![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2025\/09\/091625_A-ClownShow_Theatre_50.jpg\")
Doug Berky \u201995, left, directs Furman students as they rehearse clowning in The Playhouse theater for \u201cA ClownShow.\u201d Photo by Nathan Gray, Furman University.<\/p><\/div>\n
As a group of Furman University students found out this semester, theatrical clowning means dialing into oneself, being expressive and in the moment, free of distractions. Not that moment, this<\/em> one. Then this<\/em> one. The students spent three weeks learning clown techniques from Doug Berky \u201995<\/a>, a renowned clown and mask maker who lives near Table Rock, South Carolina.<\/p>\n Using their new skills, the students created a one-hour family-friendly production, “A ClownShow,”<\/a> that runs Sept. 24-27 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 28 at 2 p.m., on Furman\u2019s campus in The Playhouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clowns are innocent, and they \u201creveal to us the things that we try not to be, but we really are,\u201d said Berky, who is directing “A ClownShow.” We can relate to the guy who slips on the banana peel, or, like Dick Van Dyke, an ottoman. Sometimes their TV shows get canceled.<\/p>\n The Theatre Arts Department<\/a> regularly brings in playwrights or guest artists, like Berky, to work on student-driven or student-written shows, said Maegan Azar<\/a>, chair of the department.<\/p>\n “A ClownShow” is a departure from theater that begins with a script and stage directions. Theatrical clowning is storytelling that unfolds from characters\u2019 reactions.<\/p>\n \u201cClown logic is child logic. They\u2019re very curious to explore things. What can a beach ball be? What can a puppet do? What kind of relationships can be investigated by boiling theater down to one really specific choice and exploring that?,\u201d Azar said.<\/p>\n The change gets the students flexing different theatrical muscles.<\/p>\n Allison Dewberry \u201927, a theatre arts major from Greer, South Carolina, grew up doing children\u2019s theater. At Furman she\u2019s played serious roles, but ClownShow is pushing her \u201cboundaries of outlandish. It\u2019s freeing to come into a space and be willing to play with the other actors. It\u2019s very joyful. It doesn\u2019t have to make sense, and that\u2019s ok.\u201d<\/p>\n Clown work transcends the theater, Azar said, with valuable lessons that apply throughout life.<\/p>\n \u201cThis kind of work teaches students to live in the space, to be in community with other people, to make eye contact and share ideas, and throw things away if they\u2019re not working and not take that personally,\u201d Azar said.<\/p>\n The lesson Berky hopes to impart is for students to be authentic. \u201cEven in the art of clowning it\u2019s a different style of theater, it\u2019s bigger movement-wise, but it\u2019s still very real,\u201d he said. The hardest thing for many clown students to learn is feeling comfortable being expressive. \u201cWhen you do theater, you\u2019re revealing a big part of your heart because we\u2019re (portraying) different emotions and things. We want actors to be present and be in each moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that moment. This<\/em> one.<\/p>\n The cast of “A ClownShow” are: Noah Bridgers \u201927 from Columbia, South Carolina; Allison Dewberry \u201997, from Greenville, South Carolina; Harper Jacobs \u201929 from Nashville, Tennessee; Lillian Jordan \u201929 from Chapin, South Carolina; Sloane Kennedy \u201929 from Georgetown, Texas; Claire Rheinecker \u201929 from Kannapolis, North Carolina; Victoria Schenone \u201927 from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Cianna Williams \u201929 from Bedford, Ohio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This Furman student-created production is based on theatrical clowning, a character-driven art that requires an actor to be dialed into oneself and free to follow their curiosity. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":39402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theatre-arts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39424"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39515,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39424\/revisions\/39515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}