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We asked the participants in this year's New York Clown Theatre Festival to tell us about their shows by answering some questions—some serious, most (appropriately) not serious at all. Here's what they told us!
Learn more about the festival here. Watch YouTube video previews/trailers for some festival shows here. Check out nytheatre.com's Festival Calendar.
Learn more at the official website
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: ching crash boom fla fla fla thwacka thwacka. Like a DADA dream poem, like a racing automobile, like a tango.
Q: What does your show look like?
A: Click here.
Q: How many actors are in your show and how many roles do they play?
A: 6 performers. There are 3 clowns: The Cabaret ReVoltaire mistress of ceremonies, Middleman the waiter, and the New Girl. And there are two visionaries: a Futurist who also plays a capitalist and a DADAist who also plays a communist.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo.
Learn more at the official website
Q: What is the temperature of your show?
A: Profoundly Cold and Steamy Hot.
Q: Where are you from?
A: New York originally, by way of Alaska (for the past 7 seven years).
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: Yes, they are involved...a LOT...but I'd rather not give it away...
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: One step is a journey of 1,000 miles. It's what happens between the moment you have a desire and the fulfillment of your desire.
Q: Why is your show's title what it is?
A: A Glass of Wine is the endgame. I have a glass of wine.
Q: Which movie character would like your show best: Harry Potter, Borat, Princess Leia, or Popeye?
A: Popeye would appreciate the reversal: Popeye eats spinach to perform a spectacular feat and I perform a spectacular feat to drink a glass of wine.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Part Groucho, part Harpo: Garpo.
Learn more at the official website
Q: How many performers are in your show and how many roles do they play?
A: One, although my set and props may try to debate that with you. I play Captain Melisande Blue, or just Mel.
Q: Which blockbuster film is your show like?
A: Gone with the Wind, but that's only because there is a two-and-a-half foot mini-version of it in the show.
Q: Where are you from?
A: Illinois right now—Chicago! Born in Florida, spent teen years to college in Virginia.
Q: What is the temperature of your show?
A: Hot, so hot I have to bring a fan, an industrial room circulating fan.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: What would you do if your daily routine were interrupted by mortality, the ultimate interruption? Running Into Walls is a poignant and raucously funny look at two eccentric friends forced to grapple with this difficult question when their daily lives are cast into disorder by a sudden encounter with mortality. Physical comedy, trombone medleys, bonsai cultivation, and flamenco come together in one raucous story as our hapless heroes take on such difficult challenges as dealing with loss, facing the afterlife, and climbing the Himalayas.
Q: What does your show look like?
A: Check out photos here.
Q: What one thing are audiences going to remember forever about your show after they see it?
A: The ending. We'll say no more ...
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo: physical comedy, squeaky horns, and real true musical talent.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Which movie character would like your show best: Harry Potter, Borat, Princess Leia, or Popeye?
A: Popeye—in fact, my central character may be channelling him throughout the piece.
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: Yes indeed. A dull job, a stray dog; a romance, a brutal abduction, a chase across the high wire; a leap, a fall, a happy ending.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: Kids making their own sound effects as they play.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo—with Chico's shenanigans and Groucho's wink to the audience.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Who are the personnel (cast and crew) involved with your show?
A: Orianne Bernard, performer (Miss Oberniche); Emmanuel Mattei, tech director; and Catherine Munch administration.
Q: Why is your show's title what it is?
A: Melle Oberniche made an intervention in a hospital, and then a sick little girl said to her "C'est la nuit qu'il faut attraper la lumière" (It's the night that you have to catch the light). So Oberniche decided to create her show, a depressive comedy with this title.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: Like a gentle rain.
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: It's a surprise.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: It's a story about a woman-clown who wants to be a private dick, and a man-clown who wants to be a femme fatale, and another man-clown who is a femme fatale, and how nobody gets what they want because the world is a disappointing montage of shadows, bleakness, and abject misery. But it's funny!
Q: What is the age of the audience that would most enjoy your show?
A: The appropriate age is one that wouldn't be uncomfortable with the occasional sighting of a half-naked man-clown trying to pull on a dress.
Q: What is the temperature of your show?
A: The show is as hot as a garter on the thigh of a cigarette girl, and as cold as a corpse on a hook in a meat freezer. Unless the cigarette girl IS the corpse on the hook in the meat freezer, in which case, I'd say the show is room temperature.
Q: Where are you from?
A: Whichever country and state is the dirtiest town around.
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: A story of a young woman who finds a box in the woods. Her name is Pandora. I think you can figure the rest out.
Q: Who are the personnel (cast and crew) involved with your show?
A: Ishah Janssen-Faith and Kendall Cornell.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: Sweetness and light on top and scratchy hardness underneath.
Q: What one thing are audiences going to remember forever about your show after they see it?
A: A box.
Learn more at the official website
Q: What one thing are audiences going to remember forever about your show after they see it?
A: A man playing a flute through his nose.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: Talking Heads meets Tom Waits meets Andy Kaufmann and Ricky Ricardo.
Q: What does your show look like?
A: See video and photos here.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: All.
Learn more at the official website
Q: What is the age of the audience that would most enjoy your show?
A: The Birdmann is a sophisticted vaudeville humor show that can be enjoyed on many levels. Younger audiences are enthralled by its visual antics and more mature crowds engage with the thematic moments.
Q: Where are you from?
A: Surfer's Paradise, Australia.
Q: What one thing are audiences going to remember forever about your show after they see it?
A: With The Birdmann the audience will encounter unusual feats and unique facts that they may only witness once in a lifetime. Acts of oddity include a water transference from one hole in the face and out another.
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: For a moment the audience goes on a guided meditation doing relaxing movement and eventually becoming the ocean while floating an object of origami. It is a unique and memorable experience.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Which blockbuster film is your show like?
A: Amelie and The Triplets of Belleville—not blockbusters exactly, but well-loved.
Q: What one thing are audiences going to remember forever about your show after they see it?
A: Here's a clue from an audience review: "...Be warned: it leaves you with the desire to go grocery shopping dressed as a pirate."
Q: Who are the personnel (cast and crew) involved with your show?
A: The Nosdrahcir Sisters features Sara and Kimberly Richardson, two noted Twin Cities physical actors, in their first independent collaboration. To see a clip of Sara and Kimberly performing together in Jon Ferguson’s We are Ugly but We Have the Music click here.
Q: Why is your show's title what it is?
A: Nosdrahcir is Richardson backwards. We are not really sisters. We just have the same last name (and similar haircuts).
Learn more at the official website
Q: Which blockbuster film is your show like?
A: Mr. Bean.
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: Yes, they have to obey me.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: Laughter.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo, definitely Harpo.
Learn more at the official website
Q: Which movie character would like your show best: Harry Potter, Borat, Princess Leia, or Popeye?
A: Popeye. It's very physically demanding. Fortunately, we are total hunks!
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: Our show tells the story of two pallbearers and their relationship to one another, the coffin, and Death.
Q: Fans of your show would really love which current Broadway hit?
A: August: Osage County.
Q: Groucho, Chico, Harpo, or Zeppo?
A: Harpo.
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: Big & Little is the story of Big and Little who become friends.
Q: What is the age of the audience that would most enjoy your show?
A: All Ages. Seriously. Well, maybe not newborns.
Q: Why is your show's title what it is?
A: There is a big guy and a little guy.
Q: What does your show sound like?
A: The show sounds like laughter. Small laughter, big laughter, medium laughter, and next week laughter.
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: The plight of two serious performance artists speaking out for pigeons in a world where no one hears them.
Q: How long is your show?
A: 7-10 jam packed minutes.
Q: Which movie character would like your show best: Harry Potter, Borat, Princess Leia, or Popeye?
A: Borat.
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: Maybe. We'll see.
Q: Does your show tell a story, and if so, what's it about?
A: It is about the best show ever, and how even if you think something is perfect, things can always go wrong... or maybe work out just right. It is also about friendship, love, and the experience of being human.
Q: Why is your show's title what it is?
A: PANTS!: a British colloquialism meaning non-sense and ridiculous. There are also fancy pants in our show. It is also kind of like a party, a party in our pants!
Q: What is the age of the audience that would most enjoy your show?
A: All ages! As long as you are willing to laugh.
Q: Does your show involve audience participation, and if so, what do they have to do?
A: Yes. They may have to hold some lettuce. And blow up a balloon.
Photos at top of page: Numbers Up!, Party of One, Big & Little, Manifesto!, and Running Into Walls
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