
Advanced Training

Writing and devising with your clown

One place is still available !!!

http://www.giovannifusetti.com/en/workshops-detail.php?nav=1〈=en&post=41

For further information about the workshops and HELIKOS school
Please visit the website

http://www.giovannifusetti.com

Gilkey- Pitt- Donlon - 2 performances in San Francisco in July.

2009-07-07T04:09:00.000-07:00

Any one of these guys would be a treat to see. All three is just the icing on the cake on the ice cream. If you are in the San Francisco area, don't miss it!

The FLYING ACTOR STUDIO is an international center that celebrates the imagination and invites a profound journey into the very heart of life.

In Spring 2008, James Donlon, after a 40 year international teaching and performance career, was inspired to create a physical theater school in San Francisco, building on the rich history of clowning, mime, and circus that had flourished in the city for decades. Donlon invited fellow master teacher Leonard Pitt to share this vision, and together in 2009 they founded the FLYING ACTOR STUDIO, one of the few centers in North America where one can study physical theater. In the '70's both Donlon and Pitt operated nationally known movement theater schools in San Francisco and Berkeley, as part of a vanguard of artists that included Robert Shields, Geoff Hoyle, Bill Irwin, and The Pickle Family Circus. Now Donlon and Pitt continue.

THE SHOW:

To celebrate, master performers John Gilkey, Leonard Pitt, and James Donlon will perform a gala kickoff piece called

‘The Zany and the Surreal’

Two performances only July 18, 5pm & July 19, 3 pm at the EXIT Theatre in San Francisco.

The Show

Gilkey, Pitt and Donlon bring their individual "greatest hits” to the main stage of the EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy St., San Francisco for two performances only, July 18, 5pm, and July 19, 3 pm.

The Saturday (July 18th) show is followed by an 8pm to 11pm Gala at the new Flying Actor Studio, 40 First St. between Market and Mission, celebrating the launch of their new school dedicated to physical theatre and movement for actors.

ABOUT THE PERFORMERS:

John Gilkey has played a lead role in three Cirque Du Soleil productions; Quidam, Dralion and Varekai - more than any other performer. For each of these shows he developed and performed totally original characters and routines. With Cirque Du Soleil alone John has performed live for more than three million people. He also directed and performed in the clown troupe in Franco Dragone’s spectacular water show, Le Reve, in Las Vegas. Additionally, John has performed internationally for more than twenty-nine years in circus, variety, comedy clubs, theater and television. John Gilkey's innovative routine with a coat rack is widely recognized as a landmark juggling act of the contemporary circus movement. WEBSITE: http://www.johngilkey.com/

James Donlon has been a celebrated international performer and master teacher of Physical Theatre for 40 years, presenting his original works throughout North America, Europe, and Latin America to critical acclaim. James is the only physical theater artist ever invited to perform with legendary San Francisco street mime Robert Shields of CBS' The Shields & Yarnell Show. He is the first American clown to perform in the famed Teatro Dimitri of Switzerland. James has created award-winning ensemble works for James Donlon & Company touring nationwide and in Mexico, and also directed productions in Ireland and the Czech Republic. He has been on the faculties of acting schools such as The American Conservatory Theater, The North Carolina School of the Arts, The National Theatre Conservatory-Denver Center, The Yale School of Drama, UCSB, and UCSD, and has presented residencies with special institutions like El Teatro Campesino, Mexico City 's Bellas Artes, Prague's national Academy of Performing Arts (AMU), Dublin's Gaiety School of Acting, and Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus Clown College where he taught Tony Award-winner Bill Irwin. He has been a film movement coach for Oscar-winners Javier Bardem, Kathy Bates, and Frances McDormand, as well as Benjamin Bratt and David Strathairn. To find out more about James Donlon's work, visit http://flyingactorstudio.com/flyingactorstudio/James_History.html

Leonard Pitt has been performing and teaching for over forty years. In 1963 he traveled to Paris to study mime with Etienne Decroux, later becoming his assistant for two years. In 1970 he opened a school of physical theatre in Berkeley CA, attracting students from around the world. He has studied mask theater and carving in Bali and performed with the Balinese in their villages and temple festivals. He has presented his work internationally including England, Spain, Holland, Russia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Australia. He was a founding member of George Coates Performance Works, has received Chicago's Actor of the Year Award for his solo work, and was movement consultant for Jurassic Park and motion-capture specialist for the films Dragonheart and Three Wishes. In 1986 Leonard co-founded Life On The Water, a contemporary performance space at Fort Mason, San Francisco. He has written several books, one of which, Walks Through Lost Paris, has become a bestseller in France. The Leonard Pitt Website: www.leonardpitt.com

To purchase tickets to the show, visit http://flyingactorstudio.com/flyingactorstudio/Show.html

To find out more about the school, visit the website http://www.flyingactorstudio.com.

Clowns in Style: NY Times article about two clown's homes

2009-07-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

Two Dell'arte Graduates get their house (and their work and their website) featured in the NY Times!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/realestate/05habi.html

Habitats

The Traveling Circus Stops Here

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Christina Gelsone and Seth Bloom, both clowns, rehearse in their apartment

By CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM

Published: July 2, 2009

CHRISTINA GELSONE, a slender 36-year-old with delicate features and hair the color of a ripe eggplant, lay flat on her back on the bare parquet floor of her West Harlem apartment, an expectant look on her face.

Photographs by Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Christina Gelsone and Seth Bloom made three small rooms into one large space. “When Seth chose red kitchen cabinets,” Ms. Gelsone says, “I thought to myself: ‘Yes! I married the right guy.’ ”

Her husband, Seth Bloom, 34, whose dark hair shimmers with electric blue highlights, placed his palms atop hers. Then he balanced over her, almost as if he were floating in the air. The couple held the pose silently, the only sound on this quiet weekday afternoon the bird song outside their kitchen window, which offers a view of leafy St. Nicholas Park.

Ms. Gelsone and Mr. Bloom are professional clowns, and they regularly perform feats like these in their fifth-floor walk-up on St. Nicholas Terrace, a turn-of-the-century apartment house near 128th Street that in 1996 was converted into a co-op for families earning low to moderate incomes.

The onetime railroad flat, where the couple has lived since May 2008, is also their rehearsal space and office. A small room off the narrow hallway, for example, is crammed with tools of their trade like stilts, water bombs, juggling pins, soap-bubble solution and oversize balloons — not the items stashed in your average New York linen closet.

But Ms. Gelsone and Mr. Bloom, known professionally as the Acrobuffos (for a glimpse of what they look like in action, check out their Web site, www.acrobuffos.com), are hardly your average clowns.

They perform their acrobatics, mime, juggling and theatrics (but no fire-eating, Ms. Gelsone says, because it destroys your teeth) in some of the most troubled places on earth. They make annual visits to Afghanistan, where they met in the summer of 2003 (yes, they know it sounds like the start of a joke: “Two clowns meet in Afghanistan ...”). Individually or together they have also performed in Kosovo and Serbia in the Balkans, where memories of past conflicts are still vivid.

“We’re sometimes the only Americans without guns that people have seen in these places,” Ms. Gelsone said that afternoon after scrambling up from the floor and settling herself next to her husband beside a low stained-wood coffee table bought for $350 at My Little India, a store in Brooklyn that sells Indian imports, and one of the priciest items in the apartment.

“You’re just a little clown going over there. But what we do is offer people a chance to release their emotions, which is the first step to recovery.

“Sure, you can build a hospital and get a plaque with your name on it,” she said.

And Mr. Bloom added: “Hospitals and infrastructure are part of what’s needed. But people need to be people. What we do lets kids dream. What we do lets them imagine a future.”

The two were a professional couple for several years before becoming a romantic one, in part, as Ms. Gelsone explained, “because it’s a cardinal rule — never date a clown partner.”

“You can find a date anywhere,” she said. “But a clown partner? Not so easy.”

By spring 2007, however, they were living together in an apartment opposite their current building. By that Christmas, after a pageantlike wedding in the Chinese city Hangzhou, for which Ms. Gelsone wore a dress made of white balloons, and a honeymoon in the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, one of the most remote parts of the world, they had found their home on St. Nicholas Terrace.

Their apartment house is more than a century old, but was rejuvenated by a city program that established it as a Housing Development Fund Corporation. Under this program, buildings owned by the city are renovated and the apartments made available to families whose annual earnings fall under a prescribed level.

The goal is to help families of relatively limited means become homeowners, and the impact in minority neighborhoods like this one has been considerable.

The program’s ideological underpinnings appealed to the couple (Mr. Bloom ended up as vice president of the co-op board). And to a couple that earns $50,000 to $70,000 a year — clowning isn’t the most lucrative of professions — the deal was attractive financially.

They bought their six-room apartment in May 2008 for $262,000; their monthly maintenance is $615. They set about transforming it into a space that would accommodate their not-so-traditional lifestyle. To create an area in which to rehearse, they collapsed the three small front rooms into one spacious area and redid the floors, each of which had been built at a slightly different level, to make one continuous expanse; renovations came in at just under $20,000. They furnished the room with items from Ikea (cheap) and tatami mats (easily stacked and stashed). During the day, when most of their neighbors are out, they can do handstands and pratfalls to their hearts’ content.

As a gentle homage to their time in China, they painted the kitchen in red, gold and blue, the colors of the Forbidden City in Beijing.

“When Seth chose red kitchen cabinets,” Ms. Gelsone said, “I thought to myself: ‘Yes! I married the right guy.’ ”

They find the ungentrified nature of their neighborhood appealing. People barbecue in the back of their buildings, play music on the street, and are so chatty, it can take 15 minutes to collect the mail.

“Where we travel, life happens on the street,” Mr. Bloom explained. “This is more like the rest of our lives.”

While their professional center of gravity lies thousands of miles away, the apartment is alive with images and paraphernalia that evoke their life on the road. These include not only the clowning tools in the closet and the grinning papier-mâché masks that Mr. Bloom has created using a plaster mold of his head, but also his vibrant color photographs, displayed on the living room walls, which provide a vivid record of the couple’s travels.

The scenes from Afghanistan are especially compelling.

There are pictures of boys with a jug, selling glasses of water for one afghani (two cents) apiece. There is an image of boys playing soccer in front of the old palace in Kabul and another of a traditional Central Asian sport called buzkashi that is played on horseback and involves tossing around a dead goat.

One of the most joyous images shows a girl from a Kabul orphanage standing on a pair of borrowed stilts and looking exultant.

“She was up there for four or five hours,” Mr. Bloom said. “She said she never wanted to come down.”

NY Saw Festival, July 18 Queens

2009-06-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

Natalia Paruz, also known as "The Saw Lady" has spent the last 10 years bringing the art of the musical saw to audiences high and low. She is a NYC subway musician that has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta, at Carnegie Hall, at Madison Square Garden, and at numerous other events, including the Spoleto Festival, Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion, and on film, radio, and television.

Natalia has received citations of honor from the New York City Council, the New York State Senate and a medal of honor from Paris, France. She's been featured in the "Best of" of numerous magazines, and people love to write about her work. I think it's no stretch of the imagination to say that she is one of the pre-eminent Musical Saw Players in the world.

She is putting together the world's largest convocation of Musical Saw Performers on Saturday July 18 in an attempt to break a Guinness world record for largest Musical Saw Ensemble.

If you want to find out more, visit http://www.musicalsawfestival.org.

If you'd like to find out more about Natalia, (including listening to some samples of her music, you can visit her website and/or blog, listed below.

WEBSITE: http://sawlady.com
BLOG: http://sawlady.com/blog/

Natalia has created a special webpage on her site about Musical Saw playing clowns which it would behoove you to check out:
http://www.sawlady.com/Clowns.htm

Parallel Exit Goes Broadway!- Literally!

2009-06-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

Well, don't say that doing a preview show won't get you anywhere.

In November, Parallel Exit previewed their tap show TIME STEP at the Joyce Theatre. It got great reviews on a limited four day run, and more than likely they broke even or lost a little money on that venture.

However, people saw it, and the gods smiled, and a little something called SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE? raised the profile of one of the dancers (the fabulous Ryan Kasprzak, who didn't make the show (cut at the last minute for his younger and equally talented dancer brother Evan)

And now-- well, and now, they've got a slot at the New Victory Theatre come April!

Mucho congrats to the Parallel Exit crew for this coup, and hopefully this is the start of a much deserved round of recognition for their work.

More about Parallel Exit below and at their website http://www.parallelexit.net

A brand new kind of tap show! 3 aging hoofers reminisce about their glory years as they prepare for one final performance. Fresh, funny, and filled with visual magic, TIME STEP pushes tap in a new direction by conveying a story entirely through rhythm and choreography. Perfect for audiences of all ages!

“It’s a reminder of how eloquently the body can speak and of how little it takes to create entertainment.”

- The New York Times

TIME STEP

Cirque du soleil stilt walking event June 16, 2009

2009-06-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

Stilt-walkers gathering for the 25th anniversary of Cirque du Soleil on June 16, 2009

Five years after setting the first Guinness world record for the most people simultaneously walking on stilts, Cirque du Soleil is inviting its artists and employees of Fortaleza (Brazil), Las Vegas (U.S.A.), Lisbon (Portugal), Macau (China), Montreal (Canada), Nagoya (Japan), New York (U.S.A.), Orlando (U.S.A.) and Tokyo (Japan), as well as the population of Moscow (Russia), to gather on June 16, 2009 and help it reclaim the title.

The 2004 record and beyond

In 2004, to mark its 20th anniversary in a slightly eccentric way, Cirque du Soleil set the first Guinness world record for stilt-walking with 544 employees from its International Headquarters in Montreal taking part. In 2006, a group of Japanese people beat Cirque’s record with 614 stilt-walkers and, in 2008, 625 young people from Brandford, Ontario (Canada), took the title from the Japanese!

The June 16 event will be a worldwide gathering to celebrate 25 years of Cirque du Soleil.

In NY the event will be From Noon to 1:30 p.m At Pier 84 – Midtown West Cross at W.44th or W.43rd Street

Cirque also provides a stilt-making guide and video for those who are crafty.

Stilt-Making Guide
Demo video

Jay Stewart meets Elvis... (Cape Cod, MA)

2009-06-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Pat Cashin and Don Covington for the heads up on this.
Jay was my roommate at Ringling's clown college. I'd love to go check it out, if I have the time!

JAY STEWART: Elvis... The King and Me

from Pat Cashin's CLOWNALLEY.NET by Pat Cashin

Link courtesy of Don Covington

The Clown And The King: Jay Stewart

Rocks In ‘Elvis… The King And Me’ At HJT

by Jennifer Sexton

HARWICH, MASSACHUSETTS--- Once in a while a show comes along that is so unique, so inspired, and promises so much fun that it is an absolute must-see. “Elvis… The King And Me” is just such a show, and performer Jay Stewart is not to be missed in this one-man semi-autobiographical evening of live music and comedy featuring over 20 of The King’s hit tunes and ballads.

Stewart, a brilliant physical comedian, along with a three-piece live band led by musical director Bob Wilder, lets the music take the lead in this story of the dizzying heights and bottomless heartbreaks of first love at age 13. Anyone who has survived adolescence can relate, and anyone who cranked up the tunes and sang into a hairbrush in front of the mirror to take the edge off teenaged loneliness and heartache will laugh along with Stewart.

“The HJT folks have really gotten behind this very simple idea I had,” says Stewart. “Now it’s a full blown production. It kind of surprises me to see my little idea grow to fruition.”

The show is a departure for Stewart, whose career spans 20 years of clowning. After earning a degree in theater at Wake Forest University, Jay entered circus life as a member of Clown Alley of The Greatest Show on Earth. He has traveled around the world, clowning in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan with the Kinoshita Circus, and in Liuzhou, China as a member of the first-ever Clowning Festival there. He enjoyed a four-year run as the Boss Clown of Clown Alley in the Ringling Bros. Circus, and later founded The Seaside Clowns, a troupe of veteran circus clowns. Jay currently performs with his talented wife Kristin and children Karen and Nick at Harwich Junior Theatre and at festivals and events Cape-wide. During the week he makes rounds as part of the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit at Children’s Hospital in Boston, bringing hilarity to the bedsides of hospitalized children.

The idea for the show was born last fall, when Stewart performed an Elvis song during karaoke at a birthday party. The guests included HJT artistic director Nina Schuessler.

“It was mostly friends and theater folks, and Nina said, ‘You really do that well! You should put something together for the stage!’” says Stewart. “I thought OK, she’s just talking off the top of her head. But then a few weeks later we were talking and she said again, ‘I want you to do something!’ And so I started writing.”

Stewart knew that he didn’t want to dress up in a jumpsuit and become another Elvis impersonator. Instead, he was inspired by his own experiences growing up in the South with Elvis Presley’s music and the way it seemed to act as a soundtrack for his memories.

“A lot of Elvis Presley songs can be broken into little subsets in my mind,” Stewart explains. “There are the ones where he wants to be with the girl. He’s yearning for the girl. Then there are the ones where he’s with the girl. They are dating, or going steady, and they’ve got a relationship. Then there’s the breakup and the heartbreak and sadness. And then there are the straight out rock ‘n’ roll ones that I consider to be the rebound. So through that progression a story became fairly clear to me. I said, this is a kid remembering his first heartbreak. So pulling from my own ridiculous history, I was able to come up with some funny stories about that.”

Stewart praises the expertise of Schuessler, Wilder and the rest of the HJT staff and crew who helped him make the leap into unknown territory.

“My career has been pantomime, physical comedy and circus skills, so this is a departure as far as that goes,” Stewart says. “However, this particular show is very close to home for me. It has elements of biography in it, and the music is something I’ve lived with my whole life. I haven’t had to struggle with the lyrics, as they are all second nature. My initial thought about it was Jay, you’re not a singer. But once I stopped saying that to myself and met with Bob Wilder, I realized I was in good hands.”

The band features Wilder, described by Stewart as a magician, on keyboard and two extremely talented young men, Alex Harper on guitar and Phil White on drums.

“It’s so much fun. It’s so much fun to do, and to laugh about these ridiculous things that did happen to me, and ridiculous things that I made up. There are certain things you’ll know when you watch—you’ll say to yourself, ‘I’ll bet that really happened.’ That’s what good theater does. As Shakespeare said, it holds a mirror up to nature. You see the truth. How many times have you heard people say ‘It’s funny because it’s true?’”

“Elvis… The King and Me” written by and starring Jay Stewart, with musical direction by Bob Wilder, opens June 12 and runs Friday and Saturday evenings through September. With sound design by J. Hagenbuckle, set design by Richard Archer, lighting design by B.J. Powell, costumes by Robin McLaughlin, and props by Mary Beth Travis. For information on matinees and additional show times or to purchase tickets, visit www.hjtcapecod.org or call the box office at 508-432-2002. Tickets are also available through Theatremania at 866-811-4111.

Clown Camp To Close

2009-06-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

After 29 years, Clown Camp to bow out after this year
By AUTUMN GROOMS | agrooms@lacrossetribune.com

Paint on a sad face for the Clown Camp.

The long-time annual event that attracted thousands of clowns to La Crosse since it started 29 years ago will cease after the 2009 session ends Friday at Viterbo University.

Clown Camp teacher Lee Mullally, A.K.A. Juggles the clown, demonstrates his balloon art skills, including hats and animals, during a class Wednesday at Viterbo University. This is Clown Camp’s final year in La Crosse after a 29-year stint. PETER THOMSON photo

Participants say Clown Camp’s closing is no laughing matter.

“This has become a family reunion,” Stephanie “Bubbles” Payne, of northeastern Nevada, said as the camp opened Wednesday. “Why we have fun doing what we do — these people understand what we do.”

Founder and director Richard “Junior” Snowberg said he’s shutting down the La Crosse camp to have more time for other activities. He will offer “more manageable” programs in Singapore in 2010 and Japan in 2011.

“I actually retired nine years ago from the university (of Wisconsin-La Crosse),” Snowberg said. “The program is encompassing and time consuming ... I’m retiring, and no one else took it over.”

The first camp, then at UW-L, drew about 35 people in 1981 and was intended to be a one-time affair, Snowberg said. This year’s event has 191 staff members and participants from more than 30 states and several foreign countries, he said.

The camp has remained focused on education during its nearly three decades, Snowberg said. Attending clowns receive a 200-page notebook and take classes that teach them the finer points of their craft.

Payne, 36, learned the business of clowning — to make balloon animals, take a pie in the face, perfectly spit water — during her nine years at Clown Camp.

“I am here because I take my clowning very seriously,” she said.

Payne is a professional clown who works at birthday parties, family reunions and company picnics. She has added school visits and library programs to her repertoire, thanks to skills learned at Clown Camp.

While she can study clowning elsewhere, Payne said it won’t be taught as well.

“There will never be another experience like this,” she said. “There are other camps and other things to do as a clown, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

On the Web: clowncamp.org

Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting (DC in July)

2009-06-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

Just got word that Dog and Pony DC (a company of female artists in DC) is putting on a show at the Capital Fringe in DC titled (you guessed it) Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting.

Want to guess what the show features? :o)

First off-- great title for a fringe show-- this is a show that is going to sell out pretty much guaranteed, regardless of the quality of the show.

But it's more than that- it's got a great promise as a concept-- that we can look beyond the titties to see a fantastic show of women doing the Errol Flynn thing with virtuosity.

I saw a French mime woman a number of years ago who performed topless so that you could better see the dazzling muscles and work that she was doing. After the first few minutes of "Wow- nice tits!" you stop looking at the lascivious and start looking at the work.

Now, I'm not sure if there ever stops being a lascivious quality to it, and the first few minutes I was most DECIDELY not looking at the work, but I love the idea of it, and I love the promise of this show.

I have been planning a trip to DC to see some friends, and now I'm going to try to coincide it with this show. Who knows, maybe there's some other great fringe to see too!

And there's also a blog about creating the show: http://bbwsf2009.blogspot.com/

Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting is a vaudeville that unleashes the feminine mystique in a whirl of petticoats and a dazzling display of strength, swords, and skin. Behold brutal buxom beauties! Take in tantalizing ta-ta titans! Gaze longingly at the titillating, tangoing Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting! (And, yes, this contains strong language and nudity.) conceived & directed by Lorraine Ressegger

Performance schedule:

July 16 @ 9pm;
July 17 @ 10:30pm;
July 18 @ 10:30pm;
July 19 @ 8pm;
July 22 @ 8pm;
July 23 @ 8pm;
July 24 @ 10:30pm;
July 25 @ 10:30pm;
July 26 @ 6pm.

Tickets: $15.
On sale June 22 at dogandponydc.com
and capitalfringe.org.

Maestrosities in Brooklyn with Orchestra June 13

2009-06-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Maestrosities (the self-proclaimed coolest band ever) is a group of clown musicians who have a really good time while playing instruments. They've announced a collaboration with The Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra.

On the program:

Finlandia - Jean Sibelius

Peter and the Wolf - Sergei Prokofiev

The William Tell Overture - Tonto

They most certainly won't be interfering with the arrangements, instrumentation or integrity of these pieces.
No, what you will hear at this set of concerts is musicians playing music to the best of their ability.
And it definitely won't be fun or funny.

They'll also be playing a set of their favorites from the 80s, 20s, and today.

Here's what you need to know:

When: Two concerts - Saturday, June 13th, 2:30 pm and 5pm

Where: The Irondale Center - 85 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene

( Just around the corner from BAM )

How much: $15/$8 students and seniors. Purchase now. This will sell out.

http://www.zerve.com/BQCMusic/Comm

To get tickets by phone call Zerve at 212.209.3370

If you have questions email louis@TheCoolestBandEver.com

Or visit http://www.thecoolestbandever.com

Another session of Commedia U (NY) June 14-26

2009-06-09T04:12:00.000-07:00

Stanley Allen Sherman and Hovey Burgess present another in their series of intensive Commedia Dell'arte Courses .
It starts this Sunday at pier Studios in NY.

Commedia dell'Arte Summer Intensive Seminar 2 Week Workshop
June 14th - June 26, 2009
Price $795
at pierStudios in New York NY

RCCU is in its eight year of teaching Classical Commedia dell'Arte as close to its original form as we believe it was performed in the 1500's and 1600's. Master mask maker and Commedia dell'Arte expert Stanley Allan Sherman will lead this Commedia dell'Arte intensive.

These are the areas this workshop will concentrate on
…Commedia dell'Arte characters Pantalone, Arlecchino, Brighella, Dottore, Capitano, Lovers and Women --their movement, gesture and history of the characters, improvisation, lazzi, mask work, mask making, physical skills, prop manipulation, rhythm, scatology, scenario work and more; all integrated.

Much of the scenario and improvisation work will be taken from their new translation of three of Flaminio Scala scenarios believed to be from the legendary Gelosi Company 1572 to 1604.

For registration and to reserve your place or if you have any questions please feel free to call or e-mail Stanley Allan Sherman at 212-243-4039 or
via e-mail: il-dottore@commediau.com.
Registration fee to reserve your place: $75

If you can't make this one, the next workshop is in Turkey in July.

For more info, visit their website:

http://www.commediau.com/events.html

John Towsen's new blog-- All Fall Down

2009-06-05T06:50:00.000-07:00

John Towsen, author of one of the classics of clown literature (entitled Clowns: A Panoramic History of Fools and Jesters, Medieval Mimes, Jongleurs and Minstrels, Pueblo Indian Delight Makers and Cheyenne Contraries, Harlequins and Pierrots, Theatrical Buffoons, etc.) now has a blog.

His blog is called ALL FALL DOWN, after the famous Black Plague poem " Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down"

Here's what he says about his blog:

Welcome to the All Fall Down blog, an exploration of all aspects of physical comedy, from the historical to the latest work in the field, from the one-man show to the digital composite, from the conceptual to the nuts & bolts how-to. Be prepared for a broad definition of physical comedy (mine!) and a wide variety of approaches.

Physical comedy is a visual art form, so there’ll be tons of pictures and videos, but also some substantial writing and research, including scripts and probably even some books.

This blog is a result of me wanting to follow through on lots of unfinished research from the past 25 years. It’s made possible by a full-year sabbatical leave from Bloomfield College that will take me through August 2010. It’s also made more practical by the ease of Web 2.0 tools for managing and distributing content. I had envisioned a web site similar to this blog more than a decade ago, but never got too far with it because it was simply a lot more work. Now, no more excuses!

Check it out at http://www.physicalcomedy.blogspot.com

Rat Bastards (Tutti Stronzi) June 3-7 NY

2009-06-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

This is a commedia piece by a very talented performer and writer Julia Pearlstein--

I first met Julia at a meeting of the RAT Conference in Los Angeles, where as part of a group, we had to create a show that performed an impossible task. My group's task was to sink the Los Angeles Theatre Center like the Titanic. Her groups task was to blow up the world as we knew it.

My group ended up winning, but it was a very close call, and Julia's group was one of the best and most creative uses of the space I'd ever seen.

She's since moved back to NY, has been seen socializing with a certain scholar and practitioner of the fine art of Vaudeville (and whose writings can be marvelled at over at the Travalanche )

I haven't seen this piece, but I highly recommend it.

At Dixon Place June 3 - 7. www.dixonplace.org

Great Russian Water Circus

2009-06-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

SAVE 10% on tickets to The Great Russian Water Circus

Coming in September 2009 to Staten Island.

BUY TICKETS NOW

Save 10% on tickets to The Great Russian Water Circus at the Staten Island Mall under the Big Top!

First time ever in New York! A one-of-a-kind international sensation, The Great Russian Water Circus is the world's only touring water circus and it's coming to New York after 35 countries and countless standing "Bravo" ovations. A water spectacle with 50 extraordinary acrobats, jugglers, magicians, clowns and synchronized swimmers, 350 spectacular costumes, sensational sets with stunning special effects and 75,000 gallons of water that will dazzle and amaze you.

Don't Miss This Splash Extravaganza!

Acme Flea Circus This Weekend- Hastings on Hudson

2009-05-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Pardon the shameless commercial interruption, but my show, the Acme Miniature Flea Circus will be performing at the Hastings-on-Hudson Popcorn and Puppet Festival on Sunday May 31. Showtime is 3:20 pm

The Festival runs 3-5 pm at the MacEachron Waterfront Park, 1 River Street, Hastings-on-Hudson. The park is right next to the Hastings-on-Hudson Metro North Station., about 30 minutes from Grand Central, and about 3 stops from the downtown Yonkers line.

other performers include
The Sourdough Philosophy Circus ( Bread and Puppet Theater)
Soup
Puppet Junction
Cosmic Bicycle Theatre
The Himilayas Band

Tickets: $8 for adults, $5 kids, $30 for families of 5 or more.
(rain location: Hastings High School Gym)

For more info, including directions, visit: http://www.rivertownsguide.com/puppet.php or http://www.trainedfleas.com

Up and CLOWN "Closing Party" Exhibit 5/31 5-8 pm

2009-05-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

Jim Moore's exhibit Up and Clown (talked about here) will have a closing party on Sunday May 31 from 5-8 pm. Come check it out if you get the opportunity, and may I mention-- freeroll!

SB Digital Gallery
125 East 4th St.
212 979 7239
(1 block east from Kraine Theatre)

Toronto Clown Festival June 4-7, 2009

2009-05-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Toronto Festival of Clowns aims to bring together clowns and physical theatre artists of all disciplines and backgrounds and provide a common space to showcase their work.

Now entering their 4th year, the festival continues to encourage the risk and exploration of the clown, hosting new and established works that inspire and delight.

Past festivals have hosted some of North America’s top clowns, including David Craig (Roseneath Theatre, Napalm the Magnificent), Eric Davis (Red Bastard), Dean Gilmour (Theatre Smith-Gilmour), Sue Morrison (Institute of Canadian Clowning) and John Turner (Mump & Smoot).

All tickets $10 except Masters of Clown $20
for more info visit:
http://www.TorontoClown.com
festival@torontoclown.com
647 504-7873

READ INTERVIEWS WITH PERFORMERS

2009 TORONTO FESTIVAL OF CLOWNS LINEUP

	Chaotica
	When: Thursday, June 4, 2009 to Saturday, June 6, 2009	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
6:30pm, Thursday June 4 8pm, Saturday June 6 CHAOTICA reveals the madcap adventures of Alice, a stressed out artist caught in a nightmarish board game that transforms her into different versions of who she thinks she wants to be. But this isn't your usual parlour game. Strategies both comic and brutal force Alice to confront her fears and desires, until she realizes who is really in control of her destiny.
	Spent
	When: Thursday, June 4, 2009 to Sunday, June 7, 2009	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
8pm, Thursday June 4 6:30pm, Sunday June 7 Did somebody say Crisis?! On September 26, 2008, two execs went to sleep with their hopes and dreams tucked safely in the bank. The next morning as the alarm buzzed, they wiped the sleep from their eyes and awoke to find everything gone! was it a dream?... a nightmare? It was a crisis!!
	Clown Chowder 2009 TFOC
	When: Thursday, June 4, 2009 9:30 PM	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
9:30pm, Thursday June 4 The final evening of Owen Anderson's clown cabaret.
	Big Girls Don't Cry
	When: Friday, June 5, 2009 to Saturday, June 6, 2009	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
8pm, Friday June 5 6:30pm, Sunday June 7 A new show from the creator of "Joe the perfect man."
	An Exercise in Futility/And now a message from Mr. Mr.
	When: Friday, June 5, 2009 to Sunday, June 7, 2009	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
6:30pm, Friday June 5 8pm, Sunday June 7 Double bill from Nathan Schwartz and Michael Rubenfeld.
	Masters of Clown 2009 TFOC
	When: Friday, June 5, 2009 9:30 PM	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
9:30pm, Friday June 5 The festival gala showcase of clown masters who have made a great contribution to the physical theatre community. Featuring Giuseppe Condello, Leah Cherniak, Helen Donnelly and Mark Andrada.
	Lunacy Cabaret 2009 TFOC
	When: Saturday, June 6, 2009 9:30 PM	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
9:30pm, Saturday June 6 Toronto's wildest clown cabaret at a special west-end location.
	Bouffon Show 2009 TFOC
	When: Sunday, June 7, 2009 9:30 PM	Where: Toronto Festival of Clowns
9:30pm, Sunday June 7 One of the few chances in North America to see an entire cabaret of bouffon characters.

Roberto Benigni does Dante

2009-05-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

NY Times Article about Roberto Benigni, who is apparently a Dante scholar, and is performing next week in NY in a very short tour of a Dante show, “TuttoDante,” a monologue about Dante’s “Divine Comedy” that mixes literary insights with off-the-cuff political jokes. In Italy, where he has been doing the show regularly for three years, it has drawn more than a million people. Sounds a lot like my Italian hero Dario Fo.

Great quote from the article:

“Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary,” he said. “If was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown — very much.”

Here are the North American Tour Dates:

May 26 2009 - San Francisco - Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall
May 30 2009 - New York - Manhattan Center
June 3,4 2009 - Montreal - St. Denise Theatre
June 6 2009 - Boston - Berklee Performance Center
June 7 2009 - Toronto - Casino Rama
June 10 2009 - Quebec City - Grand Théâtre de Québec
June 12 2009 - Chicago - Harris Theater

Find out more about the show at http://www.tuttodante.it

FULL ARTICLE BELOW:

Funnyman Takes on Dante’s ‘Comedy’
By BEN SISARIO
Published: May 22, 2009

Roberto Benigni leapt up with a riff on the 26th Canto of Dante’s “Inferno,” in which fraudulent advisers are engulfed by flames that scorch them. “It’s like landing in Los Angeles or Manhattan, full of little lights like a skyscraper,” he exclaimed in his frenetically choppy English. “Dante describes the lights like fireflies, like a farmer who sees billions of fireflies. And every single firefly is hiding a fraud — people like Madoff. Very cunning, very shrewd. These people are hiding inside the flame because they are hiding in life. The Florentines, you know, they invented finances.”

The delivery is familiar: Mr. Benigni, of course, is the endearingly manic Italian comedian whose Holocaust tragicomedy, “Life Is Beautiful,” won three Oscars in 1999. But for Americans, at least, the subject of Mr. Benigni’s latest project is almost incongruously new. Next week he will begin a short North American tour of “TuttoDante,” a monologue about Dante’s “Divine Comedy” that mixes literary insights with off-the-cuff political jokes. In Italy, where he has been doing the show regularly for three years, it has drawn more than a million people.

“We need to have the nerve to understand why a man with a big nose 700 years ago had the heroic shamelessness to write,” Mr. Benigni, 56, said in an interview the other day at a Manhattan hotel. “Really this is the most daring, bold poetry ever. In 2,000 years of Christian poetry they never surpassed this. They never produced such a scandal of beauty. Never, never, nobody.”

Mr. Benigni’s love of poetry has never been a secret. In “Down by Law,” the 1986 Jim Jarmusch film that introduced Mr. Benigni to American audiences, he cites Walt Whitman and “Bob Frost.” Collecting his Oscar when “Life Is Beautiful” won best foreign film in 1999, he quoted Dante and Blake (after climbing over the seats and blurting, “I want to kiss everybody!”).

“This face that he puts forward as a sort of clown is only a very small percentage of Roberto’s personality,” said Mr. Jarmusch, who also cast Mr. Benigni in “Night on Earth,” from 1991, and in a segment in the 2003 compilation film “Coffee and Cigarettes,” and who remains a close friend.

“TuttoDante” (“Everything About Dante”) introduces Americans to the savant-intellectual side of Mr. Benigni. In each performance he recites a canto in Italian from memory, with detailed explications of poetics and history in English.

For this tour, which begins in San Francisco on Tuesday and comes to the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York next Saturday, Mr. Benigni will perform Canto V from “Inferno,” with the story of Paolo and Francesca, the adulterers who spend eternity tossed by gales of lust.

“He’s a natural scholar,” said Robert Hollander, the Princeton professor. “He calls, and we just talk about Dante. He calls from Rome and says, ‘Bob, what do you think about this passage?’ ” Mr. Benigni wrote a preface for an edition of “Inferno” translated by Mr. Hollander and his wife, Jean, in which he asks whether Dante has been receiving royalty checks in Purgatory.

Mr. Benigni says he sees himself primarily as an entertainer, not a teacher. That means a lot of political jokes, often about his old nemesis, Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. Mr. Benigni mocked him relentlessly during Mr. Berlusconi’s first term of office in the 1990s, and he clearly relishes the chance to banish Mr. Berlusconi to Dante’s depths.

“You know, Berlusconi, he passed a lot of laws just for him, just for one man,” he said. “So maybe his punishment could be to build for him a circle in hell, but very personal, just for him: ‘Eh, this is just for you, Mr. Berlusconi!’ ”

“TuttoDante” could also be seen as a kind of purgatory for Mr. Benigni, or perhaps a way out of one. Since “Life Is Beautiful,” which grossed $229 million around the world, his movie career has stumbled. There was no shortage of offers from Hollywood, but Mr. Benigni said that most roles were Italian stereotypes like the pizza man or the Mafioso. He was even urged to make a “Life Is Beautiful” sequel.

“Never in my life will I do this,” Mr. Benigni said, shaking his head.

So he continued making movies in Italy, but with mixed results. “Pinocchio,” in 2002, was a moderate hit in Italy but did poorly elsewhere. Mr. Benigni’s decision to cast himself — then 50 years old — as the puppet boy struck many critics as perverse. “The Tiger and the Snow,” from 2005, which Mr. Benigni also directed, did even worse at the box office.

“Maybe sometimes I have been wrong with some movies,” he said. “Anyway, I try to do my best. I was sincere. I was honest. But I am sure this path that I took is the right path.”

After “The Tiger and the Snow” he began to devote himself to the Dante readings. And although he said he is eager to return to filmmaking (“I would like to make not a divine comedy but a comedy”), Dante is his foreseeable future: requests for the show, he said, keep pouring in, from Korea and Japan, from South America, from towns in Italy he has not been to yet.

“Only comedians can talk about death, life, God and Virgin Mary,” he said. “If was a tragic actor, I couldn’t allow myself. But with this accent I can do it. I can talk with death in person because I am a clown. Yes. And I am proud to be a clown — very much.”

Think Foolishly: Tips From a Pro

2009-05-21T04:10:00.000-07:00

Drew Richardson, the Dramatic Fool, is hard at work again.

His blog, Think Foolishly, is currently featuring his takes on how to Think Foolishly. He's got 60 great tips across five categories on how to create a clown logic for your work, how to enhance, create, or otherwise extend a clown routine in a logical and foolish way. He's currently on #18, so you've still got plenty of time to read all of the tips before they overwhelm you.

With tips like # 13: Give Up and #12 Never Give Up, you can see that you are in for a little bit of a blender ride. Although he doesn't specifically say so, I think it's safe to assume that you probably shouldn't do ALL OF THESE AT ONCE. (although that might be very funny) But as one of my teachers Daniel Stein would say, "If you follow all of the rules of great theatre, you are guaranteed to make mediocre theatre."

If you are looking to transform one of your clown ideas, try approaching the problem from one of these 60 ways, and see if that changes how you are feeling about your potential clown idea. If that approach isn't working for you, try another. Maybe even try two at once. After all, you've got 60 potential keys to unlock the secret to your new routine, and one or more of them might solve the problem. Well, right now there are only 18 ways, so maybe you should just wait 40 days before doing anything else... then come back to your creative difficulties (if you can remember them)

Read his blog here: http://www.thinkfoolishly.com
Find out more about Drew's work: http://www.dramaticfool.com

All Will Learn to Wear Bowlers: Pig Iron Clown Workshop in NYC

2009-05-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

PIG IRON THEATRE COMPANY presents
A CLOWN WORKSHOP

with Quinn Bauriedel and Geoff Sobelle in New York City

WHEN: Wednesdays (June 10, 17, and 24) 2:30 - 5:30 PM
WHERE: The Brecht Forum 451 West Street
COST: $125

Pig Iron Artistic Director Quinn Bauriedel and Company Member Geoff Sobelle (creator of the international hit all wear bowlers) invite you to join them in an investigation of the world of the clown.

What gets revealed when you stand alone in front of an audience?
What pleasure can be found with the smallest mask in the world?
In what discipline are you the world's leading expert?

With little else than a red nose and the body that you inherited, the workshop will exploit each participant's unique sense of humor and way of uncovering the absurdity of being a human being on this planet. Take a leap into the unknown territory of your own lunacy.

To register, contact Quinn Bauriedel at quinn@pigiron.org

Pig Iron Theatre Company has been creating original performance works in Philadelphia since 1995, making plays about live music, dead people, neuroscience and thwarted love affairs through a unique method of collaborative creation and with a signature physical approach to character.

Past collaborations have included work with the legendary director Joe Chaikin, playwright Adriano Shaplin, choreographer David Brick, and composer Cynthia Hopkins.

Pig Iron's work has been seen at theaters and festivals in London, Edinburgh, San Francisco, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, Romania and Peru. The company's original works have met with critical acclaim and awards, including a 2005 OBIE; most recently, Pig Iron's Chekhov Lizardbrain was hailed by The New York Times as one of the top 10 theatre events of 2008. In September 2009, Pig Iron will premiere Welcome to Yuba City, a comic exploration of the mythic American West, at the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.

Find out more about their work at www.pigiron.org

CONEY ISLAND BOOM-A-RING THIS SUMMER.

2009-05-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

The Greatest Show On Earth hits the boardwalk this summer for the very first time in its 139-year history! SEE DATES

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents THE CONEY ISLAND BOOM A RING, an action-packed seaside circus spectacular where the energy bursts out of the ring, into the audience and bounces back to electrify the Ringling Bros. performers. Get a one-of-a-kind, up-close and personal experience as you sit just feet away from international performers, thrilling acts, and amazing animals!

The uniquely talented Justin Case will have you gasping and laughing with his extraordinary and hilarious bicycle daredevilry, leading an amazing cast of aerialists, acrobats, and comics. You'll be on the edge of your seat as you experience the thrills of seeing a family of motorcyclists race at speeds of 65 miles per hour in the Globe of Steel, a daring never-before-seen crossbow demonstration that takes archery to a shocking new extreme, and a gravity-defying performance on the whirling Wheel of Steel high above the arena floor.

The amazing animals will leave you mesmerized; miniature acrobatic Dachshunds jump, roll, and dance in perfect synchronization, beautiful white tigers offer high-fives, and majestic Asian elephants dance elegantly around the arena floor.

THE CONEY ISLAND BOOM A RING is a rare NYC summer time experience that engages all the senses and offers Children Of All Ages a day at The Greatest Show On Earth they never imagined possible!

Arrive an hour before show time for the All Access Pre-show - FREE to all ticket holders - and meet Ringling Bros. performers and animals, learn circus skills and enjoy a taste of the circus before the show even starts!

BUY TICKETS

SEE ALL TICKETMASTER CIRCUS TICKETS

SEE RINGLING SHOW-PAGE

Gamarjabat at the New Victory Theatre May 9-24.

2009-05-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Gamarjobat is an award-winning comedy performance group comprising two Japanese comedians, Ketch! – who sports a red mohawk – and HIRO-PON – with a yellow mohawk.. The duo perform a variety of sketches, including mime and physical comedy. Their performances are wordless.

Although they are not particularly well-known in their native Japan, they have found success performing in the United Kingdom, winning awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

They have also appeared on television in the UK . In February 2009 the BBC broadcast a TV pilot Ketch & HIRO-PON Get It On.

They are making their U.S. flipper-flapping debut in their new show, ROCK ‘N ROLL PENGUIN at the New Victory Theatre in NY May 8-24. In support of that show, they've been doing some antics and other stuff in and around Times Square.

Find out more: New Victory Web Page

GAMARJABAT WEBSITE: (English version) http://www.gamarjobat.com/en/index.html

VIEW A VIDEO OF THEM BELOW

Pat Cashin's clownalley.net is back up!

2009-05-08T03:24:00.000-07:00

And although he lost all of his archives (at least as if this date) he's making up for lost time. He's published 27 posts since April 15. I'm lucky if I made 27 posts this year!

I hereby award clownalley.net the Spy vs Spy Most Prolific Clown Blog Award.
It comes with no cash prize, simply a "well, done, old chum. Well done."
Delivered in a classic English accent.

http://www.clownalley.net

And completists, please note. The image above was the original spy vs. spy cartoon. This award does not have any connection or collaboration with the real spy vs. spy. Any resemblance is strictly coincidental.

So now, let's hope those archives come back!

Cruel & Unusual Comedy at MOMA (NY) May 20-June 1, 2009

2009-05-07T15:07:00.000-07:00

Cruel and Unusual Comedy: Social Commentary in the American Slapstick Film

May 20, 2009–June 1, 2009

MOMA will be running a number of silent film comedies during the last part of the month. The series, titled Cruel and Unusual Comedy, will feature a number of evenings of silent films, grouped in themes, that use comedy to address pretty . All films are from the U.S. and are silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model. All running times are approximate.

You can read film notes written by Steve Masa and Ben Model on their specialty blog http://cruelandunusualcomedy.blogspot.com/

You can find out more about the series on the MOMA website
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/948

Tickets are $10, less for seniors and students, and free if you are a MOMA member (although you do still require a ticket.

Drag Shows: Cross-Dressing the Sexes
Wednesday, May 20, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
With piano accompaniment by Ben Model

Getting Rid of Trouble 1912. USA. Directed by Del Henderson. With Charlie Murray. 10 min.
Sweedie Learns to Swim 1914. USA. Directed by Wallace Beery. With Beery. 10 min.
Chasing the Chaser 1925. USA. Directed by Stan Laurel. With James Finlayson. 10 min.
Get ‘Em Young 1926. USA. Directed by Fred Guiol. With Stan Laurel. 18 min.
Good Night Nurse 1917. USA. Directed by Roscoe Arbuckle. With Arbuckle, Buster Keaton. 18 min.

Race Riots: Beyond Black and White
Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 4:00 p.m
With piano accompaniment by Ben Model

A Change of Complexion 1914. USA. Directed by Phillips Smalley. With Henry Bergman. 10 min.
Haunted Spooks 1920. USA. Directed by Hal Roach. With Harold Lloyd, Sunshine Sammy. 20 min.
Below Zero 1925. USA. Directed by Norman Taurog. With Lige Conley, Spencer Bell. 18 min.
A Natural Born Gambler 1916. USA. Director unknown. With Bert Williams. 20 min.
Black and White 1913. USA. Directed by Del Henderson. With David Morris. 10 min.

Gratuitous Violence: No Turn Unstoned
Wednesday, May 27, 2009, 7:00 p.m.
With piano accompaniment by Ben Model

Deep Sea Panic 1924. USA. Directed by Roy Del Ruth. With James Parrott. 12 min.
Their First Execution 1913. USA. Directed by Mack Sennett. With Ford Sterling. 10 min.
The Phoney Cannibal 1915. USA. Directed by Charles E. Ward. With Lloyd Hamilton, Bud Duncan. 10 min.
The Counter Jumper 1922. USA. Directed by Larry Semon. With Semon, Oliver Hardy. 18 min.
Cold Hearts and Hot Flames 1916. USA. Directed by John G. Blystone. With Billie Ritchie. 20 min

Animals and Children: No Harm Done
Friday, May 29, 2009, 4:00 p.m
With piano accompaniment by Ben Model

An Elephant on His Hands 1912. USA. Directed by Frederick Thomson. With George Ober. 10 min.
Cat, Dog, and Co. 1929. USA. Directed by Anthony Mack. With the Our Gang kids. 18 min.
Mind the Baby 1924. USA. Directed by Al Herman. With Pal the dog. 18 min.
The Knockout 1923. USA. Directed by Len Powers. With the Dippy-Doo-Dads. 10 min.
When Summer Comes 1922. USA. Directed by Roy Del Ruth. With Billy Bevan. 18 min.

The Machine Age: Mack Sennett vs. Henry Ford
Monday, June 1, 2009, 4:00 p.m.
With piano accompaniment by Ben Model

Lizzies of the Field 1924. USA. Directed by Del Lord. With Billy Bevan. 18 min.
His Bread and Butter 1916. USA. Directed by Edward Cline, Hank Mann. With Mann, Slim Summerville. 18 min.
Get Out and Get Under 1920. USA. Directed by Hal Roach. With Harold Lloyd. 18 min.
Squeaks and Squawks 1920. USA. Directed by Noel M. Smith. With Jimmy Aubrey, Oliver Hardy. 18 min.
Neck and Neck 1924. USA. Directed by Fred Hibbard. With Lige Conley. 18 min.

Interview with Dominique Serrand

2009-05-01T11:54:00.000-07:00

A video interview with Dominique Serrand, one of the principals of Theater de la Jeune Leune, a Minneapolis theatre which recently closed.

Jeune Leune was known for their physical theatre-- I believe that Serrand or one of his partners studied with Lecoq, and others in the company studied with Carlo Mazzone-Clemente of Dell'arte. Also, Chris Bayes either taught or performed there (or maybe both)

The 34 minute interview is quite interesting, and well worth viewing.
(Thanks to Mike Daisey for the heads up.)

http://www.vimeo.com/2880009

Dreams- Circus in One Act in Chicago (through May 17)

2009-04-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

The Actor's Gymnasium is a think-and-do tank for physical theatre in the Chicago area. They offer classes and performances for all ages and skill levels, from children to beginner adults, and even professional level performers seeking a weekly workout. In addition to teaching, the Actor's Gymnasium also produces shows that feature physical theatre (and their students!)

The show that they are creating this time is entitled DREAM, and it is based on a number of original dreams and pieces created by students of the Actor's Gymnasium. The dream sequences include stuffed animals and dolls coming to life, being caught in your underwear and a knock on the door with nobody there. All the acts are original pieces developed by the cast. Among the acts include trapeze, unicyclists, clowns, contortionists, and a host of other circus and physical theatre acts.

The circus features the Actors Gymnasium's Elite Teen Circus Ensemble and Lauren Hirte from the Lookingglass Theatre Company, along with a couple of Dell'arte alum Paul Lopez and Will Howard. It also will debut original music by Greg Hirte.

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Fridays, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for kids.

The show will be performed at the Noyes Cultural Center, 927 Noyes in Evanston, a northern suburb of Chicago. For tickets or details, call (847) 328-2795 or visit www.actorsgymnasium.com.

You can also read an article about the show in the Chicago Sun Times

Big shoes can be dangerous!

2009-04-24T11:55:00.000-07:00

This article from the UK Telegraph is pretty crazy. If people stopped doing dangerous stuff, there'd really be no point to a circus, y'know? Who wants to see a guy step into a ring of docile cows? Or brave the rope on the ground?

Clown cannot wear giant shoes due to health and safety

A clown has been told he cannot wear his giant comedy shoes due to health and safety.

By Chris Irvine

Last Updated: 9:14AM BST 23 Apr 2009

Valerik Kashkin, a clown in the Moscow State Circus, was performing in Liverpool's Sefton Park last Saturday when he fell from a three metre high slack wire, injuring his foot.

Although he continued to perform for the rest of the show, when he went to hospital later that evening, he was told he had broken the metatarsal bone in his left foot.

When he returned to the circus he was told by management he could no longer wear the size-18 shoes because they compromised his health and safety.

Mr Kashkin features in the circus' reworking of the Rasputin tale, The Monk's Dream.

His routine includes dressing himself whilst walking on a wire, dress himself within a hoop of fire, and playing a drum-kit, trumpet and double-bass all at the same time.

But he is now worried performing in his regular sized footwear will lose impact on the audience.

Mr Kashkin, 40, from Temruk, Russia, said: "The shoes are an important part of my costume, and I was disappointed to be told I couldn't do this part of my act.

"I feel fine, and think I could do it in the shoes – the impact might be lost on the audience now."

Rejecting that it was a case of health and safety gone mad, Larry Dewitt, Health and Safety adviser to the circus said: "I'm not a believer in political correctness, or doing things for the sake of doing it however.

"You have to take a common-sense approach with these things – if it's stupid, don't do it."

Paul Archer, General Manager for the Moscow State Circus, said: "I think it will definitely detract from the visual aspect of the performance.

"It's very important because there's a language barrier to the whole performance, as it's in Russian."

He added: "But we live in a litigation world, and I guess we just have to follow through these procedures.

"It's a real balancing act."

CLOWNALLEY SITE DOWN.

2009-04-24T05:37:00.000-07:00

Perhaps some of you have noticed that one of the best clown sites-- Pat Cashin's Clownalley.net, has suddenly gone away.

To be more accurate, the website is still there-- but all of the archives are gone

It's not by design-- sadly, Pat Cashin, who has been working tirelessly on the site for the last three years, and had amassed easily over 3000 digital photographs, videos, and other ephemera about circus clowns throughout history, had an incident where he in error deleted his blog. So far Blogger (a Google-owned company where Pat did his amassing) has not responded to his pleas to restore his blog from the backup tape.

This is a huge tragedy-- clownalley.net was a great service to clowns and clown historians across the world.

In their defense, Blogger is a free service, and people are supposed to use it at their own risk, and they do provide a backup or export capability, but sadly Pat never used it. (this blog also uses blogger, and I do backup on a semi-regular basis (although I'll be doing it more often)

There is still a chance that Blogger will respond to Pat's pleas.

Cross your fingers, and hope for the best (and if you know anyone at tech support for blogger at google, maybe you could put in a good word or two?)

And in the meantime, let's hope that despite this tragedy, Pat will continue to work his special magic to make clown geeks like us happy.

Doing the math of being a clown.

2009-04-24T05:04:00.000-07:00

a Princeton University math major who has also been studying clowning.

Here's a story from Princeton about a double major in math and theatre that is creating a one-man clown show. Or as he prefers to say a one-man show about a clown that is not a clown show .

(Thanks to Robin Izzo Scott, high school classmate, Facebook friend, and Princeton faculty/staff member for the heads up)

The student studied with Pig Iron Theatre Company of Philadelphia last year, and is creating a theatrical clown show as his senior thesis. (His math thesis involves creating a new version of set theory)

After graduation, he goes back to work for Pig Iron.

I've known a number of math/science/geek guys that have ended up as clowns. (I guess I'm kind of one of them-- I was captain of the math team in high school, and our team won the state championships all three years I was involved!) And one of the circuses that I was intimately involved with was produced by a guy from Swarthmore, and featured a cast that was mostly Ivy League grads, including Penn, Dartmouth, Brown, Harvard, and some other places like MIT, RISD, and Stanford.

Most of the math guys who are clowns I know enter through the juggling or magic world.

Anyway, here's the article in full (in case Princeton pulls the plug on it)

If you are a math/science/nerd clown guy, tell us about it in the comments!

Following his muse to create an unconventional clown

Posted April 22, 2009; 06:23 p.m. by Jennifer Greenstein Altmann
From the April 20, 2009, Princeton Weekly Bulletin

Senior Sam Zetumer likes to work in opposing realms.

He is a math major who is earning a certificate in theater and dance. He scribbles math equations on the chalkboard while waiting for rehearsals to begin. He currently is completing two senior theses: one on set theory, and one on clowning.

Zetumer enjoys immersing himself in two such different disciplines. Math requires him to "shut down external awareness," he said, while theater asks "that I exist in this communal space." Alternating from one to the other is "like going 60 and then going in reverse," he explained.

Beginning Friday, April 24, Zetumer will perform his senior thesis production, titled "Good Winks Here," a one-man show about a clown that is not a clown show — no juggling and no gags.

"It's about a weird human being who's struggling to find out how his world works and failing very badly at it," Zetumer said. "It's a style of clowning that's all about vulnerability."
Zetumer with umbrella

Zetumer said his show is "about a weird human being who's struggling to find out how his world works and failing very badly at it. It's a style of clowning that's all about vulnerability."

"Sam's doing something very brave here — creating his own material and going out there, totally alone, to share his deep interest in clown work with an audience," said Tim Vasen, a lecturer in theater and dance and the Lewis Center for the Arts who is one of Zetumer's thesis advisers. "What he's doing is, first of all, funny, and also sometimes haunting, like the best clowns in the Bill Irwin/Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton tradition always are."

Vasen sees a common thread in Zetumer's twin pursuits.

"He's a systems nut — be it advanced math or physical technique," he said. "Clown work is also a system, and what Sam's doing in his rehearsals is playing with that system, testing it against the lights and chairs and umbrellas and floors and walls, almost like scientific research."

Zetumer studied physical comedy last summer when he took courses on clowning technique offered by the Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia. The company describes itself as a dance-clown-theater ensemble that seeks to break the boundaries of dance, drama, clowning, puppetry, music and text. His summer with the troupe was supported by the Lewis Center's Alex Adam '07 Award, which Zetumer won last year. The award funds summer projects that lead to the creation of an original work of art.

Zetumer first worked with members of Pig Iron during his freshman year, when they taught a physical theater class at Princeton that included clowning. After graduation Zetumer will move to Philadelphia to work for Pig Iron as an assistant stage manager.

A native of San Diego, Zetumer was drawn to Princeton because of the University's strengths in math and theater. For his other thesis, Zetumer is constructing a new version of set theory, which is an important foundational system for mathematics.

His adviser, Professor Edward Nelson, described Zetumer as "fiercely independent. He works hard on his own to resolve problems without asking for help."

During his time at Princeton, Zetumer has appeared in several theatrical productions, portraying Prince Shuisky in Alexander Pushkin's play "Boris Godunov" and performing in "The Winter's Tale," "All My Sons" and "Romeo and Juliet." But for Zetumer, "Good Winks Here" promises to be his most memorable role.

The piece "is serious work, but it's funny and touching," said Vasen, who described Zetumer as "extremely creative" and unconstrained. "Sam has always followed his own muse."

UP and cLOWN: (Jim Moore Clown Photographic exhibit) starts May 15 (NY)

2009-04-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

UP and CLOWN: Photographic Cacophony of Eccentric Performers

For the last 30 years, Jim Moore has been photographing all kinds of clowns, mimes, and eccentric performers. On May 15 the SB Digital Gallery will be hosting an exhibit of Jim's photographs. The exhibit will feature over 300 shots, including shows of the NY Downtown Clown Revue, where Jim is the photographer in residence.

Mr. Moore was a mime street performer during the 70’s and 80’s, he is particularly adept at capturing precise and striking moments of revelry and performance, using his insider's eye. For the last 30 years Jim has been in, on and behind the scenes at venues such as The Big Apple Circus, Bottom Line, Dixon Place and The New York Downtown Clown Revue. His diverse range of photographs include magicians, clowns, puppeteers, mimes, ventriloquists, performance artists, sword swallowers, tightrope walkers, and high wire walkers, including Philip Petit, star of last year's documentary hit Man on Wire, in which many of Jim's photographs were used.

Some of the people featured in this current exhibit are: Eric Bogosian, Paul Zaloom, Marcel Marceau, world famous juggler Francis Brunn, world famous magician Slydini, world renown clown Joel Jeske, world renown clown Gardi Hutter, and sword swallower Joey Colon, along with many others.

The show opens on Friday May 15th at SB Digital Gallery 125 East 4th St., from 6 to 9pm. Refreshments will be served. There are 300 photographs being presented, and they will be projected onto four large high definition monitors and a digital projector.
You can call the gallery for more info at 212-979-7239

For more information about Jim's work, visit his website

http://www.moorepics.com

Some images of the upcoming exhibit are below.

	Ctibor Turba
	Ambrose Martel
	Joel Jeske
	McCormack & Parenti
	Paul Zaloom

Opening Weekend! CRACKED ICE at PS122

2009-04-22T01:48:00.000-07:00

Don't miss the world premiere of:

"CRACKED ICE
or THE JEWELS OF THE FORBIDDEN SKATES!"

A new play by Jennifer Miller
with additional text by Deb Margolin

In this glittering theatrical extravaganza, the infamous juggling duo, The Liberty Sisters, have been fleeced by an evil ponzi schemer. Sybil and Statua Liberty embark on a mad-cap tour of revenge...but they aren't the only ones after the greedy crook. Mistaken identities, missed opportunities, star crossed lovers and variety hall numbers all combine to bring East Village high camp back home. It's tragedy, it's farce, it's mystery, it's mayhem...it's "CRACKED ICE or JEWELS OF THE FORBIDDEN SKATES!!"

April 25-May 10
Performance Space 122 -- First Avenue and 9th Street, NYC
Wed-Sun at 8pm
With additional late show, Sat, May 9 at 11pm.

Special performance to benefit Circus AMOK!
on Sunday, May 3 at 8pm.

Starring: Jennifer Miller, Ashley Brockington, Tanya Gagne, Sally May, Adrienne Truscott, Carlton Ward, and Rae C. Wright.
Music by Kenny Mellman.
Design by Jonathan Berger.
Set Paintings by Mila Geisler.
Choreography by Faye Driscoll.
Prop Design by Jesse Proia.
With additional text for Bernie Madoff by Deb Margolin.
Special surprise guest artists each night, including Scott Heron, Jennifer Monson, Novice Theory, Jenny Romaine, and many more!

CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS TO REGULAR PERFORMANCES:
Use code "FF12" to buy single tickets for only $12
Use code "FF241" to buy two or more tickets for only $10 each!!!
(2 for $20, 5 for $50, and so on.)

TICKETS FOR BENEFIT PERFORMANCE :
Benefit performance tickets are ONLY AVAILABLE at the Circus AMOK! website. Benefit tickets are $50, $75 or $100 and include a post-show reception with the cast and creative team, as well as exclusive AMOK schwag!

"Cracked Ice" tickets are regularly $20.
Obligatory Fine print: discounts based on limited supply; blackout dates may apply; may not be combined with other offers or applied to previous sales; may be discontinued at any time so book now and save!