https://www.spreaker.com/user/picklewater/ridiculous-s05e08-david-roe-clown-dancer
"Ridiculous--The Life of a Clown" podcast AUG, 2022
Gherkin Picklewater interview with David Roe/Pip--
Actor, Dancer, Physical Comedien
Interview Transcript w/notes
Gherkin Picklewater/GP:
Hello, & welcome to another episode of 'Ridiculous--Life of a Clown.' I am Gherkin Picklewater & today I'm talking with David Roe/Pip, a clown that I've known for a few years. Pip--how are you today?
David Roe/DR: Hey, alright! Hanging in there! How's it going everybody?
GP: Can you tell everyone who you are & what you do?
DR: Yes. So my name is David Roe. And I'm a performer of 40yrs. I originally started out as a dancer, & ended up becoming a physical comedien/physical actor.
GP: Very cool. What originally brought you to Clown?
DR: Yeah--that's one of those stories that's just like...it has so many parts. It's wonderful. But the basic story was that I was working as a dancer for like around 20yrs or so. And I was also studying literature, & performing slam poetry, & finding my voice. And I felt that taking part in modern dance, & dance performance for so long without ever really being able to speak, I felt that there was something more that I wanted to give, & I needed to give. And basically the environment that I was in really put a lot of things out there to me. I was in NYC in the 90's. And so I saw Cirque du Soleil, I saw Big Apple Circus, I saw Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. And I grew up in the 70's seeing Ringling [Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus], & so I'd had a long influence before that. And I realized that...you know--clowning was what I needed to do. I didn't want to do tragedy. I did not want to play King Lear. I wanted to play the Jester!
GP: So how did you actually get your start? What was the beginning of your path into Clown?
DR: Right. It was rough, I'll tell ya! I didn't know where to go. But what I did start to do was... There I was in the 90's, so I could see Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, I also need to name The NY Goofs, & Happy Hour Clown Trio. All these people were all working, & I got to see them all live. Fringe Festivals were a new thing in NYC too, & so there were some interesting clown/crossover acts. And eventually all I could really figure out to do was just put on a vest & some makeup, & go to the park, go to Central Park & try to pass the hat. Well, that was a failure.
But I just kept lookin' around. Some people showed up to teach workshops. I'm pretty sure that the first workshop I ever took was with Steve Smith. And I guess I just kept looking. I stumbled upon a clown school in the middle of Rome in Italy, where I spent a year & a half as an au pair. And I got my first full year of circus & clown training in Italy.
And then after that some teachers from Brazil. I studied in Brazil.
And it still wasn't enough. So I ended up at the San Francisco Clown Conservatory, at the Circus Center, class of 2005.
GP: That was the year before me, I believe.
DR: Exactly--yea. So I saw your work, & the work of people in your class as well.
GP: That's very cool. So let's talk about your career trajectory. What was your first job as a clown.
DR: Uh, let's see... Like a paid one, you mean? I think I managed to get... Wow--well actually the first one was...
I guess I want to throw in that-backing up to my dance career-I was fortunate enough through the influence of my parents, mostly my mother, to be introduced to some of the holistic communities in the United States. So I was brought to the Omega Institute in New York State where I studied with teachers from Pilobolus, & Momix, & Pooh Kaye/Eccentric Motions Dance & Film. And then later on I ended up at an institution here in Western Massachusetts, where I'm living now. And this place is a home of dance called Earthdance Creative Living Community. I was living at Earthdance as a volunteer, & I was trying to launch myself as a clown. So I threw a fundraiser, & I did my first solo show. It was about a one-hour solo show slash fundraiser so that I could raise about $2000 to go straight to Brazil & study at L.U.M.E. The L.U.M.E. group where several others of us [clowns/physical comediens/actors] have trained.
And they're still training there as well. So yea--my first full-length clown show appearance was really a one-man clown show to raise money to study!
GP: What year was that?
DR: That was 2003.
GP: So let's talk a little bit about "the elephant in the room." I mentioned this earlier. You spent some time as a Ronald [McDonald], did you not?
DR: Yea. So later on, working my way out of Earthdance to Brazil, I did a second solo show in Boston.
I made my way out west. And I got work, you know, when I was in San Francisco I got work with [Gregangelo's] Velocity Circus, & through the Circus Center as well. And then I worked with "Aga-Boom" for a little bit, which was a Ukranian trio really.
And I sort of hit a dead spot in about 2006. I was hired to work Cirque de la Mère at Busch Gardens' Sea World, & I lost that gig, I fumbled something. And somebody sent me an audition notice for a corporate clown, salaried, with health benefits. And it was in L.A. And I said "Nobody hires clown with salaries & benefits," so I gotta check it out! And I showed up, I did the interview, & at the end of the interview they told me that the character was Ronald McDonald. And they said straight up "Do you have any trouble with that?" And I said "Nope!" So I just took the job, & I did honestly have some pretty complicated inner conflicts, but I took the job. And I think right now what we used to call the Ronald McDonald Program is no longer working, it's no longer up & running. I think maybe around 2017 or so they might have disassembled it. There's probably still one actor who does any print or TV ads as Ronald McDonald right now. But up until 2017 there were about 300 clowns around the world making appearances in what we would call "Activating" Ronald, or "Animating" Ronald. And I did that in Southern California, the Los Angeles area, five counties, for 5 & 1/2 yrs [2008-2013]. And that's the biggest market in the world.
GP: That's a really long time to have one gig. That's amazing! So...what was that like? Did you speak? I'm assuming you spoke as a Ronald?
DR: Yea. I was able to bring the speaking skills into it. So...Ronald is a speaking clown, he does magic, he also happens to be, because he's an icon, he's a headliner, he's not a supporting act for anything, no matter what he goes into. And he's toured around the world internationally, so he's got red carpet treatment basically. But he can appeal to adults, of any age, & also children, which is part of the draw. So what excited me about it as soon as I got signed on was like--wow!--it actually took every skill I had ever learned up until then, not just in clowning, not just in dance, not just in performance, but we also had to drive trucks, we had to set up stages, we had to run our own sound, we had to run lights sometimes, we had to join festivals, or parades, & figure out who to work with. But yea, magic, we performed magic. Close-up magic as well as larger production pieces for stages. And then there was always the talking piece. It was almost always educational. The Ronald McDonald Program when I got into it had no need or agenda to speak about the food as a promotional element, so that was never our job. Of course the kids wanted to come tell us how much they loved the french fries after the show. But what we were doing was trying to talk about educational topics that were relevant to whatever situation. And then there was always Meet-&-Greet. And outside of that, in & above that, we were also sometimes working in hospitals, or with Shriner's, & children in all different states of physical suffering. So it was huge. Sometimes working with Hollywood stars as well, & being on a lot in Hollywood with famous people. So it really covered a lot of ground, & I was quite pleased to do all that.
GP: How many people were in your crew with you?
DR: The Southern California/Los Angeles area consisted of let's say six of us. Four of us were basically full time. But there were times during the year mostly like Christmas time where they might need several appearances at once, & so we had two back-ups. They were both very well trained. All of these people are still working in theatre, & some of them in clowning to this day. And the background of the guys that I worked with has always been amazing, it's always showed what it really true about clowns which is that every clown is completely different, & every clown brings something completely different to the table. Usually we bring about twelve or twenty four things to the table! And it's just astonishing. One's a juggler, I'm a dancer, another does magic really well, another one is into music, does the ukulele, there's the rola-bola. So many skills. So each of these guys really had quite a lot of speciality to them. Most of us also dabbled a little bit in film & in television because we were in Los Angeles as well. So did I.
GP: What kind of film & television work did you end up doing?
DR: I mean I honestly thought that the film scene was brutal. I never wanted to try to make it as an actor in Los Angeles. It seemed brutal, & then when I got there that definitely seemed to be true. But I got invited from friends who were doing projects. I worked on an independent feature called "Benjamin Troubles" playing a street performer. I worked with a wonderful clown [comedienne], April Hava Schenkman who did a web-series. It was called "The Happy Happy Show," & was very proud to work with her. And I did several shows with her live, as well. And I did a pilot that never took off. It was all about a taco truck, which is totally Southern California, you know. And since then, I've gotten back here, & I've dabbled in a couple of other film pieces. I started working in film in 1992 working with some animated [short films], so it was a through-line. But yea, I'd love to do some of the roles that the great actors are doing. But I don't know if the industry lets us in. But anyway...
GP: So where did you go from Ronald? What was the next stage of your career?
DR: I left the Ronald McDonald Program in 2013. I hadn't been teaching in many years, I'd just been able to live off performance. I guess, backing up a minute to mention, it feels important to me: I was able to work with Cirque du Soleil in Los Angeles as well. So here's another little snapshot of Los Angeles which is quite wonderful which is that all the variety artists that are in Los Angeles they know each other, & they've been working together some of them since the 70's or the 80's. So the clown that you saw in a VW commercial in 1980, is the guy that you're stilt-walking with out in front of the El Capitan Theatre for the latest Disney animated feature opening. And that's just how it is. We all know each other. When people came to town to Los Angeles to tach workshops, we all showed up together.
And Cirque du Soleil came to audition. And they took a dozen of us, & they put us in the Special Events Department. Which meant that they'd put us in makeup & costumes, & set us loose at parties to promote the upcoming show. So I was able to spend quite a while promoting "IRIS: A Journey Through Cinema" was the name of the show that landed in Hollywood. John Gilkey was the lead clown. And each of us were sort of given an understudy role that we were looking forward to. But the show eventually closed, & most of us didn't end up getting those understudy roles. Although a couple of folks went on to work with some of the traveling shows. Jon Monastero went off to work with "Totem." Eric Davis went off to work with "Alegria." And John Gilkey has been teaching. He was teaching his signature form of comedy all that time in L.A. as well. I got to study with him & perform with him, & it's very unique what he does as a teacher.
DR: Absolutely. And as a teacher he's got something quite interesting as well. So 2013 I guess a lot of things happened. "Mid-Life" happened for me. I was forty-three at the time. I had a lot of changes come up, & some of them came up around the family. My father went into dementia.
I lost some of my oldest living relatives. And then there was some in-fighting in my family. It was a very tumultuous time for me personally. And part of living in Los Angeles over a five & a half year period I didn't realize was making me ill. Actually the smog. And I really tried to make it [work], & be strong. But physically it was taking its toll on me. And I was driving a lot. I was driving up to four hours a day on Los Angeles freeways with a truck with [a picture of] Ronald McDonald on the side! And a lot of driving, & that's affected my back. And I just kind of hit a wall. And I felt like I wanted to switch out, & maybe take off the make-up, perhaps work less with kids, & to try to get into some more adult comedy, &/or theatre. And I didn't really know what to do. It's been a long & mixed up road since then. But I went back to San Francisco. And I did end up working with Gregangelo's Velocity Circus again several times.
"Fashion Rocks" Event with Gregangelo's Velocity Circus, SF, 2015
And also with the Vau de Vire Society, so that was some very adult material.
"Hell in the Armory" Vau de Vire Society, SF, Halloween 2014
And...I just got to say it: two of my best collaborations ever were with our friends Kelly "Texas" Holly, & my other one was with Circole Beye. And these are the two people that I've done the best work [with that] I've done so far. Eventually I left San Francisco for Boulder. And I worked with a circus there for a little bit. [The Phantom Circus] But I picked up & came back to the East Coast in 2017, & I couldn't completely tell you why yet. But I'm still here trying to figure it out!
GP: Getting a little more into the esoteric. Well first actually, you mentioned the collaborations that you enjoyed the most. What is a role or a project that you are the most proud of?
DR: Thank you! I was really proud to work with Texas doing the chainsaw gag, which I know you did as well. And we did another collaboration I can't quite remember right now.
But also with CirCole. I tend to pronounce his name "Sir Cole" but it is Circole. And we threw a duet together called the Stick Brothers. Basically we were suit & tie, hat & cane wearing vaudevillians, with a little bit of a devilish spin. And we did a stick-twirling act. We did several shows together.
.jpg)
The character that I'm working as now, when I bring him out to open-mic rooms at the moment is Pip. And he's half of the Stick Brothers. And...my ability to take what I did with Circole has just been spinning out, & helping me create who Pip is now. I do a little bit of magic, I do a stick-twirling act, & I've been writing a lot of patter, & a lot of jokes. And actually just to ramble a bit also the next thing that I've been working on is...sort of an evening performance of songs. I have about twelve or thirteen songs that I'd like to sing live, & with the jokes in between & such. A couple of them with some dancing, but I haven't yet found the musicians to back me up. But it's a project I'm working on right now.
GP: ...I've been looking to do some more musical acts myself. Some more singing. And I'm lucky that I have...Nick Dixon & I are in a troupe together, & so we're trying to work on some music-based acts as part of the performance style that we do for that troupe.
DR: You play the ukulele, is that right, if I remember?
GP: I play a little bit of concertina...I've been playing the concertina for fifteen years. And I started off being able to play about ten things. And now I'm up to...three.
DR: That's rough!
GP: So who are some of your heroes? What are the clowns who influenced who you ended up becoming?
DR: Oh, that's great! I love this question because I have so much to say, & because I've been around since the 70's. So I...went to Ringling, I saw Lou Jacobs, I saw Emmett Kelly, I saw Otto Griebling as a kid. I also grew up watching...We had a restaurant back in Albany, New York where I grew up. It was called The Ground Round. And when you went inside the floor was covered in sawdust. And on the bar you had baskets of peanuts & popcorn. ...The tables that you ate at were on top of barrels, & you had endless peanuts & popcorn. And then there were televisions playing Laurel & Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton non-stop.
So I really admired Laurel & Hardy. And I've come to identify a lot with Stan Laurel in some ways. Charlie Chaplin for sure. As a teenager I saw the Harlem Globetrotters, I saw Mummenschanz--which is a great physical [performance troupe], & they're coming back now, they're making a return tour this year, which is just phenomenal. And I also got introduced to...I think it was called The Festival of Fools when I was a [teenager] I saw The Flying Karamazov Brothers, & Django Edwards, & some of the people that worked with Smirkus. And then on the of course on the big screen I was deeply influenced by Robin Williams. And literally the "Popeye" film of 1980, which featured Bill Irwin, & a whole bunch of folks from The Pickle Family Circus. And I never knew that I would end up working with these people one day.
But Bill Irwin has held a high standard that a lot of us are trying to live up to. His nickname...is The Clown Prince. And then David Shiner is the person that I saw in...let's say '89 or '91 or something, doing a show with Cirque du Soleil. And I said "I can do that. I wanna do that. How do I do that? And I didn't even go after it for another seven or eight years. But I always kind odf wanted to do a little bit of what he did. Although...Shiner has a little bit of a tougher edge that's not really my style that I couldn't do. But I also saw The Big Apple Circus. And a huge influence was the Happy Hour Clown Trio. So that was: Matthew Morgan, Ambrose Martos, & Mark Gindick. And they're all still working. And I hope you can get them all on your show one day too, each of them. They just did a reunion tour. And people like the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, Keith Nelson, he had people in his show like Magic Brian, Scotty the Blue Bunny. And all these people are still working.
...And then there was another watershed moment for me. I was in Italy, studying clowning. And the University had brought Slava Polunin to perform part of "Slava's Snowshow." And so I was twenty-eight, studying clowning in Rome. And I saw this show, & I said "I like this style, this is beautiful, it's very unique. I want to do something like this, but not exactly." And I'd never seen anything like it before, the style that we could call Poetic Clowning. But I took a few things from Slava. And eventually I ended up working with Dimitri Bogatiriev who was his colleague. He's the founder of "Aga-Boom." And their styles are very similar. And ultimately I was never really good at the Ukranian style, I have to admit, I was terrible. I could never do what they needed me to do, I tried really hard. But I learned a lot of skills. And then at clown school I loved working with Gregangelo Velocity Circus, I loved seeing Frank Olivier & Paul Nathan work together, as well as Michael David at Teatro ZinZanni. So I also have to mention that Teatro ZinZanni is really a high benchmark throughout the years, & everybody who's worked with them.
And then finally, just to throw in, another aspect is sort of the more satirical circuses like Circus Amok in New York City, & The San Francisco Mime Troupe which are doing political [themed] circus work. All these people have influenced me, & I just keep trying to go on.
GP: That's great! That's quite a litany of influences. So you've already mentioned this a little bit, but just to elaborate, what is a role or project that you've always wanted to pursue, but for whatever reason you just haven't been able to yet.
DR: Ooo! Well actually that's a juicy question because it's fun to think about how as a kid I just wanted to do musicals. I wanted to perform in musicals. And I was lucky, I grew up with a brother & two sisters, & we would just get together with our neighbors & perform the entire show of "Grease," or "The Muppet [Movie]." The entire thing, & all the songs. So I grew up doing that. I think that's something that I've always wanted to do, & now I think of myself as a rather experienced physical comedien. Like I want to do a role like the Grinch on Broadway, you know it's a really exciting role. Or even "Mrs. Doubtfire" is now casting. They're doing "Mrs. Doubtfire" as a musical, & that's just wild to me! But things like that. Roles that call for interesting physical actors, & physical comediens. Anything that Bill Irwin has done, & everything that Doug Jones is doing in Hollywood by the way [& also Andy Serkis]! Yea, those are definitely things I hope to do. I don't know. Maybe I can make my way back to NYC. I spent twelve years there in the past. So, we'll see.
GP: So what is next for you? What do you have coming up the soonest?
DR: I guess...I have to explain that I've been pretty inactive. I've been here in Western Mass getting by with wage work. And sometimes with gig work, off-&-on since 2013. I've had a couple of pet projects that I've been working on. And so one of them is...an evening of song. I call that "The Love Tour!" All the songs are about Love. It's in four different languages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, & English. All these different songs. Different eras, back to the 1920's or 1930's. And the other thing I've been working on...I've been working on an act for Pip which would be suitable as an M.C. character who could also do little bits between other acts.
And I've been very slowly, slowly working on a memoir about my experience as a performer since 1977. And I thought I would have gotten more done by now but it's a slow process!
GP: Ok. So one last question before I let you go. If you were to tag one other person to be on the podcast after you who would it be?
DR: Well, I was definitely thinking about that, & I think you should talk to Ambrose Martos. Yea, I think he's got a really interesting career. He just played Circus Flora in St. Louis.
And then in the realm of female clowns you'll probably remember Cynthia Schmynthia/Cynthia Aviance Rauschert who has just made a comeback this summer working with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. Yea, it was really nice to see that she's back out there now. And those are two people I definitely thought of for you.
And I just want to mention also it's a pleasure to listen to all of the interviews you've done. Some of them I haven't gotten through yet. And it's nice also because there are three or four other interview platforms out there, & that includes James Donlon [& Karen Hoyer]'s "Mime Radio" show, & Barnaby King who's doing "Clown Spirit: Clown-Versations". It's all been very inspiring. Some of the people that interviewed are--I haven't seen everything, but I've worked with so many of those people, & it's just great!
And finally, just to let you know--although I'm behind the times, I have a Webpage. It's a single page.
GP: Oh, yea! How can people find you?
DR: You can find me by coming to Western Massachusetts & visiting Whole Foods in Hadley, where I'm on four days a week! No, but then online, if you look up https://about.me/davidroe it's a one page Webpage, & there's a couple of buttons for videos, & there's a link to my Facebook. I'm on Facebook as David Roe, & then I manage my page for Pip, my alternate personality. And you can see a couple of the videos I've made there, & a couple of the short films I've made recently. Hopefully one day I'll find [someone] to help me make a real website.
GP: Great--thank you Pip!
DR: Yea--thank you, thank you. It's a pleasure! Thank you take care!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.