Willing to help a kid...?

[potatosac]

hello, I'm 13 and I'm doing a clown project for school. I'm trying to find out heaps of things that you wouldnt find out on the internet, and I thought the best way to do this was to find out first class. This infomation has to be about every type of clown so if ypou have any rather nice infomation give us a twinkle. The clown I am most interested in though is Vaudeville Clowns. I thought, well my teacher doesnt know much about them, so here is my chance to be smarter then her! well, give us a reply yeh!, well ta

[Sir Toony Van Dukes]

Welcome to the Clown Forum potatosac. I hope you get the information you need and may find the inspiration to give clowning a try. I don't know enough about Vaudeville to help, but I suspect that a few of the other clowns here can give you information if you ask a specific question.

Good Luck.

[Fitzwilly]

Welcome to the Forum Potatosac. It sounds like you already know quite a bit about clowns if you realize that there are not only different types of clowns, but that the vaudville era produced a special type of clown.

[tim]

Calling Chance Marmelade! Marmelade to the center ring, please!

[Chance Marmalade]

Ah Modern Day Vaudevillians, which in the king's tongue means, they're broke. But enough etymology! Tonight, you my dear friends are in for quite a treat! One of the worlds greatest performers will dazzle you with a dozen different disciplines from across the globe and impress you with intricate illusions of impossibility and infinite idiocy! He will sing, dance and enchant you with his acrobatic antics and entertain you with extraordinarily elaborate escapes. Watch breathlessly as he risks his life to juggle high above the stage floor!

I wrote that as an introduction to a play I wrote last year and I've been looking for a good place to put it up! I think it describes well the Vaudevillian. Some of the most famous clowns of all time came from vaudeville. Charlie Chaplin is perhaps the best known but Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy began his career in the British Music Halls during the hay day of Vaudeville (Second part of the 1800s all the way into the twenties).

A vaudeville clown is considered a "Character Clown" in the profession these days and he/she did any number of acts geared towards making an audience laugh.

One might do slapstick scenes like the Three Stooges or a comedic piano routine. The key to vaudeville was variety. The Vaudeville Clowns had any number of different characters or skills that they would wrap up into a performance. Sometimes they would do comedic sketches with other clowns or solo acts.

Some acts were odd like the Banana Man's.

YouTube Video

Vaudeville clowns came from diverse disciplines and backgrounds so there is no fair way to pigeonhole the style.

These days (starting in the early 1970s) a new type of vaudeville was born. Called Vaudeville Nouveau or New Vaudeville. Clowns like Bill Irwin and Avner the Eccentric helped to re-establish this forgotten art.

If you have any specific questions I might answer feel free to post them here! I think you wrote me on MySpace a few weeks ago, so hello again! Let me know what I can do to help.

Also, vaudeville clowns aren't too different from their red nosed brothers and sisters. You can apply any of the clown arts to vaudeville clowning and with a little spin make something entirely new and different.

See if you can find Be a Clown! By Mark Stolzenberg. That book's primary focus is on the European and American Vaudeville Clown. The acts in it are perfect for you to try out and eventually make your own. Many clown acts have the same basic idea behind them, but when you add your own character and twists they become something new and different.

Good luck!

[potatosac]

yes, unfortunately I am that creepy kid who got your myspace, thanks again, my techer was really impressed that i contacted you! I'm thinking my teacher isn't very fond of me so that was fun for her to be YAY!ish to me., but yes, thank yuo everyone.