Press
"...scattershot, ribald and exhilarating...."
Andy Webster, The New York Times
>full article (PDF)
"500 Clown Frankenstein is evidence of the way comedy results
from pain and aggression-the situation escalates to outrageou lengths,
driving audience laughter to the point of tears; then the piece
brilliantly turns on a dime. Then, the ugliness of the situation
shows its real face and we realize that we too have taken pleasure
at someone's intense suffering-we are implicated."
Jason Jacobs, nytheatre.com
>full article (PDF)
"There's pathos behind the pratfalls and real drama underscores
the well-conceived, broadly comic and carefully choreographed productions.
Together, it makes for smart, rollicking, highly-entertaining theater
that distills Shakespeare's tragedy and Shelley's gothic novel down
to their essentials."
Barbara Vitello, The Daily Herald
>full article (PDF)
"Giving a small physical theater troupe a name like “500
Clown” is sort of like describing a car engine in terms of
its horsepower."
Devon Glenn, LA Times
>full
article (PDF)
"They are a cross between 'Waiting for Godot's' eternally,
existentially embroiled Estragon and Vladimir, the entire cast of
Christopher Guest's community theater send-up 'Waiting for Guffman'
and a vintage vaudeville team."
Catey Sullivan, Pioneer Press
>full article (PDF)
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Individual
Artist Biographies
Molly Brennan (Clown)
BRENNAN has been acting in Chicago since 1994. Credits include
Go, Dog. Go! with Chicago Children's Theatre, Fatty
Arbuckle's Spectacular Musical Review with Second City Theatricals,
Tina Landau's Theatrical Essays at Steppenwolf Garage,
and That's Weird, Grandma with Barrel of Monkeys. Also
a company member of the House Theatre, she appeared in Curse
of the Crying Heart, for which she received a Joseph Jefferson
Award, and The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz, assistant
directed The Sparrow, and is directing The Magnificents
opening in Fall 2007. Molly is a Clown with Big Apple Clown Care
at the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital.
Adrian Danzig (Clown / Producing Artistic
Director)
DANZIG has been in shows at The Goodman, The Second City, Steppenwolf
Studio, Berkeley Rep, Brooklyn Academy of Music, and The Public
Theater, and with Shakespeare & Company and Lookingglass. He
has worked with Mary Zimmerman, Les Waters, Joanne Akalaitis and
Anne Bogart, and has performed his solo works at The Kitchen, P.S.
122, The Ontological Hysteric Theater, Soho Rep. He was an early
Neo-futurist and a founding member of Redmoon Theater, Hubinspoke
Theater and 500 Clown. Education: NYC's High School of Performing
Arts, BA Oberlin College, MFA School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
He has studied clown with Ctibor Turba, Philippe Gaulier, Ronlin
Foreman, Els Comediants, David Shiner, Avner the Eccentric and is
a Clown with Big Apple Circus Clown Care. Formerly theater professor
/ head of movement at Roosevelt University's Chicago College of
Performing Arts, and recently in Go, Dog. Go! with Chicago's
Children's Theatre.
Leslie Buxbaum Danzig (Director)
BUXBAUM DANZIG co-directed The Ox-Herder's Tale with puppeteer
Blair Thomas at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, UMD. With
DOG, Leslie conceived and directed Interference and Windows
Server 2003 / Active Directory Infrastructure at PAC / edge
2003-04. Leslie co-directed Redmoon Theater's Hunchback
at Steppenwolf Studio and the Henson International Festival of Puppet
Theater at the Public Theater in NYC and will direct a remount in
Fall 2007. With NYC's Elevator Repair Service, Leslie has performed
in works at P.S. 122 and toured nationally and internationally.
She was assistant director to Julie Taymor on The Green Bird
with Theater for a New Audience, and dramaturg with choreographer
Molly Shanahan. Leslie trained in physical theater at Ecole Jacques
Lecoq and in clown with Philippe Gaulier and Ronlin Foreman; BA
from Brown University; and PhD in 2007 in Performance Studies at
Northwestern University.
Paul Kalina (Clown)
KALINA is a clown, actor, fight choreographer and mask maker. He
has worked as an actor and fight choreographer for The Goodman Theater,
CT20 productions, Steppenwolf Theater and the Court Theater. He
co-founded the physical theater duo Le Pamplemousse and toured Canada
and the United States until 1999. He supervised Big Apple Circus
Clown Care at the University of Chicago's Children's Hospital and
the Vaudeville Caravan, an outreach program where performers visit
senior centers. He is a founding member of 500 Clown and the critically
acclaimed acrobatic and slapstick clown duo, The Bumblinni Brothers.
Training: B.S. in theatre arts from Illinois State University, International
School of Physical Theatre Dell'Arte in Blue Lake, and MFA at University
of Idaho.
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