Tag: Jay Stewart

A bit of a clown Friday

Adam’s all gaga over his baby he wasn’t there. Well I wasn’t there either. But, we checked the box office at “Humor Abuse” to see if there were tickets. (Tonight’s show was sold out but we have tickets for tomorrow night.) We got to see lots of clowns I know in front of the theatre. Jay Stewart was there in town for the weekend, and Lisa Lewis with her husband (Their kid chose not to accompany her clown parents to someone else’s clown show when there was an opportunity to play with a Wii.) Michael Bongar was there with his wife. There were others I knew. It’s the last weekend of Larry Pisoni’s kid’s solo show about growing up with a clown for a dad.

It was a clown day for me. After I got My Kid successfully to her daily spring break swimming lesson at the Y (notice how I haven’t had any Pilates classes or lap swims this week…), transfered her care and feeding to The Husband who was taking a long childcare related lunch, I got to spend a couple of hours playing in the studio with Kendall and the other clown women. It was good to do. It’s been a while.

Then uptown on the train with My Kid and The Husband, returning him to his office and accompanying my kid to FAO Schwartz for the last afternoon of the last Friday of her Spring Vacation. She spent an hour hanging around the adoptable baby dolls, so I was softened up and let her paint a penguin in the new ceramic painting section of the toy store. I did one too to keep myself from getting bored. I hope I will have the courage to throw it away as I am trying to clear clutter. It was like buying a sandwich to sit in a cafe because your feet hurt even though you aren’t hungry.

After we didn’t get into the play we went and had a lovely end of the week family dinner at Trattorio Spaggetto in the West Village. It’s not the best Italian food in the city, but it’s the best location between a church and a public fountain.

I had hope of going out and talking with clowns tonight (Jef Johnson is also performing this evening) but after wine and heavy food with My Kid and The Husband, I find myself home in the apartment typing up a quick blog entry while My Kid watches some “SpongeBob SquarePants” before the entire weekend becomes about My Kid and the AYSO Spring Soccer Season which begins for our family tomorrow!!!!!!

Families of Clowns

Sometimes I have dreams that are so clear and simple that when I wake up I am surprised that it didn’t really happen.  This morning I awoke after one such dream.

I was sitting in a booth in a dark dive bar in Williamsburg with friends looking at a 4-page color pull-out section of the newspaper about the Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Clown College Reunion taking place across the river.  The feature contained a full page of yearbook-like rows of small portraits of families of clowns, parents and children in full makeup and costume.  I felt sad and left out because I clown alone without my family.

This much is true:  As the New York Clown Theatre Festival was taking place, there was also a reunion of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clowns hosted by Greg and Karen DeSanto in Baraboo, Wisconsin (Not Manhattan as in my dream).  Jay Stewart was involved in the organization of the event.  Jay is married to Kristen and they have 2 kids who perform with them sometimes.  There are other couples I know, or know of, mostly former Ringling Clowns, like Tommy and Tammy Parrish who worked together on the circus and went back to the real world after they had kids.  They still perform, and sometimes their kids join in the act. There is a part of me who would love to clown like that.

However, my life did not work out that way.  Although I did meet my husband working in a theatre and he has an acting resume, that’s was never really his thing.  He was a director and uses the skills he developed in that capacity in a management role in the real world. (So we have insurance–yeah!)  The Kid we produced together hid in my arms in the kitchen when there was a clown at a birthday party.  She was not at all happy when I paid attention to other children when I was a clown at her preschool’s annual fundraiser.  As a dance student she refused to perform and would not even put on the little tutu for a photo with classmates.

During the recent New York Clown Festival I went to events on my own.  I didn’t see as many performances as I had planned.  I didn’t see many performances at all.  The nights I was scheduled to be on stage involved so much planning and jumping through hoops in order for My Kid to be picked up from school and escorted to and picked up from Brownies and soccer.  She requires frequent feedings and regular bedtimes.  It is considered bad form for an 8-year-old to hang out with a bunch of clowns in a dive bar in Williamsburg on a school night.  There were other complications.  The Husband was away on a business trip for much of the festival.  Although I’d visualized many evenings of passing the ball of responsibility for My Kid to The Husband the moment he walked through the door, hopping on the G-train on Lafayette and hopping off at Metropolitan for an evening of cutting edge clown performances from all over the world– that I would be able to see FOR FREE with my participants badge–followed by career promoting beer, shop talk and networking at the Lazy Catfish. Ha!.  I saw one show on a night I did not perform.  It cost me over $50 for a babysitter.   As I was leaving, I passed Ishah Jansen-Faith on her way to the theatre. Hey are you coming back?  No way.  I would have had to pay the babysitter over $100 if I stayed for the free cabaret.

That’s why people put their kids in their acts.