Parallel Exit Jul 20—22 & 26—29 Inspired by the films City Lights and An American In Paris, NYC’s Drama Desk-nominated Parallel Exit presents the premiere of an evening-length comic ballet, I ♥ BOB: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Guy, a work that follows the story of two desperately lonely characters attempting to connect amid the speed and chaos of […]
Read moreDrew the Dramatic Fool, whose projects have embellished this blog more than once, (Here, Here, and Here, at the least) is in NY for a run of shows at the Canal Park Playhouse, a tiny gem of a theatre in Tribeca. The theatre seats 50, and is mostly dedicated to family and vaudeville/variety shows. Drew is presenting his fabulous one […]
Read more“As circus artists, we aim to show the outrageous things that our bodies can do and to surprise people as much as we can,†said Chris Lashua, artistic director of the Las Vegas based contemporary circus troupe, Cirque Mechanics. “However, we take circus one step further by building machines that not only capture the spectacle of circus, but thrill in […]
Read moreI’ve been reading a blog “The Adventures of Steve and Ryan” which is a blog by Steve Copeland and Ryan Combs, the two clown partners that are on the Kelly Miller Circus. Kelly Miller is an Oklahoma based circus that has been performing since 1938, and is currently owned by John Ringling North. They bill themselves as “America’s Finest One […]
Read moreShowbiz David announced on his blog that Cirque Berzerk, the Los Angeles underground circus company, has declared bankruptcy. Their website and facebook presence still seem active, so perhaps there’s hope for the company. Cirque Berzerk started as a performance ritual at Burning Man, and had seemed to be blossoming into Los Angeles’ answer to the Big Apple Circus, or the […]
Read moreAudrey Crabtree, one of the motivating forces behind the NY Clown Theatre Festival, is teaching two workshops in Mexico City in March.  The workshops, about developing material through improvisation and about clown duos and trios, will take place in March. I believe the classes will be taught in Spanish (or in translation) The workshops are sponsored by ClownMeIn and GABRIELA MUÑO. […]
Read moreDuring the mid-1700’s, (over 100 years after Flamino Scala) two commedia performers/playwrights were having a feud over the future of commedia. They were both named Carlo, they were both Venetian, and they both had very different ideas about what made commedia dell’arte special and worthwhile. Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) was for getting rid of the masks and improvisatory nature of commedia […]
Read moreWhen I studied at the Dell’arte school of Physical theatre, our Commedia teacher (Michael Fields) would be coaching a scene or an improvisation and then suddenly say “Ah– the Ghost of Chekhov has entered the room.” This was a short hand way of saying he meant that your performance had descended from a heightened state into naturalism or traditional acting, […]
Read moreGiorgio Strehler was the founder (along with Paolo Grassi) and director of the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Some would say that he is the father of modern commedia. I don’t think I would go that far, as there were a number of disparate Italian groups working after the war that were trying to figure out how to resurrect Italian pride, […]
Read moreCarlo Mazzone-Clementi was the founder of the Dell’arte school of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake California. He was a childhood friend of Amletto Sartori, Marcel Marceau’s first touring partner, worked with Jacques LeCoq, and performed with Dario Fo, Franca Rama, and Giorgio Strehler at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. In 1959 he came to the United States to teach commedia, […]
Read moreHoly Crap. I don’t know how I missed info about this. Just happened to read something about a ginormous circus festival happening in Montreal RIGHT NOW. It features some of the top circuses from around the world (and of course, especially Quebec) All happening at the same time. The festival, called MONTRÉAL COMPLÈTEMENT CIRQUE, ( or in English “Completely Circus”) […]
Read moreI was just on a family vacation in Argentina, and noted with dismay that a circus festival started the week after I left. Â WEBSITE: Â http://www.festivalpolocirco.gov.ar/ When I was unmarried and child-less, I might have stayed for the week and changed my ticket, but my responsibilities as a husband and father made that impossible. Â Fortunately, my brother lives in Buenos Aires, […]
Read moreENTER 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 […]
Read moreHeidi 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 […]
Read moreIn 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 […]
Read morePart of the 2009 Next Wave FestivalCirkus CirkörLive music by Irya’s PlaygroundDirected By Tilde Björfors “…A magical breathtaking performance…a powerful inter-disciplinary work of art…” —SkÃ¥nska 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 […]
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