Learn to perform with authenticity, play, and fearless creativity in a community of wonderful weirdos.
Taught by NYC’s best clown instructors whose work has been featured on The Chris Gethard Show, Just For Laughs, A24 & perform on stages all over NYC.
Drop-ins
“It's you, of course, the clown. And that's important." -Nader Farman
What happens in a clown class? We introduce ourselves, we have a nice long warmup, our feet get squishy and our heads get floaty, we play with tennis balls and hats, we do group games and solo exercise from some of the greats (Lecoq, Conway, Johnstone) while working on taming their ego and bringing out their true inner clown. Come to just one class, come to all of them, do what your heart desires. You’ll probably leave with a new friend.
We're in an era of cognitive dissonance, hence all this clown talk. Absurd times call for an absurd response. Clown is antifascist and you are brave!
WORKSHOPS
Full-length CLASSES
All classes end in a class show for the public.
Level 1
Clown trains us to be fully present. Class curriculum includes exercises from Jacques Lecoq, Jean Taylor, Merry Conway, Nader Farman, Keith Johnstone and more, aiming to move us past ego and toward our shared humanity. Winter is coming. But class is joyful and warm! Come on out, try on the red nose. Recognize the universal shared experience that is clowning.
Level 2
In this class, you will learn that anything can be the clown's script. We will build on the skills learned in Level 1, leaning into the most vulnerable parts of yourself and heightening them to a ridiculous extent. You’ll learn that anything can be the clown’s script, lean into the most vulnerable parts of ourselves and heighten them. You’ll identify pieces of yourself and find ways to explore them that are both loving and silly. By the end, you will have the tools to begin building your own clown show. Through your relationship to everything, you are the clown.
Prerequisite: BCC Clown Level 1 or equivalent clown experience.
Level 3
You’ve started getting laughs as a clown but now how do you do it 6 days a week and twice on Saturdays for an audience that’s never even heard of clowning? In this class we’ll take the skills you learned in Clown 1 and 2 honing your clown persona and learn to create working acts as part of a fully realized show, collaboratively created by the ensemble. How does your clown solve a problem? How do you work as a company? What's the world you're going to set up with lots of clowns? You will further build your clown character by finding a costume that makes you look and feel stupid and start creating material by finding your own stupid clown logic. We’ll also explore “le jeu” and status in clown duos and trios, as well as building a thematic world that ties the whole show together. Come to class with ideas, costumes, props or anything that ignites your imagination. Students should be prepared to rehearse as they would in a professional ensemble process - with homework prepped outside of class and attending classes and the tech rehearsal on-time and present.
This class culminates in two class shows on the Eris MainStage
Prerequisite: BCC Clown Level 2 or equivalent experience.
MIME
Level 1
Broken Box Mime Theater (BKBX) invites artists of all backgrounds to join in exploring the audience's imagination as medium. From the perspective of BKBX's unique brand of mime based in American narrative style, participants will look at body language, basic mime technique, staging metaphor, efficiency in storytelling, and devised process. How can precision, efficiency, and specificity in physical storytelling help to craft our comedy? Over the course of the series, students will craft mime pieces that will be shared in a final showing.
Level 2
Craft a mime piece from scratch! Designed as a Level 2 to the intro class "Physical Storytelling" with Broken Box Mime, this next-level class will continue the exploration of contemporary mime as a storytelling form. What stories can the body tell, when words, props, costume pieces, and sets are stripped away? What can the limitlessness of the audience's imagination teach us about communication? Students will develop a brief comedic mime piece over the course of the class, integrating multiple rounds of brainstorming, writing, and feedback, all in embodied practice.
Prerequisite: Physical Storytelling course at BCC, prior workshop with Broken Box Mime, or prior experience in mime.
TESTIMONIALS
“I loved my clown class with Tallie! I felt encouraged to be silly, to be ridiculous, and to experiment with new things.”
“I learned how to be more vulnerable, more physical, more present, and how to be your most clown self on stage.”
“Jeff is an incredible coach and director. I loved Jeff's pragmatic teaching style, which really lends itself to the Level 3 Clown course. I think his best strength as a teacher was meeting us where we were with whatever ideas/bits we brought in and helping us figure out what was working or not (and how it would be different performing in front of the audience than in front of the rest of the class). Jeff put us in position to learn how the skills we had picked up in the earlier levels could be applied to an act that would work in front of an audience.”
"Chris was so great at pushing us in a way to help us grow as clowns. It was wonderful to see such noticeable growth among my classmates, all in an environment that felt incredibly safe, warm, and welcoming."
“I've never laughed or cried so much in a comedy class. This is a fantastic introductory clown class with a lot of substance and heart. Class with Riley is fun, funny, and deeply moving. You'll find a class environment where you can try new things, be vulnerable, and connect with your fellow clowns in clown town!”
Hear from the founder of BCC’s clown program: instructor Tallie Medel.