My wife and I are both trained at clowning and I also sing in a Barbershop Quartet and Chorus. We are doing a show in just a couple of weeks and tonight we were asked to come up with a short, silent (music background only) skit about two minutes long to fill in while the stage crew is resetting the stage for the next act. Any suggestions? I originally wanted to do the King Monte Card Trick. We do that silent anyway, but she says that the show is Barbershop Under the Big Top and it needs to be more “clowny” than our comedy magic card trick. Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

Pretzel
:-o

Hi Pretzel
Some friends of mine do a very funny skit to ballet music
where they toss a round balloon in the air and catch it
between them then roll it between their bodies. They go
from arm to arm, back and forth then are able to have
one of them go between the others legs while still
keeping the balloon pressed bewteen them. It is very
funny if done right.
Hope this helps.
Looney Balooney

Thanks for the suggestion. We'll consider it. Someone else suggested Whip Cracker, which is so far my favorite. We still have a couple of days before the Barbershop Show, so . . . we'll see what happens!

A good one that i've not had a chance to use yet:
Clown walks on stage and sees a flower center stage. (I will use silk with wire stem) Clown get's happy at his new find, bends over to pick it. The flower is stuck (the clown can step on the stem so that he can really pull it and not move it), after several exagerated attempts to get the flower he wins. The flower pops out of the ground, clown falls over. So happy with his hard work the clown takes a smell, then another, then one final inhale of the flower. Clown begins to sneeze and perhaps itch. the clown gently puts flower back in place, walks half way of stage before coming back to stomp the flower relentlessly.

I haven't used it yet so tell me if you think it might work.

Ringling Bros. put out a video called "Be A Clown" . It has a "Handshake" routine that is good. If it is too physical for you, you can cut it down to eliminate the last half. There is some sound along with music but not speech per se.-Binky

Can anyone reccomend any more video resources?

google men in coats

How about using your coat or vest? one clown can mime being hot and trying to get his coat off while the other one tries to help. The coat can be put on backwards, inside out, upside down, over the head and even on one arm of one clown and the other arm in the other clowns. Throw in a few mugs and you'll have them laughing in the isles.