For The Love of Improv
For The Love of Improv
Clowning & Improv with Chad Damiani
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Improv and clowning have gone hand in hand for centuries, even before improv as we know it in America was invented. Tonight we will speak with world renowned clown, Chad Damiani about how improv affects clowning and what improvisers can learn from the ancient art of the clown.
Visit ForTheLoveOfImprov.com for more!
Improv.
SPEAKER_04:Welcome to the third episode of For the Love of Improv. I'm your host, Katie Welsh. And I'm Jesse Wicks. And today we're talking about clowning with our guest, Chad Damiani. Welcome, Chad.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, thanks for having me, you two. Um, nice, nice to see you, Katie. Nice to meet you, Jessica.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks for have uh for being with us today. So Chad is um a clown and an improviser. Uh he's based out of LA, and he's one of the LA's contemporary clowning pioneers. Um, he's performed over 600 shows in the groundbreaking improv clown duo called Jetsa. Um he's an original member of The Merge uh from the former flagship show, The Idiot Workshop. And he's in uh Dr. Brown builds a show at the Lyric Hyperion. Uh, this ensemble appears uh on FX comedy show Cake. Um he also works as a clown consultant and performer for Spiegel World, the largest circus company in America.
SPEAKER_04:He also recently served as a clown choreographer on the upcoming TV show The Broadcast, produced by the DuPlace Brothers, and founded and performs in Clown Zoo, a weekly outdoor event that mixes clown and theatrical masks. Chad has traveled all over North America teaching and performing his clown-inspired stand-up routines. One of his characters appeared on the 2020 season of America's Got Talent. Um we're super excited to welcome Chad Diamani to the podcast. Welcome, Chad.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks for being on. Yeah, our first question that we ask everybody is is more improv related than clown related, but I feel like it's kind of a double-edged sword question. Um, we always ask, why did you show up to your very first improv class and then what made you come back? But also like same thing with clowning.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, and you know, I do have a long uh, I wouldn't say storied history. I was I wasn't very good when I started, but I uh I started in it in long form improv. I um before ever doing any clowning. I mean, I think I had more clowning in my life because I used to work in pro wrestling and and now looking back, that was very much like physical storytelling. But um I guess it was uh over 15 years ago. I I don't know the exact date, but um the person I was dating at the time started taking classes at Upright Citizens Brigade. Um, so uh she was an actress and um she had to go see two shows a week uh as part of the curriculum. And I saw uh a team called the Smokes who still perform on occasion out here. They've been together forever. And uh I I had never seen long form. I'd gone to some short form shows uh over the decades previous and thought they were fine, but this long form thing I thought was super interesting and it wasn't much longer. She, I think she got to 301, and then finally I signed up for 101, having been to a bunch of shows. And you know, I I think this is true about improv, which I think is different than other um artistic ventures. In that a lot of times, like you go to a concert and you're like, I want to be David Lee Roth or I want to be Stevie Ravon. But I think when you go to like a class show in improv, you're like, I'm funnier than that guy. I can at the very least, yeah, I'm better than that one. Like I can do, I can certainly do this. Like that was kind of my reaction, I think.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and I feel like if you can just get over, like if you have no problems performing in front of people, like you don't need to learn the guitar or anything, you just need to get get your ass up there.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It's pretty and and I think improv, you know, part of the uh explosion was pretty quick gratification, you know. I mean, pretty quickly you could go up with an ensemble and have some fun and and you know, get people laughing, you know, whereas so many other things, it's just such a I mean, clown very much was that, you know, like clown took a lot longer to sort of, I mean, I used elements, but it was a long time before I was just felt like I could just do straight clowning.
SPEAKER_02:And we didn't even think about clowning.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, it's kind of a it's sort of a bittersweet story, which I'm happy to tell. But um, that same uh person I was dating, uh, we we'd been in a long-term serious relationship, and she ended up getting terminal cancer. Yeah. And um, I was still improvising and doing sketch, uh, mostly at UCB. And uh when she passed away, I went back to improv. Like it's now I was like, oh, I just like I want to fill my time. I started going to IO West, which no longer exists, and taking classes, and I was on like 20, you know, and in LA at that time, it was a real explosion of independent improv. You could play every night. There were there were poorly attended shows every night. Um and honestly, the thrill, you know, before that had happened, improv certainly was scratching the itch. Um, but after, you know, when you when you sort of like something like that when someone passes away in your life, it's such a huge failure. And I don't mean in the sense that I did anything wrong, but it's it's so catastrophic that the idea of like, oh, what if I forget uh what hospital we're in in the scene? Like, like, okay, I didn't give a shit anymore. You know, like, and so I was like, oh, I just wanted to feel more. And um, there was a group that was traveling all around the indie scene at the time called Wet the Hippo, which was a group that um kind of was the first like star students of the idiot workshop, which is uh the idiot workshop is essentially it's clown inspired, but it's more like a buffon style, but it's very much all the rules of clown, you know, interacting with the audience, playing with absurd ideas. And so I was doing all these shows with like 40 teams, uh, names of which I cannot even remember. You know, they did not, we didn't even practice or anything. And this group would go up at these indie shows, and either they'd have the best show of the night or the worst, like such a disastrous show. And it seemed like they were having more fun when it was going poorly. And I was just so taken by this. Like, I was just like, and then you know, something which I'd never done before, like I'd gone to shows at like majors' theaters, but I started going to like I'd see where they were at and just go watch them play, and I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out. And at one point, they now it's a pretty big school here, but at this point, uh, the the head, the ringleader, John Gilkey, was just teaching drop-ins and an occasional class. And so I went to a drop-in, and when I got in there, I hated it. Like it was just everyone was acting up a fool and just like making noises and like doing like weird body stuff. I'm like, this is so stupid. And um, and John was yelling at everyone, and he threw his shoe at a couple people and hit them with his shoe. Um later, I'd find out that this was like he knew these people quite well, and this was all part of this. But I thought he was just picking on people, and so I was a little older than everyone else, and I kind of stood up to him and I was just called him a bully and like legitimately.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And uh he was just delighted that uh I didn't get it. Like I thought he was delighted that I stood up for myself, but he was delighted that I was so clueless to the to the to the game that was being played. And he asked me to go behind the curtain and he said, Come out here and without saying a word, show us that you mean business, right? I was like, okay. And I came around the corner and I did my best to look serious, and everyone laughed at me. Like, and it was so shocking to me like this had happened. And also in that moment, I was really mad because I felt like I had defended these people. I had no clue what was going on. I was like, I defended you all, like this and that. And I left that night. I was with uh uh you had mentioned Jetso, I was with Juzo Yoshida, who I'd been doing two-person improv with. And I was like, I'm never going back and screw them. And then, like every day, there would just be one moment where I'd be like, but why did they laugh? Like it was such a good laugh, you know, like like as I got further and further away from my feelings being hurt, this laugh is just a belly laugh. Like it was just like that kind of laugh we all just chase. And I was like, why were they laughing? Like, why did I get that laugh? And so eventually, you know, my pride um calmed down a little. And I went back. And then slowly I started, I started to see the um the arc, the the infrastructure, the architecture of what they were creating and like what is also true in clown of this sort of you create this world for the audience where it seems like the stakes are very high, but you're doing the dumbest stuff, and like you're juxtaposing these two ideas, and you're creating a much more visceral, like emotional experience for the audience that they really like, they might not even understand intellectually what they've watched, but they they have gone on a journey with you. And I was like, Oh, that's what I want to do. I was like, that's that seems much more dangerous, that seems much more vulnerable, that seems rife with possibilities of like real big success and big failure. And then, you know, I still improvise. I mean, like I I um I do I have cloud clown bits I do, but a ton of it is just improvised clown. And um, you know, trying to find that sort of spark um in the moment, you know, just like any improviser, but holding myself to what I think, and I don't mean this as a shot on improv, a higher standard of the audience kind of going through something with me, something transformative, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. I love uh I love that that is so intertwined with um, you know, what what happened in your personal life and and how kind of clown helped helped you through that. Um so I I so I went back and because I have taken a couple of workshops of yours and um one of the bonus things that you did was that you would send some of your thoughts in through emails. So I've taken some some quotes that from there, um, just so we can kind of because I there there's some really good good things. I really appreciate um how you put put this. And I feel like it highlights.
SPEAKER_00:I'm glad someone read it. I'm glad someone read it.
SPEAKER_04:Um so yeah, so so I kind of wanted to talk a little bit more about sort of the difference and the overlap between um improv and clown. And you you've mentioned some things, um, you know, particularly like being in the moment. Um, but I found this quote that you said, I'll just read it. Um, clown isn't based in form. A big part of what we do is creating new approaches to presentation. There's no improv rule that says we have to make it all up. We can come with silly ideas and costumes, play tricks on the audience before they enter the theater. We can create something unique and find ways to maximize our creative potential.
SPEAKER_00:You know, this is that quote in particular was that was something that became apparent to me very early in my journey. Um, you know, this team Jetso, which you mentioned in the open, we had been doing standard two-person improv, and we've been having a really, you know, pretty good time of it, but I wanted to add all these clown elements, and Juzo thought clown like Juzo was uh not a native English speaker. So the idea of being more physical and playful. And I think what I was taking from improv at the time, and it was a different time, and is that there's like you know, it's this idea of like teamwork and this idea of like we're gonna build something together. And in the pursuit of getting as many people as possible to be able to have the same universal skill set that anyone can go on stage, which I think, by the way, is a delightful idea, just no different than basket. Like, oh, if we can agree on the rules, then I can play basketball with anyone, you know. But in that pursuit, like a lot of sort of things kind of stuck in the sense of like, well, don't go too far outside the lines. Because we're all trying to agree here, we're all trying to build a universe together, and we're all like, and this idea of agreement and the idea of like we're all like it's it's this idea of cooperation, which I think is important. Um, but in clown, like presentation and like the end product, I think holds uh more what more gravity than the idea of the players themselves having this safety net of like, hey, we're all gonna stay within these bounds so we can build things together. You know, I think the intentions are good. And with that group Jet So, when we started taking these clown classes and we took some idiot classes, um, very early on, because they talked a lot about breaking rules and you know, surprising the audience, I was like, I want every show we do, we break a different rule. Like, I just want to see what happens when we break this rule. And we added costumes and immediately people loved it. Like we would wear these uh, we were like a the the idea was we were a father and son team, even though Juzo's older than I am. We're both not neither of us young. Um and so we would wear these Japanese um Jim Bays, which are these like festival outfits, and we had like these uh tenangoois, which were these colorful scarves. And the minute we walked on stage in these outfits, people got excited. Like they immediately, whether they were gonna love it or hate it, knew they were gonna see something they didn't expect. And I think in improv, improv leans heavily on expectation. Um, you know, a lot of times, you know, in a place like LA, and I would imagine in a place like Reno, you know, your major audience base are often people who've taken improv classes. And so in some ways, we're like teaching them how to watch us play.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So that they can be like, oh, that look that was a good move. Like, oh, look what they did, they brought it back. And like it's a sport, yeah. It's like almost like a sport, yeah. It's a sport and it's like we understand it and this and that. And in clown, we play with the idea of like creating rules on the spot and then diverting those rules, like immediately saying, like, oh, this thing that we built for you, we're gonna knock it down. And now what are we gonna do now?
SPEAKER_04:And uh well, and I have to say, like, because you know, when I when I took your especially your in-person workshop here in Reno, um, I loved that. So basically the workshop was a three-day workshop and it culminated in a show on the last night. And I and we, you know, I love that you were like, okay, so you're gonna you're gonna partner up and you're gonna know who your partner is, and um, you know, and then you're you know, I'll call you guys up and you'll do your thing. Um, and so and we're like, oh, okay. And so then we all like broke and like went home and had dinner and then came back for the show. And then everybody's like, What did you get any like things saying like who your partner is and or who I'm performing with? And no, we didn't. And like it was, and so what I loved about that was like, and that's the point, like so you don't have time to think about it, you know. I do find, you know, with improv, like you say, like with all the rules, I get so in my head, and then you know, usually when you get in your head with improv, you know, you do you kind of do a shit performance. And um, and so that just totally that I mean, there is like Jess and I talk a lot about this with improv, where it's like, oh, there's this free feeling, and you know, that you get all these sort of like therapeutic benefits from it. But to me, clown was even a step further where it was like, talk about being in the present moment. It was just like you, you don't, there's no planning, there's no, at least the way you set us up for it, there's just you just do it. Um, so and that was the a deeper, more satisfying for me, anyways, feeling of just pure joy because you don't get I'm such a person in my head, anyways, in real life, and you just don't, there's no time to decide, you just do it. Um, and so, anyways, I I just really appreciated that about about your workshop.
SPEAKER_00:So um kids, I'm sorry, Jessica, you can make your point. I was yep, I was gonna I'll I'll say after make your point.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I was uh I was just thinking what that brings up for me, and I don't have any experience climbing whatsoever. I just do improv, but I do play improv with my kids. Um, and one thing that I kind of always think to myself is, oh, when they're old enough to understand the rules, it'll be so much more fun. And I was thinking about that today. Like, oh, well, they they never like they don't understand agreement yet. They're just having fun and doing whatever, but they're always just laughing and cracking up and having just like so much fun. And I think that if I were to be like, no, but there's rules to how we're playing, like it would ruin that. And so, like, when you're talking about like having a form of improv that just like goes beyond the rules, like I think watching my kids play, I can kind of understand that a little bit. Um, kind of unprogramming humans or adults to kind of almost play like kids again, you know?
SPEAKER_00:That's a big element of it too, is like we talk a lot about something called state of play. And you spend most of your time, especially with people who are early on their journey, getting them just to be present and joyful and connected, like that, like to be seen and stuff. And like that is not always a priority in improv training, you know. Like if it starts very much with, I think maybe a level one, you know, there's a lot of games and stuff. Then like immediately, like, okay, okay, well, you have all that, but guess what? Like, this is what a tag, this is what a wipe is, this is this what this is what this means, this is this is a good way to respond to this. And like it very quickly goes back to like the rules. And you know, you talk about sports, and I think it's a good analogy because you know, when you get really good at sports, you have this muscle memory. You kind of understand the rules, and you you also are trying to figure out ways to sort of work around them, you know, maybe not necessarily cheat and stuff like that. And in clown, the first thing I try to do when I work with people is simply get them to be present, just be present and be playing. Yeah, and just watch what how the audience reacts to you. Like that's enough proof because they love it, they love watching people in motion and having fun and seeing them like regret their decisions, but like seeing it all play out on their faces and in their bodies and not in the back of their brain where they're trying to calculate how to fix things or what's going to come next.
SPEAKER_02:Do you feel like you play differently in front of an audience than when you're just like practicing with your group? Like, do you respond to the audience based on how they're responding to you and change the way you play?
SPEAKER_00:Well, so it's what you're talking about, is just an interesting thing in general, which is in clown, there's not like we always had a direct, like like we would always be playing for each other. Like we wouldn't, like in a clown rehearsal. For me, uh I don't want to speak for all like direct clown directors, there would be very little time for a director to simply watch all the players on stage together playing, because then that's a that throws off the paradigm because then it's an audience of one. So now everyone's playing and they're trying to please one audience member, which is the director. So what is more common is you get like a big group and you take turns and you watch each other, right? You watch each other so you can react and you can see how your behavior is affecting the room and stuff like that. Um, yeah, we I think one of the major issues with improv is sort of coaching culture, which I think is good. Like I think it's good to kind of work on things. I just think they work on the wrong things. Like, I don't think teams should be meeting for two hours and running four shows for one person. I think that throws your rhythm off. Like, you know, and also that's you know, it's like I think you'd be better off having a three-hour rehearsal with three teams, you know, or like a two-hour rehearsal with three teams and each performing for each other where you can kind of watch and or just work exercises, you know what I mean? Work entrances, work exits, work um, you know, just work on sort of taking that filter out and saying something and dealing with the consequences. But I really we were training um go back to Jetso, which was really where I started to combine improv and clown. And you know, we did a lot of like traditional improv shows and festivals, and we had a wonderful coach slash teacher um named Rich Talarico, who is part of uh something called Dasarisky, which is like, you know, in sort of the pantheon of improv groups, is a huge deal group. You know, like they were we were really lucky to train, and we trained with him for a year, and we did learn a lot. We, you know, and a lot of to his credit, a lot of We did was just work on object work and being present and making choices, but it came to a point where I was like, like we're we're we're kind of being contrary to what our goal is, which is to connect with an audience. We're not doing this to please ourselves and just like we're here to react in the moment to the choices we make based on how the audience reacts, not how on each other, you know.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and I I feel like uh well, at least from my perspective, that I mean, that is one of the main differences. And you know, feel free to give your own opinion here. But um, you know, between clown and improv, because I, you know, in trying to figure out what clown is in contrast to improv, to me that the audience is a huge factor in clown because you know, you kind of change what you do based on audience reaction. Um, and so, and we'll get into talking about sort of winning and failing and all that, but um, it's to me the audience is is major in clown, whereas in improv it's more of a passive role. And then I was also gonna say real quick too, just on what we're talking about here, is I do notice that when I do a scramble, like when I do when I when I participate in a scramble with people who I don't usually perform with, who I haven't had any rehearsals with, sometimes those are the best shows because I am not in my head and I don't know the players as well. And it's just more spontaneous and there's more just natural reaction.
SPEAKER_00:So I feel like um it's that's kind of and also Katie, more risk.
SPEAKER_04:Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and I think it's sort of risk is one of these very odd qualifiers that's like, oh, like just the audience watching you, knowing you do not play with these people and you do not practice with these people, and knowing that your chances of success, at least perceptively, are lower, creates risk. And so whether you know it or not, the people watching you are also more activated just by the nature of what a scramble is, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Could you give could you just give like a brief for for our uh listeners who don't really understand what you mean when you're saying like live directing or clowning? What was the exact term? Live directing. Yeah, live directing. Can you just like like a really brief overview for them, just exactly what that is and what you do there?
SPEAKER_00:And it it's important to, and I'm I'm glad you you uh called that out, Jessica, because live direction isn't all of clown, like a lot of clown is Cirque du Soleil or Spiegel World or you know, like, or or you know, people doing solo acts, and but especially for the purposes of improv, like if you want to kind of go up and perform clown and improvise clown, something that I learned in Los Angeles, something I did with uh the idiot workshop, something I did with a guy named Dr. Brown, who's a wonderful famous clown that you know um ran the lyric hyper, was the idea that clowns take the stage and then you have a director who is guiding that clown and you know, talking aloud and implicating that clown and and celebrating that clown and adjusting their performance. And, you know, in a device, so in clown, sometimes you have a live director just to devise. So let's just say you're building a clown show, you get a people to come and you go on stage with a few ideas, and this live director kind of helps you shape the ideas right in front of an audience. And so there's a lot of failure, but then the audience gets to see the moments of inspiration that will eventually lead to your show. Um, but then there's something that I and I do that, but what I do more often is something um performative live directing, where it's sort of presented as if it is a series of exercises or clowns going up, but in actuality it is a show. And I, as the director, am a major part of the show, sort of, you know, kind of playing the high stat, not kind of, but playing the high status character, implicating the clowns, you know, scolding the clowns. And then the audience begins to root for the clowns in spite of me or to spite me. Um, and so yeah, so that's kind of, and this is something that um, you know, at Reno Improv, that was our class show, was uh we took all the clowns and I brought them up and under the guise of a class show, and I just kind of ridiculed them and made fun of them, and then they eventually won the audience over in to spite me. You know, the the audience cheers the clowns because they they don't like me and they want the clowns to be in charge because the clowns are more fun than I am. And so that's kind of I mean, that's being reductive, but that's kind of the basic idea with most live direction is you create a status figure who keeps the show on the rails. So secretly, this is the person making sure the show is even and and sort of develops in a way that it doesn't like lose control. Um, but but but in the perception of the audience, that's the person that they're over, these clowns have to overcome to get to them.
SPEAKER_02:It's basically like you're diverting the attention to like you're creating empathy with the clowns through someone who is like overly unempathetic. Um you're creating an emotion. It's probably hard to be that person, the person that everybody's kind of rooting against all the time. Does that ever bring it up? I love it.
SPEAKER_04:I know I was gonna say I think I love it. It depends on the person.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I do know clowns that do not like it and like want to like they're like, but I want the audience to like me. I'm like, they love you for hate because you let you you let them hate you. They love to hate you, they love to hate you, and they and there's they appreciate this role that you're playing, you know. Um also I would say, you know, as I mentioned earlier, I came from professional wrestling.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Where the job of the bad guy is like a vaunted, respected job, like the guy who loses and the guy who ultimately, you know, puts over the good guy, or you know, like that is that is the that's the ring general. That's the person who's running things. You know, they're you know, normally in a wrestling match, I mean, depending on the experience levels of two wrestlers, it's the villain who's calling the match, and like from in the ring, because most of pro wrestling, not so much now, but in the old days it was all improvised. You know, they had a couple story beats, and it would be the the villain who would kind of feel the audience and build up their frustration and tension and build to the moment where the good guy or baby face would then kind of overcome and pin them and ultimately win. So, like that was like a position of stature to sort of be the bad guy and get the booze. And and I mean, I can tell you from those days, most of wrestlers, even the most popular good guys, wanted to be bad guys because there was just it was just a more intimate relationship at times with the audience than being the being cheered.
SPEAKER_02:And it is a more vulnerable position. A lot of times, there's the more vulnerability you give, the bit the bigger the reward can be, even if it's it in the form of booing or like you're getting that emotion out of you're pulling emotion out of people. Uh, you know, and it doesn't always have to be happy emotion for for you to like create an experience for people.
SPEAKER_00:Well, even I'll even go deeper on that, Jessica. Audience, this is something an audience doesn't realize, and it's good that they don't, is your job is to make them feel deeply. Because the deeper you can get them to feel anything, the deeper they will laugh, right? Like an audience is a guarded when they come into a theater. Like they they kind of have decided how much of themselves they're going to give to the performer. And so if you go out there and you're just like, well, I'm just here to make you laugh. There's a there is a cap on that, there's a ceiling on that. But if you outrage them, if you make them tense and nervous, if you make them feel other things, you're just kind of loosening it all up to go deeper. And then you get that laugh, that real like out of control laugh where they the you've taken away their composure. And then they just have a more full experience. I have something for you, Katie, that you might like. I'm so uh I I ended up getting super busy. Like I'm working on a TV show right now, and like um, but like I thought I was just gonna be teaching through June, right? So um I also agreed uh a school, uh a school/slash theater down here called Westside Comedy has a Monday night house team night, and they had open auditions for the first time in their in their history. So you didn't have to have taken a class, you can just audition. And so uh my friend Deadra, who's a clown in that community, was like, let's bring a clown show in and see if we can get on house team night. And I I was like, okay, we're gonna come in and all we're gonna do is we're just gonna just be disgusted by improv. Like, because the because it's there's not gonna everyone's treating it so like you know, warmly. And you know, and we're gonna wear costumes and makeup and we're gonna play like grimy Venice Beach performance artists who don't like think this is disposable art. And of course we got like they loved it because it's like because we were playing off the expectation created by every other team. So every other team was doing the work for us, and that when we came out, the expectation had been built. But what I was gonna tell you was what I've been experimenting with at that show is flipping your um what what's your group called again? Something friends? Sensitive people, sensitive people, sensitive people, okay. Something friends. I I shouldn't get their word. Your friends are sensitive people, right? Um we I flipped it just as an experiment. So I let them start. So I'm directing it, and I let them start by doing absurd improv. And then after a few minutes of that, when the audience and the audience is uncomfortable because they're like, I mean, they might be laughing, but they're like, this is so wild, I can't get my head around it. I stop the show and I pick one moment of something they created in absurdity, and then I try to overground the moment. Like I try to add so much texture and groundedness to this moment that it ends up being more absurd than the absurdity.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So, because that's where I'm at. Like, I'm just trying to figure out how to do this from every direction. And it has been very successful that you end up with some scene that was a throwaway scene in improv where someone's like, Oh, I hurt my hand. And by the end, someone's like putting in an Oscar-worthy performance about their broken hand and how their life is over, and like there's all these people moving in the back. Like, and the audience loves it, but the audience loves to see nonsense taken very seriously, yeah, and built to like something that does like almost feel like this is theatrical, right? This stupid thing is so yeah, we flipped it the other way, and so it works both ways. It's just you have to create an expectation. So you guys are creating an expectation of groundedness and and fleshing out character, and then you get to play, and then we're creating chaos, and then we are trying to find order. And in finding order, we create something even wilder, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Uh just for time's sake, we need to move on to our concept of today, which is one of our segments here. Um it's our concept of the day today is called flopping. And it's pretty new to me because I'm pretty new to clowning. So I'm just gonna kind of like read about it and see what you think about it. Maybe you can throw in your two cents. So um we looked up a TED talk from Alex Bell, uh, who is a former um UK actor, turned clown teacher. And he says, quote, why why clowning is the most important thing ever in acting training? The flop is when if you if I do an action and it doesn't get a laugh, that would be a flop. And then what I can do as a clown is uh play the flop that I acknowledge that I didn't get a laugh and that gets the laugh. I don't know if this quote is right on, he must have been speaking. This is yeah, it's not the best. Yeah, this is the clown's currency. You're going in and out of failure and in and out of flop.
SPEAKER_04:Uh so what he's saying is like you you do something that doesn't get a laugh, and then which is the flop, and then by acknowledging it in a funny way, I guess, or not funny way even, then that is actually like acknowledging the failure that actually gets the laugh. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, uh this is and again, I'm sure like as a TED talk it made more sense. Like not to be Yeah, it's kind of out of context.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe I was reading it wrong. Maybe my brain doesn't know the quote is worded weird.
SPEAKER_00:But so yeah, the flo you know, the flop, the failure, being in the shit, like there's a bunch of terms for it. Essentially, so let's just first let's define failure and success, because I think that's important to define the flop. So a success is doing something and getting the intended result. And failure is doing something and getting the unintended result, you know, like if you, you know, go to you know, boil eggs and you uh end up like flipping the pot over that was unintended and that's not what you wanted, and you failed at hard-boiling eggs. So the flop is making an offer with an intention, um, it sounds like in in this particular case, the offer is uh to get laughter or to get the audience to you know be on your side. And then you so you've committed to this intention, it happens, and you get the unintended result, which is silence or a groan. And uh what he's saying is in that moment, if you can you can be present, not even like necessarily be funny, but if you can acknowledge that you understand that this has failed and you have failed the audience, like not in a way that you have to feel shame, but like that you're like, oh, you didn't like it. And I and now it affects the performance. Like it, I'm affected by this moment. That's how important you are. I this offer was important, and your reaction is even more important. For the clown, this is a huge moment. This is a moment of connection, right? I did something, I made an offer, you responded that no bueno, you did not like it. And now I respond taking responsibility, you know. Um, and taking responsibility sounds serious. I mean, taking responsibility can just be a little smirk or just being frozen or just looking around and like, oh no, you know, but we love that moment because then we, as an audience, we feel seen and heard, and then we're like, oh, we're part of this experience, you know, for this clown. We're part of it. And then we also watch the show take a different direction based on what we felt. And now we're collaborators in that moment, and so now you have the whole audience, whether they know it or not, who feels implicated in the success and failure of what comes next.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like that's um that's very kind of parallel with with stand-up comedy, like because there's a lot of flopping for stand-up comedians, and a lot of stand-up comedians kind of get out of it because they can't handle the flop.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but I yeah, they they don't they don't want it.
SPEAKER_02:Or they they can't acknowledge it because it if they acknowledge it, then they're acknowledging their own fail. Not just stand-up comedians, I think maybe in life, you know, like that's a huge life skill.
SPEAKER_00:Normally we brush it off or we, you know, we're defensive, we shut off the person. I do a show out here, you know. My bio was already too long, so I didn't want to add this. I was given the option, people listening. I was given the option to add more to my bio. I felt it was egregious already.
SPEAKER_04:We we had to, we had to, you know, we had to go to shorts. Sorry, Chad.
SPEAKER_00:So um, so I do a show out here, I've only done two, but it was a show I've been thinking about for years called Stand Up and Clown. And I take really good stand-ups who um who go in front of stand-up crowds with finely tuned material, they know how to shut down a heckler, they know how to misdirect if a joke goes poorly, they know how to not fail. And then I live direct them through clown exercises where they have to sit in these flops and fail. And it the show's electric. Like you can feel that they are by agreeing to the show, they are going against everything they've ever learned and everything that has gotten them success through their careers. And because they are willing to joyfully go on this exercise, it the show's magical.
SPEAKER_04:And it's high, it's high risk, right? Going back to what you were saying about risk.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you know, the whole thing where in the beginning of the show, you know, I say to the stand-ups, I'm like, like they, I say, like, these are great stand-ups, listen to their podcasts, go see their shows. You know, like you, you know, they masters of what they do, and everyone claps, and I look at the stand-ups and go, enjoy that. That's your last piece of free validation for the night. It's like enjoy it because from now on, this audience is gonna hold you accountable, and you're not gonna be able to talk your way around or out shout an audience member. You're gonna have to really earn their love and you know, and their laughter. And the audience is like, oh my God. And by the way, it's all bullshit. Like, all of it, like improv's bullshit, clown is bullshit, but it's a pleasurable bullshit. That's what games and play are. It's like it's pleasure in giving great, assigning great value to something with no value is like how we like feel alive as human beings, you know, like we can't always be chased down the street by like a cheetah, like that would certainly be exciting, but like we'd also trip one time and it'll be over. We need to find ways to feel that sense of exhilaration where there really are no stakes other than the ones we agree to, you know, in the moment.
SPEAKER_02:You guys want to play a game?
SPEAKER_04:All right. Speaking of risks, we're gonna play this game. Well, this is I've never played this. It made the sense. Um, so it's a conversation on a phone. And um so I have a couple of uh, you know, roles that I'll assign. And then I so there's it's usually like a customer and like a customer service person, uh, is the first conversation. Um, and then the customer is gonna have a dilemma. And the dilemma, this is where I try to make it clowny. Um the dilemma that the customer has is um the customer has made a mountain out of a molehill.
SPEAKER_05:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:Um, that's the problem that they're having, and the and the customer service person is trying to help them through their dilemma. That's it.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_04:All right.
SPEAKER_00:So who's who? Who's the customer? Who's the um whatever?
SPEAKER_04:I I guess I'll be the how about we elevate it?
SPEAKER_02:How about we have someone who uh is the customer and the customer service representative, and then eventually uh it gets elevated to the manager.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, and that way we can all three participate. Okay. All right. Um, I'll be the customer service representative.
SPEAKER_00:I'll be the customer. I'll be the customer. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, I'll be the customer.
SPEAKER_00:And then you are the you are the big boss, Jessica. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02:Uh yes. Okay, I guess. Or I'm just going away that I have, yeah, this is my first time, so yeah. All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_04:All right, all right. Um, okay. Um thank you for calling. Um Mountains Express. How can I help you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, hi. I'm so sorry. I was uh I love your whole music.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, thank you. Thank you. Um, that was we had Eric Lapton come in and do a live session.
SPEAKER_00:I was gonna say that's just bananas. I was like, Eric Clapton singing a song about this company.
SPEAKER_04:I'm I like um Yeah, yeah, we do it right here. We do it right.
SPEAKER_00:Um I just uh I am not calling, obviously, to talk about Eric Clapton. Um, we do love Eric. I do. I'm a fan. Um so I'm hoping you guys can help me. Um I have um I have a mountain in my backyard.
SPEAKER_04:That did we put that in for you?
SPEAKER_00:Uh no, no. Oh, I wish. I wish because then probably it would be more attractive. And like it was, I and this is gonna be where I think I might, I'm hoping I'm calling the right place. I'm hoping to get it taken out. Um it was a mole hill. It was a molehill.
SPEAKER_06:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00:And I just uh kept scrolling around with it because I was like, I don't, you know, might because I have a dog and I was like, I don't want him to kill this mole. And this has been going on for two months, and then just like I swear to God, like it wasn't apparent to me. And I woke up this morning to take my dog out to pee, and I was like, it's a mountain now. Like I have I've made a mountain. Oh dear. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Oh dear. That's uh yeah, that's that's a real problem. Um I um I I don't know if we can help you with that. You know, we create mountains here, um, and uh
SPEAKER_00:know i we're not liable for that so um i'm just not sure if you know we i might have to um uh get my manager on the phone uh to help me look i'm and also i'm not my intention isn't to sort of uh the only thing i might point point a finger at is uh a tasty jam from eric clapton like that's like you understand like i'm like that was a good time but i i i desperately need some help here and i feel like in being in the mountain business that you almost have a moral obligation if i'm being honest um to right right but we you know we deal with mountains not molehills you understand potentially this is i it was a molehill just i i don't mean to lose my temper a little bit it was a mole it is a mountain now so by your own you that you yourself created sir um you deal with mountains this just to take i'm literally like if there was a transcript i could read back you just said we deal with mountains here and i'm in a situation well we deal with mountains but we don't deal with people who have made mountains out of molehills and i think that i can direct quote you um by saying that that is exactly what your situation is okay well i mean i guess you could ask yourself as a human being i don't know if that's something you do in customer service or customer support do i want this person who i bonded with about music moments earlier like had a real moment we had a real we had a real moment do i just want to throw them away because they accidentally fudged around with the molehill with good intentions to save that mole's life do I really want to just push this up yeah you know I'd like to talk to your manager actually because now that I think about it you have been just evasive frankly uh after you boasted about wasting company money on Eric Clapton by the way like that's probably some that could have been someone's 401 I thought we had a moment and now you're saying it's a waste just a moment let me get my manager on the phone please hold. All right thank you um hello I uh I understand you've made a mountain out of molehill all right well let's uh okay that's a strong way to start um one I'd like to say um I love your hold music and I'm a fan of the company um in general I think you you guys do um really great work um in the mountain business oh well thank you uh I am personal friends with uh Eric Clapton and um uh Bob Seeger as well is uh is a good friend that we plan to have on our old music soon uh so name drop I mean that's true but I mean I would do it I would drop it Bob Seeger I mean if you can I mean no I can't I mean but uh well good for you and you know what it's go mountain climbing together on the weekends it's it's what with you wait wait with clapton and seeger or just seeger well clapton can't really keep up he he'll he'll get about halfway up and and seeger goes the rest of the way that's the thing you know seeger as a musician has always like kind of had that like let's get it done right Bob Seeger let's you know like rock and roll wait wait are you are you trying to create um like are are you trying to make me feel good about myself before you ask me for something it's interesting how easily one can make a mountain out of a molehill was my what I was what I was doing basically was a social experiment um which also worked on your underling where very easily two well-intentioned people started with a small thing and then it built into something else and no one was at fault uh are you saying it was not your fault that the molehill was created or that we left Eric Clapton behind? One well one it's I did think that was a little cruel that you couldn't have chosen a smaller mountain and brought Eric but that's like that's your business that's your life um I did not create a the molehill a mole created that again and a mole who was in mortal danger because my dog is a rat terrier and essentially what I did was I fudged around with it I just fudged around you know like I was just kind of messing around with it trying to make sure this mole wasn't attacked or its children attacked and then over time to your point I made okay I'm just gonna say it I made a mountain out of this mole and help me understand this mountain a little a little better uh is I mean do you have any donkeys or sherpas currently on the mountain or I'm calling scene I'm glad you picked up I saw Katie nodding I was like oh he keeps making mountains out of molehills I was like that's a I was like I'm just gonna keep making big deal out of everything.
SPEAKER_04:I love that you took it literally like the mountain out of molehill because that could have been like you could have made a mountain out of molehill about like any top oh yeah but as soon as I heard it I'm like oh that's for sure exactly what happened like the town thing is like you know what I wanted to what hope I was hoping to do before I heard the prompt was just like can we treat something silly serious like can we just because it's both ways like we were just talking about comedian like it's it's something silly is treated seriously and something seriously is treated in a silly like we're always just subverting the expectation but the expectation is clear uh for the from the audience's point of view you know so when we do it differently they're like oh this is delightful I think another thing that's really interesting about clown which is a contrast uh with improv is that um you know improv is so there is body movement and object work and stuff involved but um it's very dialogue heavy I would say um and clown is from at least from the from your the workshop I took from you it's very and we did we also did mask work so maybe we could talk about that too where it's it's not even and when we did the masks which means you not not COVID masks but like an actual full face mask you don't even have your face to express. So that was a really mind-blowing experience for me because all I had was my body to create comedy and that to me was so outside of what I ever knew and in that. So can you talk about that a little bit?
SPEAKER_00:Sure sure and and you know it's funny because I do love improv. Like I've actually been running auditions for this um thing I can't talk about but like I've been Zoom improving like two, three hours a day with just a bunch of wonderful improvisers and I love the idea of like we're just listening to each other and you know we're picking up on little things but here's what you have to know about human beings is we are inherently lazy right like that's why we love sweets because it's like this is the most calories I can get chewing the least like we're like like like everything we do that's why we have bad posture because even though like you know it's just yeah both of you by the way not um um you know everything our minds are always trying to conserve energy or get to point from point A to point B the easiest way it's evolutionary right and and so words are the cheapest commodity of communication and you know you go through an improv program you can get laughs seemingly quickest with words you can get out of trouble with words you can build a world with words but what ends up happening is words are cheap and the audience also sees words as cheap. So when they see you fully commit physically then it's like effort. Now they're like oh this person why do we love dance so much right like dance is just so beautiful and we're so like inspired by dance it's just because it's like we know how much more work is being put into the idea of communicating an idea. So I I still do a show twice a month called Chad Performs Silent Improv and then it's like with and it's like people from clown people from improv but there we do 30 minutes no words we have a musician and we use a lot I mean I use a ton of clown in that and like I'm with the audience a bunch but like everything we do has to be we have to commit to it like you can't be non-committal with physical choices or they don't even read. Yeah and when you add on to that that we we don't really speak the language of physical communication we tend to have lower body intelligence unless you're someone who has trained in the physical arts or dance like we don't even know how to express ideas necessarily with our bodies then we have the risk and then we have the failure and all these other things. I love the you know we started doing this mask show in 2020 because the pandemic had closed down all the theaters and we were like well we have to wear masks anyway let's throw on a theatrical mask too and we'll do it in the park because these masks are designed to help you perform for large groups without sound amplification. You know that's why they wore masks back in the day you could bring a bunch of people together and it was all big body movement and big expressions on on people's faces. And immediately even though I was already a very physical performer it became clear how much I relied on language in a way that wasn't doing me any favors. Like it wasn't making my shows better. It maybe it got to ideas faster but is that what we're trying to do are we just trying to get to things faster you know I mean I think we just really want to tell the most compelling story even if it's a simpler story even if it's something that like is one tenth of what we could have communicated in terms of specificity and information as long as that one tenth is dynamic, isn't that the better option?
SPEAKER_04:Well and I think that's interesting that you're like are we trying to get somewhere faster because I feel like that is such a value in our society and it's and we but so I think that there's there's a craving for the the present moment like we're always but we won't but like you're saying like with the candy and whatever it's like we want to we're lazy and we want to get there as quickly as possible or as easy as possible but really when when you slow it down or when you are can actually be in the moment that feels what like you feel the most alive.
SPEAKER_00:You feel you know also from an audience perspective laughter is a product of the release of tension. Oh yeah and and that tension can be momentary tension I mean when I do uh this silent improv set I've had times where like it starts with us in the back of the theater which is fairly narrow it's like a long wide theater but we have sometimes taken up to five to six minutes just to get to the stage just kind of looking at the audience playing with the audience and by the time a real offer is made sometimes it's the biggest laugh of the whole show because we have just built all this tension. Yeah and yeah like tension is definitely another thing that when you're in a big improv program or you're in a jam it's like who gets to build tension like if you build tension you're getting tagged out someone's coming in as a giraffe like it's like oh yeah there's no and it's it's definitely I mean we're in an interesting spot because I I really want and I you know you kind of said that quote us to rethink what we want to put on stage and worry less about how many people we can get into a class or um how quickly we can get students to feel like oh see that's a serviceable scene. See you did like like that's not necessarily the best way to learn something the the fastest way and like I just want students and performers you know coming up as students to have the most gratifying experience on stage. And you know how do we do that? I also don't want to lose a bunch of people who don't have the patience for it but honestly if we had to lose them that's not the worst thing is it like can't we just keep the ones we want sometimes I feel that way but it's supposed to be a safe day for everybody.
SPEAKER_02:I think we have just enough time for a history segment and uh maybe a little bit of closing remarks.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah well okay so um first of all my source is Wikipedia I'm just gonna say that right now but um you know I wanted to again trying to get somewhere quickly um so I wanted to kind of think about and and look into the history of clown and this is what Wikipedia tells me um that there were ancient clowns of Egypt um that traditionally served as a socio religious and psychological role um and it says uh the priest and clown were kind of like the same person which I thought was interesting and then in the Sioux Native American tribes they had something called the heyoka I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right a type of sacred clown um I thought those was really fascinating um that did everything backwards or upside down or contrary to nature um so like for example if if food was scarce then they would walk around as if they were really full um and uh let's see so and it was kind of like their role in society was to help the society think about things that they that are hard to talk about or hard to acknowledge in their society. And then they and then I also read that in ancient Greek and Roman cultures they had this kind of rustic fool character um whose Greek name literally translates into play like a child. So there's like this kind of we talk about like with Jess and her children sort of this childlike um and then there was this quote let's see um by the person who wrote the Wikipedia so who knows if they're credible in a Wikipedia I don't know I was confused but I really like the quote and I'm gonna read it I don't care um it says the comedy that clowns perform is usually in the role of a fool whose everyday actions and tasks become extraordinary and for whom the ridiculous for a short while becomes ordinary. This style of comedy has a long history in many countries and cultures across the world some writers have argued that due to the widespread use of such comedy and its long history it is a need that is part of the human condition.
SPEAKER_00:Oh and for those you can't see there was a hand flourish what I was just saying for those of you just listening uh Katie had a there was a hand flourish is that what that's called a hand flourish yeah um um so thoughts uh you know some like I I've heard about most of those and I I you know I'm always of two minds here because I do feel like that last quote of this idea of like a synergy or a similar like I don't know like were they all was that clowning was like like clowning is such a difficult term you know in general I mean I will say that to this day ritual in general definitely the Venn diagram of like religious ritual spiritual ritual and clown I mean obviously you think about just being Catholic and it's like now you kneel now you stand like it's very much an interactive process of like this thing happens and then we have this response like we know the rules of what like the math like and and we find joy as a group all being part of it and some of my favorite clown shows have had a lot of ritualistic elements of like getting the audience to do a series of movements with the performer or getting the audience to sort of yell something out at the same time or make sounds at the same time my friend Dr. Brown is a his unannounced his uh I can't pronounce the name of the show it's like a 16 letters that don't make sense just to be a dick he did that I think and he has a great bit on a bicycle where he has all these sounds and these things that the audience then knows to say and then he starts to mess with them. You know he starts to change it up and they're trying to keep up and you know that there's definitely religious elements there. And yeah yeah like I do I think I related most with the Wikipedia author who's the great clown author Wikipedia author in the sense that I do feel that there's a part of us that sort of contemporary society has decided has to die at the end of childhood. So that we can be responsible and you know be serious and and for whatever reason the idea that both of things can exist or maybe that they are simply translated into now you're a Chicago Bears fan or now you're in a bowling league like whatever like it was put into sort of categories that were more maintainable and controllable and um and that to me is like the excitement of teaching even that's why no matter like I always when I even when I'm working think like oh I can't wait to get back to teach because there's going to be somebody who's never experienced this before. And I'm gonna see that moment where they're like I haven't felt this since I was a little kid. I haven't felt this sense of like wonder and stupidity and foolishness that I do feel like it's like there's just a part of our brain that isn't being treated like um this heart this area hardwired to play that just not isn't being cared for you know and being activated and once it's activated it's like oh yeah that could be a part of my life continuously it doesn't have to be just under these circumstances I can find ways to be foolish and fun and joyful and love the experience of trying things and doing poorly and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:I think what what this kind of brings up for me is you know clearly clowning has been around for a really long time but really just in the last like 30 to 50 years you've seen like the decline of you know coming from you know someone who hasn't experienced much clowning people are afraid of clowns people think clowns are stupid people are like oh like that's played out I think in the 70s there was just like this love of clowns that kind of happened people had clowned all like there was then then it you know Stephen King's it came out and do us any favors yeah so this whole thing around clowns that kind of changed the way that our society views it but like in the grand scheme of time clowns were actually kind of hold held up a little bit more on on a higher level.
SPEAKER_00:Also you have to unfortunately because the um the 1900s were a real rough century because that's also when blackface that's us like yeah blackface is clown work and like clown work just couldn't make a right step through most of that you know and I mean I guess you could look at stuff like Cirque and I think so a lot of it is I think it's just that sometimes things become popular and they overstay their welcome in that form you know like there was a time when kids loved you know in the 50s you know Bozo the clown or 60s you know like and then that just stayed too long. And then it you know everything becomes a parody of itself. Everything becomes twisted when the world changes but the art doesn't change like you know music look at music music so like fluidly changes as we change and like clown is the same like we have the same obligation to reflect the world as it exists now. Well and I also oh sorry no no I was I was just I was like that's just right now clowning has to reflect like our experience and and way the way it looks that's also yeah well and I think too it's just like things get even music and other art forms they get boxed into something too where it's like oh clown that conjures up a certain you know set of visuals or set of feelings or whatever.
SPEAKER_04:And you know to kind of break out of that or like you know top 40 music you know it's like it's like this very it can become very narrow. And so that's why when I tell people oh yeah I'm in a clowning group now I always laugh as soon as I say it because I know I already know what people are thinking when they hear that word, you know, and they don't it's not super positive and they're like what are you you know like but um so it's the word clown has even been like derogatory in some cases like stop being a clown you know yeah yeah totally
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you know, there was a long stretch in LA. I mean, and I would guess I just can't speak for the rest of the country where, you know, the reason the idiot workshop is called the idiot workshop is because clown was a dirty word. And like there was my friend Deanna Fleischer, who's a great clown. She had the naked workshops. Like everyone was trying to find like it, like, and and I think coming out of the pandemic, at least where we are, it's like we're just we're take we're like, I don't say we're taking it back, but it's just like we're not like we're too exhausted. Like we need some foolishness right now. This is what we do. We don't do it, we do it differently, just like a musician today isn't you wouldn't be like, you mean like Chuck Berry? Like you're like, no, yeah, I'm a musician in modern time. Um, I don't know why I decided to slam Chuck Berry. Super talented. I should have brought up Eric Clapton or Bob Seeger. That would have been a call back of the year. I I missed a major opportunity.
SPEAKER_02:You ruined the whole show.
SPEAKER_00:The whole show. Yeah. So like we now out here, there's definitely us a group of people who are like want to be part of the counterculture. And now clown again. But guess what? This is the thing. Like, I rarely change, like I've dressed the same for 20 years. Like I've had a fanny pack since 1999. Worst thing that ever happened was when I saw them come back in style. Because I'm like, this means there's gonna be a major pushback when these go out of style that they think that I have just not gotten the memo. And I'm like, I've been wearing this for 25 years. Like you're like, so anytime I see anything I do go it fall into favor, I'm terrified. I'm like, oh, this is gonna look like out of step in about four years when I'm just doing the same shit, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Oh god. Um all right, Chad, where can people find you on the uh on the internets or other places you want them to find you?
SPEAKER_00:Um I I I post all my shows and uh workshops on my link tree, which is just my name, Chad.demiani. And I am on Instagram. Instagram is probably the best way if you want to see pictures of my work. Uh I'm the Chad Demiani. Um, I could have had Chad Demiani, but I couldn't get that for Snapchat, which I've never used. So I moved to the Chad Demiani, and it's one of my greatest errors of my life. Um, so the Chad Demiani on Instagram and uh Chad.demiani. And then that kind of covers everything.
SPEAKER_01:You've been listening to For the Love of Improv. Head on over to our website at For the Love of Improv for show notes and to find more episodes.
