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Pirate School! is a madcap, slap-dash pirate training academy that allows both youngsters and adults to discover their ‘inner-swashbuckler’. Featured in New York Magazine’s “BEST OF NEW YORK:KIDS!” this one-man sea-faring vaudeville spoofs the Golden Age of Sail and satisfies children’s universal curiosity about the briny buccaneers of yore.

Kid’s rejoice as their boisterous natures are drummed up by the “generally good pirate” Billy Bones and his antic Pirate Lessons. Parents marvel as their kids are transformed into ‘good’ pirates, swaggering out of the theater encouraged and emboldened by this heartwarming all-ages show.

David Engel’s comic romp Pirate School! has delighted family audiences for the past twenty years with it’s mischevious blend of interactive clown theater, music, magic and mayhem. During the show, cannons boom, skulls talk, cutlasses drop, pets run amok and bellies laugh. Welcome aboard!

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David Engel Biography

David Engel is a physical comedian, actor and sailor from New York. A full-time entertainer since 1984, Engel performs an average of 200 solo shows a year most notably as his bumbling pirate character, Billy Bones “The (generally) Good Pirate”. Pirate School! is a popular act Engel created 20 years ago which he is currently developing as a live action/animated pre-school television series. Pirate School! has toured to festivals in England, France, Shanghai, China and appeared on an atoll in the Exuma Islands, Bahamas.

Mr. Engel cut his eye-teeth doing street theatre tours across Europe between 1984 and 1994 and for the past eleven years regularly visits pediatric hospitals as a Clown Doctor with The Big Apple Circus’ renowned Clown Care Program. Mr. Engel’s stable of offbeat characters entertain thousands at family events, libraries and schools across the East Coast and beyond.

Engel has collaborated with many well-known theatrical-clown troupes including Chicago’s 500 Clown (co-creating their first production 500 Clown Macbeth); Blair Thomas & Co. (Ox Herder’s Tale); CircuSunday’s at the Showboat Barge in Redhook, Brooklyn and with Chicago’s acclaimed RedMoon Theatre (Moby-Dick, Hunchback, Frankie & Johnnie, etc.). Engel was invited to perform El Magnifico! World’s Worst Magician at the first International Clown Festival in Liuzhou, China’s Golden Week where an estimated 1.2 million people attended the opening day parade for 48 clowns. He subsequently presented as a solo act in festivals in Tiandu City and Shanghai, China

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