ICHOF Names Greg DeSanto Executive Director

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!

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

MOVE IT- Free Physical Theatre March 19 at HERE (NYC)

MOVE IT! – a free evening of Physical and Visual Theatre Parallel Exit, New York City’s award-winning physical theatre company, offers audiences a free opportunity to see some of New York’s most exciting physical and visual theatre artists in MOVE IT! Featuring brand new physical theatre from Parallel Exit’s Joel Jeske, Mike Dobson, and Spencer Novich, dance-theatre from The Chase Brock Experience, clowning from Ishah Jannsen-Faith, and juggling from World Champion juggler Tony Duncan, MOVE IT! is presented at HERE Arts Center on Thursday March 19th at 8:30pm. Parallel Exit launched MOVE IT! in the fall of 2006 in order to support and promote the work of quality physical theatre artists and companies in New York City. This performance series appears throughout the year to invite audiences to experience the diversity and excitement of physical and visual theatre artists working in dance-theatre, mime, puppetry, clown, and circus. MOVE IT! Thursday March 19, 8:30pm, FREE HERE Arts Center 145 6th Ave. (between Spring & Broome, enter on Dominick), Subway: C, E, 6 to Spring St. For Tickets & Information: www.here.org 212-352-3101 This production is being presented through HERE’s Supported Artist Program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical and administrative support. To find out more about Parallel Exit, the producer of the program, visit their website listed below: http://www.parallelexit.net/ To find out more about some of the other artists, click on their names below: Parallel Exit’s Joel Jeske, Mike Dobson, and Spencer Novich The Chase Brock Experience Ishah Jannsen-Faith Tony Duncan

Ira Seidenstein & Quantum Theatre

Ira Seidenstein is an Australian actor, clown, and clown teacher. He's been teaching, directing, and performing for over 30 years. Ira was a student of Carlo Mazzone Clemente (founder of Dell'arte) and of Danny Chapman, one of the great Ringling clowns (and one of the original founders of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College.) Ira also has an MA, is a PHD candidate, and has studied healing at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, and Iyengar yoga also. Ira has taught and performed with a number of companies, including Cirque du Soleil, Circus Oz, Circus Smirkus, Legs on the Wall, Chaplin's Eye, the Bell Shakespeare Company, and many more. He also coaches performers and shows on an international basis. In 1993 he developed a concept called Quantum Theatre, which he teaches and practices regularly. Quantum Theatre is a "unified theory" of performance that brings the actor from Slapstick to Shakespeare (one of Ira's many workshops is called Shakespeare's Clowns). He uses exercises he invented such as the Creative Twist, which uses the body as a moving, living statue to augment traditional and other methods of theatre, including Suzuki, ballet, Noh, and Kabuki. In 2005, Ira started the next phase of Quantum Theatre, I.S.A.A.C. (International School of Acting AND Clown), which is not a school like a building but a school of philosophy and practices. It should be noted that Isaac means "To Laugh" in Hebrew. Here Ira describes Quantum Theatre: Quantum Theatre has three systems and each has ten principles. For example, the Principle of One, represents that all work in theatre is drawn from ones self. The Principle of Two represents the polarity and balance of opposition the Yin/Yang or masculine/feminine energies within oneself. Central in Quantum Theatre is the Principle of Four, the integrative use of Body-Voice-Performance-Creativity. The Principle of Four is practiced in a spiral twisting movement that looks like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man with arms outstretched horizontally. The end of the spiral twist is a held shape that looks like the chi gong pose called ‘embracing the tree’. The Suzuki Actor Training Method uses a similar shape called a ‘statue’. To find out more about Ira's work, visit his website listed below: http://www.iraseidenstein.com

Bill Irwin & Co. Get 5 Barrymore Nominations

Bill Irwin's show THE HAPPINESS LECTURE just received 5 Barrymore nominations. The Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre are the Greater Philadelphia region's only comprehensive theatre awards program, recognizing artists for excellence and innovation while serving to increase awareness of the richness of the local theatre community. Each year, over 100 productions produced by the region's professional theatres are reviewed by the Barrymore nominating committee. At the annual awards presentation each Fall, the Barrymore Awards are presented to honor excellence in acting, design, choreography, music, education, community service and lifetime achievement. The 5 nominations: Ensemble - Bill Irwin, Aaron Cromie, Jennifer Childs, Ephrat Asherie, Melanie Cotton, Makoto Hirano, Nichole Canuso, Cori Olinghouse and Lee Ann Etzold New Play - Bill Irwin Choreography - Bill Irwin Supporting Actress - Lee Ann Etzold Sound Design - Jorge Cousineau This year the award ceremonies are Monday, October 6, 2008 6:30PM at the Crystal Team Room Wannamaker Building, 9th Floor 100 Penn Square East, Philadelphia Tickets go on sale Thursday, August 7! MORE INFO: http://www.theatrealliance.org/barrymores/

Last week for Bill Irwin in Philadelphia

Bill Irwin's show The Happiness Lecture has been extended for one week in Philadelphia. If you have the opportunity, you should see it! I drove down from NY on Saturday to see it. Overall it was great (Hey, it's Bill Irwin!) And a company of 9 very talented Philadelphia area artists. (including a friend from Dell'arte, puppeteer and performer Aaron Cromie. He actually won't be in the extended week (he had other commitments) Instead, another Dell'arte friend Dawn Falato will take over as the swing.) I have some thoughts about the show, if you care to read them.... Like most of Bill's original shows, the play is a meditation on his work in the theatre, and a dialogue between tricks, fear of failure (and success), and the utility of worry. If people over time begin to resemble their dogs, it's even more true with their shows, direct reflections of what they are thinking about as artists. It's very true with this show-- in some ways it is a direct continuation, extension of Regard of Flight. Regard was newer to me of course, and Bill was even more agile then than he is now (which seems hard to believe), and there are a lot of similar elements to this show, but there are also lots of twists that will have Bill Irwin watchers riveted. I'm not as fond of the writing and directing of the show as I am of the performance of the show, which (especially for Bill) borders on the virtuosic. His use of his body is fantastic, whether it's a remote control podium gone awry, creation of two cavemen (well, let's not call them that-- let's call them early men) that illustrate a sort of Darwinian Happiness Theory, or performing a beautiful Mr. Noodle piece, Bill is always as precise as a Swiss watch. It's a pleasure to watch him work, although work is the wrong word. He glides fluidly from routine to routine, and that's his genius. An amazing piece of theatrical genius is in the staging. The use of puppets of Bill Irwin and the creation of multiple focused prosceniums of different sizes and scales borders on the fantastic. The stage shifts several times in scale, and each time does so with precision and ease- it reminded me that the most effective techniques are often the simplest. And it brings home the constant argument that Bill's shows seems to always have- I've got the clown thing going, but what does it all mean? I'm not 100% sure that there's an answer to that question-- there is a kind of constant narrative about narrative throughout the piece, and a use of theatrical conventions (the pre-show speech, the usher, the audience member placed in peril) that is always pleasant to watch but is not really linear or conducive to the "well-made play." At the end of the show, I heard a grandmother asking her two teenaged grand-children what they thought of the show. GRANDMOTHER: Wasn't that marvelous and fun? What did you think? GRAND-DAUGHTER: I liked it, but it was a little weird. I didn't quite get it. GRAND-SON: Yeah, it was cool, but I didn't really get it. It was weird. It wasn't their typical play, but they liked it. If you'd like to see the show, visit the Philadelphia Theatre Company's Website listed below: http://www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/2008/lecture.html On a related topic-- Cirque du Soleil was just ending a run of Kooza (directed by Irwin collaborator David Shiner) down the block from the theatre. If I had known, I would have tried to have gotten tickets for both. Kooza's next stop is Chicago, then Boston, then Washington DC.

Bill Irwin/ Aaron Cromie podcast

Fascinating hour of conversation about clowning and clowns with Bill Irwin and Aaron Cromie regarding the Happiness Lectures. http://www.whyy.org/podcast/052208_110630.mp3 Definitely listen to it!

The Sprockets Circus

Great article on NPR's website about the Sprockets, a family circus of three that tours the world in a 1962 Bristol double decker bus with a top speed of 33 miles per hour. The show features Scott Harrison, his wife Issabelle Feraud, and their 11 year old son Theo, who have been touring continuously since 1997. They ship their bus between continents, and have performed in 48 countries, and 6 continents. They are currently in the states, and are starting the process of writing a book about their journey. Their shows are full of magic, juggling, acrobatics, daredevil unicycling and lots of slapstick humor. Scott was a juggling entrepreneur for a while in England, and then became a performer. Find out more about the Sprockets on the websites listed below: SPROCKETS WEBSITE: http://www.thesprockets.com NPR Article/story: Circus Family Is Ready for a Safety Net SPROCKETS FLICKR site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thesprockets/

Bill Irwin in Philadelphia

Thanks to Aaron Cromie for the tip! (He's in the show too!) THE HAPPINESS LECTURE WORLD PREMIERE By Bill Irwin May 16 - June 15, 2008 Bill Irwin – a two-time Tony Award-winner, film/television star, physical comedian, playwright, director and choreographer – leads a brilliant ensemble on an adventure in the pursuit of happiness. Irwin has created a unique and imaginative evening of delightful vignettes and physical comedy. This world premiere is a wild and entertaining ride that spoofs theatrical pretensions while exploring the sheer joy of laughter. Featuring some of Philadelphia's finest actors and dancers including: Nichole Canuso, Jennifer Childs, Melanie Cotton, Aaron Cromie, Lee Ann Etzold, and Makoto Hirano, along with New York-based Ephrat "Bounce" Asherie and Cori Olinghouse. http://www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org There are ticket deals and discounts if you contact the box office, especially for the previews.

Steve Russell-- In Capable Hands

A good article recently appeared in the Dunn County News about Clown College Graduate Steve Russell, and how he got a job with the NY City Opera through clown-networking. I'm a member of that network, and saw the whole thing happen! Steve and his wife Kobi Shaw form a juggling duo called In Capable Hands. Both are graduates of Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Clown College, and Steve has trained over 100 Ringling Bros. clowns in juggling and clowning. Their talents have taken them all over the country, as well as all over the world. Between the two of them, Steve and Kobi have appeared at Disney World, Disneyland, London's Covent Garden, and renaissance festivals from Florida to Texas. Their skills have been seen on national television for Good Morning America, Nickelodeon T.V., and the Tonight Show. They have juggled on more than 15 cruise ships, traveling throughout Europe, Hawaii, Alaska, South America and the Caribbean. Regionally, they entertain audiences at numerous fairs and festivals, including the Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Ohio, and Northern Wisconsin State Fairs. In addition, they do a corporate presentation entitled The Art of Ooomph. Russell and Shaw are married and have been a juggling duo since 1996. Their two sons, Tate and Quinn, were born in January, 2001 and November, 2002, respectively. They spend their time trying to avoid being juggled.. You can find out more about In Capable Hands by visiting their website (listed below) http://www.incapablehands.com/ I've also included a portion of that article, but to read the rest, read the article on the original website Specialty act - Talent with fire lands Russell with Big Apple opera gig By LeAnn R. Ralph, Reporter When you have a specialized skill and no one else applies, you're bound to get the job. And that's exactly how Colfax resident Steve Russell, of the comedy juggling duo In Capable Hands, ended up as the understudy to the fire-breathing juggling clown in the production of "Pagliacci" at the New York City Opera. "Pagliacci" is scheduled to be performed at Lincoln Center from Sept. 28 to Oct. 27. Russell began rehearsals Sept 13, after learning only five days earlier that he had gotten the job. "I'm a graduate of Ringling Brothers Clown College, and I'm on an e-mail list of about 400 other people who graduated from clown school and clown college," Russell said. People on the e-mail list exchange information about jobs that are available. Russell's wife and show business partner (and Dunn County News correspondent), Kobi Shaw, had seen the listing asking for a juggler/fire eater to be an understudy for Pagliacci the day before Russell called about the job. "Kobi said, 'this is something you should do,' " Russell recalled. By the time he was able to make a telephone call on Friday afternoon, he was certain that the New York City Opera would have already found someone else. "I gave them a call mid-afternoon on Friday. Within five minutes, he was talking as if I already had the job," Russell said. "It turns out that it's hard to find a fire-breathing juggler who could make the dates of the show. I wish all my jobs were this easy and this glamorous." READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE