actor – Clownmommy

Hmmmm

I was thinking of the comments from an actor who came to the show last night. He also does some stage clown work. He’s youngish white male from a traditional background. He was blown away by the female energy he felt coming from the stage. The thing that is surprising to me is that it is a surprise to anyone. It’s a small stage, a small audience a dozen performers and a lot of different images. Except for the point at which I was completely filled with anxiety over the higher stakes of promoting this production and trying to take the troupe to the next level, it is not a particularly ambitious production. This is not the first time we have filled the stage with women in red noses riffing off cultural images. Yet, the actor was surprised that he fell “a little bit in love” with all of the clowns even though they were all very different. None of them presented herself as a proper ingenue or leading lady. Hmmm.

This morning I googled a bit looking for artist moms and I found some websites and some blogs by and about women who are combining visual art with parenting. One essay about a documentary film about artist moms described how their art was just as good as the work of male artists in Soho galleries or at the MoMa where less than 5% of the permanent collection is art made by women. Apparently these women-artist-moms could combine making art and having children, but the aggressive self-promotion of the male art world was the aspect of a prominent art career that these women may have let slide (or they promoted themselves and nobody cared so they stopped wasting their limited energy, or they made compromises by being choosing to raise a family far away from the centers of art and criticism. Hmmm.

During this Clown Axioms rehearsal process, it was the marketing aspects of the production that threatened to put me over the edge. Hmmm.

And so I make peace with being unknown because self-promotion is not always worth the stress.

Is that why so many of the successful artists are men while the majority of practitioners are women?

Hmmmm…

Julie and Julia

We saw the movie hours ago this afternoon but we are still talking about it. We’re googling Julia Child and an actor friend from our Annex days– Julia Prudhomme (we never knew she was related to Julia Child! ). We have less than six degrees of separation from this movie in several directions: Julie Powell lived in Brooklyn at some point in the story; our friend is related to Julia Child; one of our native French speaking neighbors recorded some text for another neighbor who was a vocal coach on the movie…

But mostly, we loved watching Meryl Streep and Stanley (“Big (food movie) Night”) Tucci as Julia and Paul Child.

From a going into the studio to do clown work tomorrow perspective; Julia Child was a 6’2″ woman who couldn’t play the 1950’s cute little woman ideal and oh what freedom that gave her to do great work!

Leaving Bigfork

8/17/09

I stopped by the theatre to pick up my reunion t-shirt. Then I walked along Electric Avenue and looked at the shops, some that were there when I was a playhouse actor and most that were not. In the gift shop next to the theatre I heard some people talking about JK Simmons and how he had been walking around town like anybody.
“Yeah, he’s one of us,” said one of the men.
Then they started to talk about his older brother David, “that big guy with the big voice”. He was a friend of mine when we were both still in Missoula going to school and involved with the Missoula Children’s Theatre and for the record he is the younger brother. During one pre-production build, I rode out to Lolo in a truck with David to pick up some lumber or piece of equipment for a show and as we drove past the McDonalds I read the sign announcing “Chicken McNuggets”. It was the first time in my life I’d seen those words and I laughed all the way to Lolo. Chicken McNuggets. Who thought that would last.

Who knew that 50 years after some college kids showed up to put on plays in the sleepy town of Bigfork, Montana, that the theatre would be the centerpiece of the town’s vibrant summer tourist industry. There was much praise for Don and Jude Thompson who have run the playhouse for most of it’s history, but also much praise and admiration for Bo Brown who started the theater company in 1960. He gave a lovely speech at the gala. I can imagine how inspirational and charismatic he must have been as a young man. When he was done after 8 years, he turned the theatre over to DT who with his wife Jude grew it too what it is today. For several years in the 1970’s when Jim Caron was in the company, actors who didn’t have anything better to do spend the winter with Jim and the Missoula Children’s Theatre Association. I was one of the kids they worked with back then. I talked my parents into taking me up to Bigfork to see the professional theater. We would camp and fish and in the evening my dad would row my mother and I and sometimes my sister to the dock at Bigfork and we would get out of the boat and go up the hill and attend the theater in the old building. (We bought the orange drink Bo Brown mentioned in his speech.) I would buy the program and ask everyone in the company for their autograph. Even 5-year-old Gavin Thompson who played the youngest Snow child in Carousel printed his first name over his picture in my program. He’s married now with children and a career in technical theatre.

The number of Bigfork Alumni still in the business is a testament to the quality of performers and technicians Don and Jude hired. Others have equally impressive jobs in academics and health care. At the party one actor was talking to a musician about a successful Broadway musical he had been in which had a group dynamic and creative smart caring people at the helm that had reminded him of the Bigfork Summer Playhouse.

Sometimes the simple things take me so long, like logging onto the internet using the hotel’s wifi connection that by the time I have my Clownmommy dashboard on the screen I forgot what I had intended to write about.

I don’t know how much of my “writing time” I wasted hitting buttons and guessing at the procedure for logging in from a different connection. I ended up calling The Husband on the phone and having him walk me through the simple procedure that I ought to have down by now. But, I don’t. Story of my life–and that’s why I am a clown. The movements are too small though, getting frustrated in front of a laptop, it would have to be so subtle, so underplayed. Maybe it could work on film, certainly not on stage. In either case it would be a pretty boring piece to watch. (I do have a performance date in the fall…will I do something completely new or rework something I’ve already tried…)

While I am trying to remember what brilliant mommy thoughts I had that are now lost I am overhearing parts of the conversation of the two men at the set of couches next to my own seating arrangement here in the lobby of the Westin. One of the men seems to be ordering custom made shirts and possibly other clothing from the other man. It seems to be a regular event as the salesman type in a suit said to the other man in shirtsleeves “See you in September.” And they both made references to “last time.” I think that’s how Obama gets his clothes. Fascinating. Most of my clothes come from the sale racks at discount stores.

Speaking of clothes, I have been looking at the clothes of the people on the street her in Seattle. So much khaki, such baggy clothes. It was a difference I noticed right away when we moved to New York and there was so much black and the clothes were so much tighter, even on people who weren’t athlete thin. There is also more bright color in New York. Seattle people wear muted earth tones. When we come back each summer I start to feel dressed wrong in Seattle, but by the time I am in Missoula I start out feeling so uncomfortable I inevitably buy items like Tevas or shorts that I proceed to wear nearly every day of my visit home and never wear again back in New York. But I did notice a Gucci and Louis Vitton stores right across the street from each other near the 5th Avenue theatre in Downtown Seattle. That was a bit disorienting.

I see the thin young people riding their bikes and am then startled to see myself, a middle-aged mom type, reflected in a window, not at all the person I was when I lived her as an aspiring actress riding a bike while wearing Dock Martin boots with black leggings under a skirt, oversized T and flannel shirts. Yeah that. I also learned from another out of work actor that if you got a very large Starbucks coffee off the day you could doctor it up with vanilla and cinnamon and milk and it tasted like a latte and with enough milk it was a fine stand in for a meal all for less than $2.

That period of my life came completely to an end when The Husband, Baby and I flew back to Seattle from NYC where we had lived for only a couple of months for the final Annex party in the theatre space at 1916 Fourth Avenue. We stayed at the Kings Inn under the Monorail tracks on 5th Avenue. In preparation for the trip I pushed my stroller around Macy’s in Fulton Mall and Marshall’s at Atlantic center struggling to find something “presentable. . Presentable was a disappointing goal for such an emotionally charged special event. I was still nursing so I ended up with a easy access stretchy polyester top and skirt outfit for the party, a far cry from the slip-like or corset containing Betsy Johnson dresses I had worn to previous Annex-related events that were part of the courtship that led to our wedding here in Seattle over 10 years ago.

And my alone time has once again come to an end, The Husband, My Kid and The Mother-In-Law will be here in a few moments and we’re going to drive to a mall.

Golden Nose Awards

Yes, the New York clown community has its own awards show. Flying under the radar at the Krane Theatre on the Lower East Side, last night, individuals in street clothes, were publicly acknowledged for their contributions to the art form of clown.

Before and after the show there was socializing at Phoebe’s bar on Bowery and 4th where there was the usual talk about upcoming shows and gigs as well as more discussion of the Swiss clown Dimitri and his family who just finished a run at the New Victory Theatre. There were random smart people digressions on topics as diverse as the Food and Drug Administration and the public education system. I saw Kevin Carr, stand-up-comedian/actor/clown for the first time since…some year waaaaaay back during the last century, when we were both in the same Clown College class in Florida. Adam Gertsacov, another classmate, from back in the day, who books his flea circus and other solo shows at community events and schools, was also there –slightly stunned that this was his first social night out with a bunch of clowns since the birth of his son six months ago.

Barry Lubin, better known as “Grandma” of The Big Apple Circus, presented Dick Monday and his wife Tiffany Riley, who were in town from their home in Dallas, Texas (where they relocated for a more affordable lifestyle after having kids) with the Clowns of the Year award for their work as the ensemble The New York Goofs and for their teaching of clown skills in New York City for over 10 years. They remain a vital part of the New York clown scene returning several times each year to teach and perform.

Hovey Burgess, a master teacher in the NYU graduate acting program received a lifetime achievement award for his work as a circus and clown historian. Everyone knows him because he goes to everything and he is acknowledged somewhere in almost every book about American clowns and circus published in the past 25 years.

Deven Sisler, just back from Haiti, accepted an award on behalf of Clowns Without Boarders, a volunteer organization that sends groups of clowns to areas of crisis all over the world, including refugee camps, conflict zones and territories in situations of emergency.

Very cute, very young Spencer Novich, a student in the experimental theatre wing of the NYU drama school won an audience choice award for his eccentric dancing character and mid-career professional Joel Jeske and Mike Richter, and Christopher Lueck received one for their act “Musique”.

But, mostly the evening was a celebration of people who embrace the art form of clowning.

“There’s no competition here, we’re all fighting to make a living,” said Dick Monday as he picked up his award: “This does weigh a lot and it will keep the credit card debt in one pile.”

Humor Abuse

We went to see Lorenzo Pisoni’s solo show, “Humor Abuse” at the Manhattan Theatre Club last night. It was a touching performance by a man who in the 1970’s was a child clown in the San Francisco based Pickle Family Circus and who as an adult is a serious New York actor.

I never saw the Pickle Family Circus, but we watched videos with reverence at Clown College because that was where Bill Irwin (the clown who became a MacArthur Fellow had gone to develop his own style with Larry Pisoni and Geoff Hoyle after graduating from the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Clown College (and Oberlin). But, I remember the black and white photograph of Larry Pisoni with his son in identical clown costumes. As a novice clown struggling to master basic juggling in a few short weeks, growing up with circus parents seemed like a much easier way to go.

Apparently not.

According to the show “Humor Abuse” learning to be a clown from a father who is a professional clown didn’t sound that much different from growing up with a football coach for a father. Same type of obsession just practicing different skills. I’m thinking sports analogies because yesterday afternoon before seeing Lorenzo Pisoni’s show and this morning after the performance, I escorted My Kid to her first and second AYSO soccer games of the season. As an eight-year-old she is unable to participate in league soccer unless her parents are also willing to participate on a game by game basis.

I think about the similarities between playing fields and circus rings. I didn’t play team sports as a child and didn’t find that kind of focus until I began to perform with the Missoula Children’s Theatre under the direction of Jim Caron, at about the same time that Lorenzo. Pisoni was working with his father. The two organizations had the same do-it-yourself aesthetic of the 1970’s that grew out of the cooperative ideals of the 1960’s and shaped the lives of those who came of age in the 1980’s.