The ethos of Clown tends to form the basis and foundation of all of my acting teaching.

Clown work reverts the actor back to a time before they were socialized--before their ego was so present, and so loud. It was a time before anyone told them no, before judgment of the self and others, before we thought we knew so much. It was therefore an infinitely freer time, a more open, curious, fun, playful, joyous, messy time, filled with wonder and a very different relationship to failure. We weren’t always so afraid of failure, inhibited by it—we didn’t always lash ourselves over the back at every perceived “failure.” I relate this Clown ethos to Jerzy Grotowski’s “via negativa”—-that there’s a taking away we have to do as a foundation as actors. There’s a lowering of walls, defenses, blocks, and masks.

When my acting students take these blocks away, then I tell them they can show off “all of the facets of the ‘You Diamond’”.  It’s our job to remove all the socialized defenses we put up—-which cause this sameness—-and thus uncover and cultivate our uniqueness, and be able to show off all the vivid, wildly different facets of the diamond. We need to “make room for their talent to move around.”

I encourage students to breathe, let loose, explore, experiment, have fun, work with a childlike curiosity and wonder, a sense of humor, hope and possibility. Every class I tell students to simply play. I encourage students to always remember that at the end of the day, it’s all make believe. It’s all exactly as it was when we were little, and first realized this is what we loved to do.