Darien DeVries

So this past weekend was full of performing, which makes me very very happy.

Saturday – Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt! Very fun event organized by sftreasurehunts.com  This event has a lot of devoted return attendees who go the extra mile to come up with a really creative name for their treasure hunt team (there is a contest for the best team name) as well as a theme for their team (for which there is also a contest – Scooby Who totally took the prize on this one!).

At first, we Clown Conservatory folks helped set up tables, cones, and signs to direct the participants to the box office, will-call, and information tents.  Then we got dressed in our makeup and costumes and headed out to entertain the finely clad treasure hunters.  We also collected the door prize tickets. Arleth was highly visible on her stilts, making her the most obvious candidate for collecting these. Two of my other classmates were highly amusing doing a close walk – one person walking very closely behind another, mimicking their gait exactly. I kept myself busy being pedantic with the people in line for the box office, instructing them to keep the line perfectly straight as it was more geometrically pleasing to me.  After a nice break wherein the organizers provided us tasty sandwiches, we broke down the signs and tables for the box office and will-call, and prepared to greet the teams as they excitedly returned with their completed treasure hunt sheet. There was less room for character work at this junction as we had to hurriedly shout instructions to the returning teams so they wouldn’t simply mob the return table.

All in all, a fun day. Very tiring since I walked on concrete all day but I

must admit I really enjoyed keeping my makeup and costume on while traveling home on the BART. Clowns in unusual places, especially those wearing teeny tiny hat, make strangers smile.

A teeny tiny hat is very important.

Monday, I once again performed at the Clown Cabaret at the Climate Theater at 9th and Folsom in San Francisco. This was the All Women Clown Cabaret.  Several of my classmates and I performed some of our entrees we’d prepared for our school show a few weeks back. I really liked having a new audience to perform in front of – clowns really need to be in front of an audience as much as possible and I miss the renaissance faire for this reason, among others. One classmate also performed a brilliant monologue that she’d written, and was lauded for her words as well as the performance – she constantly impresses me. We were also very fortunate to have in the lineup the beautiful ladies of Pi – the physical comedy troupe, Pino the Clown – former Cirque du Soleil and Pickle Family Circus clown, and Michelle Matlock – a clown currently in the Cirque du Soleil touring show, Ovo. Pi performed a clown version of a quick-change act, Pino did an act with her dogs, and Michelle performed a hilarious monologue.

Best of all, we sold out both shows!

Thanks to those very talented ladies whom I’m proud to call my peers.