Manual Cinema , the award winning puppet/film/multimedia studio based in Chicago, is putting on a performance/workshop at the end of March. It’s part of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival. The show (and the workshop) explore poetry, puppetry, and shadow theatre, and their intersections. The Puppet Festival actually happens every two years, and the next one is scheduled for 2019, however […]
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Journey For the Sun, A SciFi Cartoon Circus from The Actors Gymnasium’s is visually stunning and well worth seeing. A couple of weeks ago I got to see the opening night of the show, and it was really great! The show features a combination of professional performers and the Actors Gym’s Teen Ensemble, as it tells the story of an […]
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The people at CloWnStePPinG have been producing a Clown Cabaret Scratch night in Edinburgh since 2014. It’s been pretty successful, and they are now looking to step it up a notch, and are looking to produce the first ever Edinburgh Clown Festival from May 3- May 5, 2018. Officially known as the Edinburgh Contemporary Clown Theatre Festival (ECCTF?), the shows will […]
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I read with a heavy heart the story about Grandma the Clown (Barry Lubin) ‘s resignation from the Big Apple Circus. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/nyregion/big-apple-circus-grandma-clown-resigns.html It suffices to say that this is terrible news for everyone all around. Of course, for the young girl, and for Barry, and for Barry’s friends, and for the Big Apple Circus, and of course, circus people […]
Read morePlay competitions about Environmental Justice aren’t usually a Clownlink thing, but they could be! Why not? INNER VOICES Social Issues Theater at the University of Illinois, Champaign is looking for play scripts that address the following issue: Social Justice as Environmental Justice. The possible topics might include such things as the following: • food deserts • environmental hazards • […]
Read moreI shot this video at the recent 50th anniversary of Clown College reunion. Jeff Gordon (Gordoon) did this fantastic bubble act, and I captured it on film. With his permission, I’m sharing it via Youtube! Enjoy!
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Chicago Puppet Cabaret Nasty Brutish and Short is performing at Links Hall on Monday December 11 at 7:30 pm. This show features some of the best puppeteers in the area putting on new work, experimental work, and samples of their work. Nasty Brutish & Short is an evening of contemporary short-form puppet and object based theater for adult audiences. The […]
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I’ve recently joined a new social network. If you are reading this blogpost, you may be interested in it also. It’s called CircusTalk, and it’s a professional social network for circus performers worldwide. The basic idea is to use the same kinds of digital tools that other professions use, but gear it towards circus. It’s LinkedIn for circus! Once you […]
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PHYSICAL FESTIVAL CHICAGO is calling for proposals of physical theater plays for its 5th edition of the festival that will run in June 2018. An annual contemporary, visual, and physical theater festival based in Chicago, Physical Festival presents new forms of theater that are being performed around the world and in our backyard. In 2014, Alice da Cunha and Marc Frost […]
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For over 30 years, Clown Camp has been an intensive training ground for newcomer clowns and for seasoned clowns to hone their skills. Clown Camp was founded and directed by Dr. Richard Snowberg, a clown for over 35 years and an inductee into the International Clown Hall of Fame. Since 1981, over 6000 people from over 25 different countries have […]
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Rik Gern (aka Bonzo Crunch) is a grassroots entertainer currently based in Austin, Texas. He’s been working as a performer since 1978 in places as varied as Chicago, Texas, California, and Australia. Rik Gern started performing in the mid 1970’s, and then studied at the Dell’arte School of Mime and Comedy in 1982 in Blue Lake California, where he […]
Read morePLEASE NOTE: THIS DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL NOVEMBER 20! It’s not often that clowns get praised for being abstract, but here’s our chance! The Healthcare Clowning International Meeting (HCIM) is holding its 2018 meeting from April 4-6, 2018 in Vienna Austria. The topic of the meeting is “The Art of Clowning- Connecting Culture, Health, and Science.” CALL […]
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Book Kennison is a pretty phenomenal juggler who has been working on and off with Chicago’s Midnight Circus since he was 14 years old. Here’s a video of his act on the Midnight Circus from a couple of years ago. And here’s a home video of Book and a friend of his playing some incredible volleys of chair badminton while […]
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Steve Kaplan ‘s book The Hidden Tools of Comedy is a great book for people who are constructing comic scripts. While the book focuses intensively on movies and television, the advice given here is equally applicable to work in the theatre, or even in novels. Fair warning: There are no magic bullets here. Kaplan is not a believer in comic […]
Read moreA version of this review of the Semi Circus show Murmurations originally appeared on the blog http://www.dadapalooza.com Semi Circus  Murmurations I recently saw a new Chicago circus perform their first show. Semi Circus started in 2016 as a circus collective.  They use circus skills, physical theater, improv and other skills to create plays.  Murmurations is their first show. The show […]
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I received a book a couple of weeks ago (Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy) by film historian and film series curator Steve Massa that has made for fascinating reading and introduced me to the stories of dozens of very funny comediennes. When we think of silent film comedy today, a great deal of attention gets paid to the […]
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