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Avner The Eccentric is playing a very exciting run of shows at the Canal Park Playhouse during the month of March. For those of you not familiar with Avner, you probably are, but you just don’t know it.  Avner has had a long career as a touring artist and master teacher.  He was a student of Jacques LeCoq and of Carlo Mazzone-Clemente […]

“A FOOL’S IDEA” is a conversational documentary web-series about comedy, performance, life & clown. The Cast of Season One from A Fool’s Idea Each episode (with the exception of a few specials) is focused around one thesis question. Once asked, each artist responds with his or her educated perspective on the matter. Each person has a very different perspective, and […]

We got to see the Royal Hanneford Circus today at the Westchester County Center.  We saw it last year, and while the show was pretty good, the clowns were awful. So I was really glad to see that this year, Grandma (Barry Lubin) was the special guest clown.  Barry, in case you didn’t know, was the heart and soul of […]

I read recently on John Towsen’s blog ALL FALL DOWN  about Jim Carter, the prim and proper butler Mr. Carson from  PBS & ITV’s celebrated hit Downton Abbey and the fact that Carter is a trained juggler and magician/comedian. He apparently trained with Hovey Burgess in the 70’s, and used to work the streets of London as a juggler, unicyclist, and  perform a comedy magic […]

  The Signature Theatre is hosting a new collaboration between David Shiner and Bill Irwin.  You may remember that they have collaborated once before in the hit FOOL MOON, which ran on Broadway in 1993 for over 200 performances, and then returned to Broadway twice (1995, 1999)  for another 120 engagements .  That show, 20 years ago, won the Tony […]

If you have any interest in German immigration or American popular culture (or the intersection of the two) then you should probably check out the inimitable Trav S.D.’s talk on the same (a presentation to the 19nth Century Historical Society in NY.) Trav is a longtime friend, and is the best kind of scholar of popular culture- he’s an entertaining […]

You don’t want to miss Erth’s Dinosaur Zoo, at the New Victory theatre through January 27. A Dinosaur from Erth running amok in Galway. Times Square is next! We saw this last week, and it was really great.  Fantastic puppetry and a vaudeville style m.c. keeps the show moving and the audience laughing. The show is set in the Australian […]

I recently read a very interesting article about a Brazilian clown who became a congressman in 2010 in Brazil, and was recently named one of the top 25 Brazilian politicians. (Thanks to Jim Moore  of Vaudevisuals for posting something about him on Facebook) The clown, Francisco Everardo Oliveira Silva—better known by his clown name Tiririca (Grumpy),  ran in 2010 after being invited by […]

A fantastic evening of circus and cabaret music will be presented on January 24, when three circus/cabaret groups all collide at the Jalopy Theatre. The three groups are Cirkestra (from Boston), Brooklyn’s own ukelele temptress Sweet Soubrette, and Brooklyn-based ragtime-punk sextet Apocalypse Five And Dime. Founded by a former circus clown Peter Bufano, Cirkestra has a Balkan-gypsy-klezmer-jazz sound backed up […]

I recently saw I, Malvolio at the New Victory theatre, and I think you should too. this is its last weekend to run.  (Here’s where you can buy tickets) It’s a great and rigorous deconstruction of  the character Malvolio from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.  Malvolio in this production is kind of a bouffon character– a twisted wretch, a shade of his dignified […]

This lecture is produced in conjunction with a great circus exhibition that is happening at Bard College.  The exhibit is called Circus and the City: New York 1793-2010. The exhibit runs through February 3.. The lecture itself is given by Clownlink reader and friend, David Carylon, a former Ringling clown, a PHD in theatre/circus history, and the author of THE […]

Merry Christmas, everybody! (or Happy Holidays, if Christmas isn’t your thing)