Tag: Audrey Crabtree
I’m betting this has happened to you: You find an affordable place to rehearse, perhaps in a neighborhood that you can also afford to live in. Other artists who work large gravitate there. Pretty soon it becomes a pretty interesting neighborhood. More restaurants open up, maybe a couple of art galleries, and before you know it, it’s trendy. Everyone wants to live there… and many of them have a lot more money than you do. This of course is not lost on the real estate industry. Rents rise, not just a little, but by tenfold, and before you know it, you and your fellow artists can’t afford to live or rent space there so you move to the next neighborhood you can afford, a bit farther off the beaten track, a bit farther from public transportation, a bit seedier, maybe a bit less safe at night. And the process repeats… from Soho to Tribeca to Williamsburg to Bushwick to Ridgewood to small towns along the Hudson River…. change the names for your city, and there you are.
Clown is to physical comedy as what is to what?
Federico Fellini’s 1954 Academy-Award-winning, neo-realist film, La Strada, starring Anthony Quinn and Giulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife), is one of my all-time favorites. The brutal depiction of a marginal showman’s life, the stunning black & white cinematography, and the compelling acting of Quinn, Masina, and of Richard Basehart in the role of “the fool” all hold up very well indeed nearly a half century later. The clown’s power to satirize —and the limits of that power — struck a strong chord with me then that still rings true today. And according to our good friend Wikipedia, the movie was a source of inspiration for Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee.”
Last month I posted a preview of the Clowns on Film evening at the NYC Clown-Theatre Festival, perhaps a shameless piece of self-promotion since I was co-hosting the event with Audrey Crabtree. I wrote that the work that evening would be great, since Audrey (festival co-director ) had told me so and I believed her, though honestly I hadn’t seen most of the films before stepping on stage. Of course my hidden agenda was to try to fill the voluminous Brick Theater to the rafters. If you’ve never been there, think Radio City Music Hall. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)
This post is not mere shameless self-promotion, at least not entirely. This Friday night (Sept. 16th) at 10 p.m., Audrey Crabtree and I will be co-hosting a presentation of short clown films at the NY Clown-Theatre Festival at the Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And you should come, because we’ll be lonely without you, plus it’s going to be pretty exciting. Here’s why…
Okay, let’s be honest, it would be pretty bogus of me to pretend to be objective while reviewing a show (Flocked) that stars two friends of mine (Audrey Crabtree & Gabriela Muñoz) and is directed by a third (Hilary Chaplain), now wouldn’t it? On the other hand, I did swear on the Blogopedia Bible to report on all interesting physical comedy in the known universe, so I would risk being consigned to eternal Blog Purgatory were I not to mention the show at all.
I just got back from the opening night of this century’s 6th NY Clown-Theatre Festival, a cabaret hilariously hosted by the Leroy Sisters (Aimee German & Jenny Sargent) and featuring excerpts from most of the performers we’ll be seeing in the festival. If this preview was any indication, it’s a strong and varied lineup.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin