Mark Jaster
Mark Jaster is a clown and mime based in the Washington, D.C. area. The Washington Post has called Mark Jaster a “clown extraordinaire and one of the most graceful performers you will ever see on a stage.”
Mark’s skills in mime were developed in training with 20th-century masters Marcel Marceau and his teacher, E. Decroux, along with careful observation of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harpo Marx. Mark served as teaching assistant to Mr. Marceau in a series of seminars in Michigan, and he teaches frequently in Artist residencies, theatres, and dance programs.
Mark has three solo performances that he tours: Piccolo’s Trunk, A Fool Named ‘O’, and The Maestro. In all of them, Mark combines live music, unusual instruments, outrageous acrobatics, and hyper-advanced communication skills all together in a performance that erases the bad feelings that most people have when they conjure up the word “Mime.” Mark recently created a new show with his wife and partner, Sabrina Mandell, The Seven Ages of Mime, which had a sold-out run at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, MD.
Mark is a regular as Herr Drosselmeyer in the Maryland Youth Ballet’s Holiday Nutcracker, and has appeared frequently with the Washington Revels and on the stage of the Maryland Renaissance Festival.
Mark is a proud member of The Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program, performing at the Children’s National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University Hospital.
To find out more about Mark’s work, please visit his website listed below:
http://www.markjaster.com
This past fall, while visiting Washington, D.C., I caught Mark Jaster with Sabrina Mandell as Plunket & Tremolo, two clowns who tried on a series of commedia dell'arte masks found in a trunk. It was a great introduction to commedia for the kids in the audience. I quite liked his Pantalone.