Ronald McDonald, Krusty, and “the world’s most famous” Bozo (ask your parents) didn’t emerge fully formed from a pile of fright wigs and oversized shoes like a pack of eye-searingly bright Aphrodites. Clowning, in some form or fashion, dates back millennia, and encompasses a wide range of global traditions and cultures. But these days, the public is instead more apt to picture Sweet Tooth, Heath Ledger’s Joker, John Wayne Gacy, or Pennywise—whom Cheerful Clown Alley (CCA) president Joe “Blades the Rollerblading Clown” Lester dubs “the worst thing that ever happened to clowning.”
I’m a massive horror fan, so I don’t mind the fictional monsters (Gacy, on the other hand…). I’m also an arts journalist, a performing artist in my own right, and—as of June of this year—a proud clown school graduate, so I don’t want to see an ancient art form reduced to jump scares, either.
The Florida-based Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, which closed in 1997, was probably the most famous institution of learning centered on the clowning arts. Or, at least, in the United States. Unless you find yourself accepted into one of the few similarly formalized programs scattered around the world, like Montréal’s École nationale de cirque (National Circus School), or Australia’s full-time Flying Fruit Fly Circus school, clowning skills these days typically have to get developed via an à la carte selection of mentorships, classes, and workshops.
In Houston, clowning education and mentorships largely run through CCA, a nonprofit founded in 1982 that lets hospitals, schools, libraries, and retirement homes “hire” volunteer clowns. The organization started with just 10 members and grew to about 300 at its peak. Currently, 87 members are on the CCA roster, many of them graduates of the school program, but Linda “Schotzie” Lester, who co-chairs the CCA clown school alongside her husband Joe, says only around 20 are active.
“Our main goal is to cheer people, make them happy, and forget momentarily all the troubles in their lives,” Linda says.
The foundation opened its clown school in 1983 and graduated one class annually until the COVID-19 pandemic put lessons on pause. Classes used to be fairly big, but Joe says that by 2021 there were only six students. The number dropped even further, prompting the couple to visit local college and university campuses, where they’d hand out fliers to drama students. According to Linda, “that didn’t yield anything.” They didn’t see the numbers tick up again into the double digits until a few years ago. The Lesters credit the CCA website with attracting more interested parties. This year’s class of 18—the one I participated in—was the largest in recent memory. Students traveled as far as Dallas, San Antonio, and Harlingen every week to participate. But CCA certainly doesn’t hold a monopoly on clowning in the city. It just happens to run the oldest and biggest clown school we know of.
There are other options. Larry “Kibbey the Clown” Kibbey runs a for-profit Christian clown school that focuses on helping students make money from performing at birthday parties and other events. Joe is a member of the Shriners, which hosts an annual weeklong circus in Rosenberg and Humble. Many of the clowns at the Alley also participate in this event. Spanish-speaking payasos, drawn from Latin American performing arts traditions, have a home here, too. And, of course, there are always rodeo clowns, who stand as artists and athletes in their own right.
Clowning obviously comes from a place of silly fun, but that doesn’t make it a frivolous pursuit. Reductive perspectives make it more difficult to compile and preserve the extremely dense, rich history of Houston clowning. There’s no convenient archive to visit, no dedicated historians to interview. Just a disparate selection of practitioners, many of them elderly, with stories that need to be told and skills that need to be passed forward before they’re lost to time.
Nobody can say I’m not doing my best to help make it happen. But I can’t do it alone.
I come from a performing arts background but proved to be a C student during my time at CCA. Sure, I can tell a joke (or 10), and while I’m no Marcel Marceau or Jacques Tati, my mime skills are admittedly better than the average person’s. Still, I fail miserably at two of the most essential tools in a clown’s toolbox: juggling and magic tricks. That, right there, can really bring down a girl’s GPA.
Fortunately, CCA doesn’t hand out grades. There’s no clown grad program where my inability to pull off the “professor’s nightmare” rope trick prevents me from directing a commedia dell’arte scene as my dissertation (in Houston, anyway). For that, I’m grateful.
I enrolled already appreciating clowning’s complexities. The decision was no mere novelty, an anecdote to chuckle over at erudite cocktail parties. It opened me up to a unique opportunity to deepen my own creative practice while evangelizing an art form that got muddled as circuses faded from popular entertainment.
Image: courtesy meredith nudo
Starting in May, for seven hours every Saturday morning for two months beginning at 8am, I packed a heart-healthy meal in my bright pink Hello Kitty lunchbox, a bag full of makeup, and my composition book labeled “ACTING!!!” before braving Memorial Parkway to take CCA’s classes at the Trini Mendenhall Community Center in Spring Branch. The whole experience—lessons, a well-stocked makeup kit, breakfast and lunch on class days, and a full year of CCA membership—cost only $250.
Even at this super reasonable price point, clowning is hard.
As with any discipline, it takes hundreds of hours of practice, frustration, and failure to be considered a competent amateur. The truly gifted always make it look effortless, like you could do it, too. You can, of course, but you must commit yourself to learning. For a long time. Longer than I have so far.
Fortunately, CCA turns no one away from classes or memberships. Not even horror or kinky clowns, though everyone needs to keep things G-rated when representing the organization in an official capacity.
From jump, I wanted to further develop my clownsona, Poivre le Mime (“Pepper,” if you have trouble with your French), a mime sporting a black-and-white pop-art look, complete with Ben-Day dots; a white bodysuit underneath a simple black dress; black bob wig; elbow-length gloves; pantyhose; a kicky cloche; and a houndstooth scarf.
Since I make my living spraying words into microphones, onto the pages of Houstonia, and occasionally onstage (when it isn’t a conflict of interest), I wanted to force myself into communicating using nothing but pure gesture; I’ve struggled with this skill through a decade of learning, performing, producing, and teaching improv and yet never fully fixed it.
I did fix it, thanks for asking. Happy Jack Feder’s Mime Time and Claude Kipnis’s The Mime Book now sit on my shelf next to the likes of Uta Hagen, Michael Shurtleff, and Tadashi Suzuki. I’ve started cataloging the tensile strength, weight, texture, and temperature of every object and person I interact with (with consent), mentally filing away how I’d portray them onstage. It’s a good way to force myself to slow down and take better notice of my surroundings. Anyone who has met me for more than 30 seconds knows this is not my strong suit (Thanks, ADHD!).
All 18 of us students signed up for a variety of reasons, often very different, but we discovered along the way that our creative philosophies and life experiences often overlapped. Angel “Booksie Bear” Reyes, who drove five hours from Harlingen every weekend for class, developed a lovable teddy bear persona meant to nurture children’s love of reading and raise awareness of underfunded libraries. He cites “do-gooders” like St. Jude as inspiration and sees clowning as an extension of his overarching commitment to social justice.
For the adorably mod, polka-dotted Domino, clowning started as something that just seemed fun to try and became, in their words, the “next step in [their] artistry.” They admitted to starting class with “a blind spot” about how much work goes into even the simplest balloon animal, face-paint designs, and costumes—all major topics covered in the CCA curriculum.
Local actress Torrie “Petals” Kirk and I immediately bonded over our mutual love of the performing arts, similar tastes in media, and shared values. We developed a skit in which I accidentally pull her brain out of her ear as she lectures on the history of clowning; I stuff it back in because, dang it, I feel so bad for her, all doubled over like that, with no thoughts remaining in that head of hers. We first performed it at the graduation ceremony. The audience loved it. You should’ve been there.
Kirk’s not the only friend I met along the way. Lil’ Bit and I spent the weekend before graduation shopping for costume pieces at Arne’s in the Heights, then grabbing tacos after. I commissioned some artwork from the exceptionally talented RoRo the Pierrot, who, like me, spent graduation in complete silence, though that isn’t a requirement of the chosen clowning archetype. Outside of class, we talk and share creative resources. We’re still in contact, regularly trading ideas for future projects and potential collaborations.
Class culminated in a kinetic and appropriately silly graduation ceremony, complete with diplomas. But rather than sitting and suffering through endless generic, insipid platitudes about integrity and perseverance and success, we put on a show for an audience of around 50 delighted, occasionally confused onlookers, showing off everything we learned: balloon animals, jokes, pocket magic tricks, even some basic acrobatics for those coordinated enough (not me).
Half-assing graduation day wouldn’t do. Those folks spent their morning supporting our art. They deserved nothing less than my entire ass. It wasn’t a perfect ass, but it was an informed ass that utilized a combination of my clown education, life experiences, and observations.
During my walkarounds—the term used for spontaneous interactions with audience members—I played fetch and gave treats to people holding balloon dogs. I haven’t had a dog since I was 5, but recalling playtime with my friends’ puppers and how they wiggled in my arms after getting treats helped me craft lively, compelling scenes. I’ve also watched The Princess Bride enough times to mimic the approximate motions of a swordfight (note to self: maybe learn real sword fighting). I challenged more than a few children to balloon-sword duels that day. They all emerged victorious, of course. One even got crowned king after slaying me with a well-timed stab to the gut.
Graduation day didn’t entirely go off as planned, however. Any theater type knows that no butt-busting preparation ever goes unpunished just before showtime. When the dots I needed to glue on my face started flaking and cracking at 10pm the night before, I had to completely overhaul my makeup. Oh, and I had an 8am call time. Two months of practice—studying historical and contemporary clown aesthetics, referencing special-effects makeup, and consulting with a professional cosplayer pal of mine (Thanks, Becky!)—kicked in immediately. I opted to replace the ruined design with a more minimalist, streamlined look highlighting the most basic details of my face—think Jack Kirby’s linework without shading. Add in Claude Cahun by way of Klaus Nomi. And a splash of Hirohiko Araki while we’re at it.
Clowning is HARD.
But I’m hooked. Not much can get me up before noon on a Saturday, especially if my cat is feeling cuddly. Still, I rolled out of bed ready to finally become the mime I always knew I could be. Even after graduation, I take time to study my notes and pore over the school’s DIY textbook.
Joe estimates that the book contains “over 200 years’ worth of knowledge,” much of it penned by clowns who have since passed on. It’s a genuine treasure trove of information that needs to be disseminated by anyone interested in preserving the clowning arts. I keep going back to reference it whenever I pop a balloon while trying to twist it into a dog (the trick is not to overinflate), to troubleshoot why I keep dropping balls while juggling, or to find useful nuggets on clown history.
Image: courtesy meredith nudo
I’m nowhere near ready to go pro, of course. The jury’s still out on whether I’ll ever get the hang of juggling. Poivre probably won’t make too many appearances when it’s not winter, because the costume is so brutally hot. I had to wash my hair twice to clean out all the crusted sweat. And the less said about how many times that bodysuit needed bleaching back to white, the better. Still, the training nurtured me as a performer and pointed me toward ways to further sharpen my skills long after class officially ended.
Clowning is HARD.
But at least it’s nothing so new that there aren’t throughlines to follow and learn from. The ancient Egyptians had clowns. So did the Greeks and many Indigenous communities throughout the world. What we recognize as clowning now, though, is rooted in the masked Italian theater tradition known as commedia dell’arte, then further solidified by the British pantomime actor Joseph Grimaldi. The very fundamentals of their art set the groundwork for the exaggerated makeup and comedic physicality that characterize modern clowning.
“These were things that were highly expressive to an audience at a time when they didn’t have amplification,” says John A. Cross, actor, researcher, and author of 20 Commedia dell’Arte Scenarios (I sometimes join him and his troupe-mates over Zoom to rehearse scenes translated from Italian). “You couldn’t be loud. Your body language had to say exactly what it was that you felt and were doing. And for big venues, especially outdoors, you’d end up really relying on that physical body movement and whatnot to tell the tale.” Commedia dell-arte stock archetypes have since inspired the now-familiar harlequin-style clown; the puppet Punch of “Punch and Judy,” derived from the classic Pulcinella; Pierrot, the crying clown from Il Pagliacci and, later, the silky-voiced Puddles of the cabaret cover act Puddles Pity Party, both begotten by Pedrolino.
Steeped in the commedia dell’arte tradition, Grimaldi took the harlequin—previously a minor pantomime role—and added tumbling, ornate and colorful costuming, white makeup in lieu of masks, dancing, and song, becoming, by most accounts, the progenitor of modern clowning.
“Even Shakespeare’s clowns are not main characters. They never commanded the stage,” says Sue Curtis, the Bath-based playwright behind Slapstick!, an arresting play on Grimaldi’s life. She also created the accompanying website (josephgrimaldi.com), which extensively details the creator’s indelible influence on the performing arts. “[Grimaldi] changed all that, and he did it through sheer force of personality,” she adds. He was ultimately forced to retire at age 44, his body broken from the stressors of the work and injuries sustained during a platform collapse.
Grief—for his first wife, then a son—took as much of a toll as the performing did. Curtis felt drawn to write about his life because she “find[s] the pain underneath it extremely compelling.” Grimaldi forced a smile to entertain the masses with genuine “sheer exuberance” while battling his own mental and physical challenges. The show must go on, after all. Except for when the show draws on harmful traditions.
Grimaldi may have codified much of clowning’s aesthetics in his makeup and sartorial choices. And while there’s an undeniable direct line between European theater and what most Americans think of when they think of clowns, there are a few distinct and deeply racist elements that should be addressed.
British actor Charles Dibdin, the father of a performer who mentored Grimaldi, swapped white greasepaint for blackface, adapting wigs and makeup styles from traveling minstrel performers from the United States. That began to spread as clowns from both continents exchanged ideas, according to research presented by the Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids, Michigan. Even though some clowning circles today claim the run-down, Depression-era tramp makeup design came from smeared coal dust after days of train hopping, the argument doesn’t hold up when you notice how closely it resembles blackface around the eyes and mouth. Several now-classic clown gags, like exploding cigars and seltzer sprays to the face, also originated at minstrel shows.
Art can never truly evolve without first reckoning with where it comes from. Clowns at every stage of their careers would do well to audit their own practices for what might land as a painful callback for others, even if unintentional. In that way, clowning can remain true to its history while still building a more inclusive community for all creatives.
“We’re going through a very big depression in a lot of ways. So, I think everyone’s just kind of grasping for any joy that they can have,” my classmate Blue says. “And [clowning]’s something that’s very easy to feel joyful about. It’s very colorful. It’s happy. It’s silly. It’s very lighthearted.”
That joy thrives online, far from the stages and ringed circuses of yore, yet still entranced by the history. The aesthetic known as clowncore has existed as a robust subculture on Tumblr and Instagram over the past decade, one that Blue says is mostly driven by queer and trans creators who are more comfortable “being a little bit more bold, being a little bit more weird.”
Blue points to Bouncy, a clown with tens of thousands of YouTube subscribers and 146,000 Instagram followers, as a bridge between what clowning once was and what it could be. Her color palette extends far beyond the traditional white, black, red, and the occasional blue we learned in class, and her personas lean more narrative- and character-driven rather than sticking to the classic whiteface, Auguste, and tramp archetypes. “I think that it’s really good to always pay homage to the traditions…but I think that it’s really good that there’s so much change happening,” they say.
Many of my classmates who remain members of CCA hope to be part of that change. They attend the monthly meetings, both in person and over Zoom. Many visit hospitals and retirement homes and eye upcoming clowning conventions to meet other performers from across Texas and beyond. Reyes wants to bring Booksie Bear to hospitals in the Rio Grande Valley, inspired by the spirit of community service that underlies all our lessons. “These elder clowns are still so committed and so willing to give forward. It’s exciting to see other people who are passionate enough to keep it moving forward and keep it alive,” he says. “It feeds me in return.”
This melding of traditional and contemporary perspectives is potentially the subject of an upcoming documentary. Domino hopes to interview both longtime and newer CCA members to chronicle and preserve the stories of aging clowns for the art history record; a passing of the torch between the past, the present, and the potential futures to come when the two converge. “People want to find joy within themselves and bring that joy to other people. And I just think that’s really, really admirable,” they say. “It’s something that a lot of people don’t see about clowning.” But they should.
The very nature of art relies on visibility, preservation, and a consistent evaluation of the past to truly grow. It doesn’t require full immersion in clown school to learn and appreciate the richness and depth of clowning. I don’t want to see its valuable historic information lost to time, and neither do my clowning compatriots. So, we’ll work to preserve it together, one streak of greasepaint at a time.
Published in the After Hours issue of Houstonia Mag.
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