What’s happening?
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month
Good Ol’ American Satire
Inauguration gotcha down? Head over to the Church you wish was married to state, Church of Clown, for Good Ol’ American Satire: an evening of political comedy by clowns and queens you’ll love to hate while they fly our Americana Pride high in the sky.
Beyond the Fourth Wall
The clown's relationship to the audience is at the heart of what makes this theatrical style vibrant and powerful. Audience participation and interaction is rarely focused on in clown training and this element of performance is so valued when well done. Oftentimes audience engagement is under rehearsed because it is hard to simulate. In this workshop we will explore techniques, methodology and practical skills of working with audience participants, creating interactive characters and creating effective gags, games and bits that use the audience as partners in your performance.
Mime Flow
Description:
Unlock the next level of mime artistry with Mime Flow, a workshop designed for intermediate and advanced practitioners seeking to refine their imagery and integrate written constructs into their performance. This immersive experience explores the symbiotic relationship between physical movement and narrative design, emphasizing transformational flow, line design, and dynamic expression.
CLOWN Clothing Swap 2025
Dress up and play in a giant pile of clothes!!! All clothing and people welcome, not just clowns and costumes but regular clothes too :)
3rd Annual Dirty Puppet Soirée
Come prepared for adult content, bring a puppet if you got one, and leave your purity at the door.
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month
Punching Judy
Wickedly funny, and unapologetically raw, this performance slices through patriarchal brutality, systemic violence, and domestic abuse with biting insight and humor. It lays bare the absurdity of exploitation creeping into our most intimate spaces and dares you to laugh, squirm, and reflect. Bold, daring, and darkly comedic—this is truth-telling at its most irresistible.
Clown Karaoke
Grab your friends, grab your cash, hop in the car or take the 8 bus in San Francisco, and land right in front of The Church’s door. Make a grand entrance, get your song(s) on the list, and prepare to dazzle the crowd!
Solos, duets, trios and more are most welcome. We’ll sing on stage while dancing and goofing off everywhere else, so prepare to get silly and be amazed by the sounds of the night!
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month
Falsettos and Sunsets
Falsettos and Sunsets is the story of Richard Begaldix and George Lamps, a pair of cartoony cool guys who fall in love and stumble through the world of polyamory with outrageous physical comedy, startling emotional honesty, and slapstick existential confusion.
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month *June’s Clown Drawing will deviate and be held on June 23
Clown-a-Thon
Clown-a-Thon Video Content Creation!
Join us in thanking all of the people who donated to our Winter Fundraiser.
Clown Karaoke
Grab your friends, grab your cash, hop in the car or take the 8 bus in San Francisco, and land right in front of The Church’s door. Make a grand entrance, get your song(s) on the list, and prepare to dazzle the crowd!
Solos, duets, trios and more are most welcome. We’ll sing on stage while dancing and goofing off everywhere else, so prepare to get silly and be amazed by the sounds of the night!
Fall 2024 Bouffon Class Recital
It’s gonna be something…else.
Show starts promptly at 7pm!
Fall 2024 Mime Class Recital
Join us for the Mime student showcase, where we build worlds out of nothing! Each recital, the mimes steal the show, so they’ve earned their own performance.
Show starts promptly at 7pm!
Bangtail
Baddest. Cowboy. Texas. These are just a few words to describe the Baddest Cowboy in Texas. He roots n’ toots n’ roots from the mightiest mountains to the sauciest saloons. But what happens when a Badder Cowboy-er Texas-er (AKA his nemesis) rides into town and steals his title?
BANGTAIL is an epic tale of a man in search of his manhood. So saddle up for an hour of unbridled cowboy clown chaos as our hero journeys from the Wild West to the American office.
Fresh from a sold out tour in the US (March 2024), a sold-out run in Edinburgh, and a transfer to SOHO Theatre in London BANGTAIL is back in his home territory and … dare he say it … on the road again!
Fall 2024 Mask Class Recital
Join us at the Church of Clown to see our first Mask recital. For the past 10 weeks, the students have developed characters and transformed themselves physically, learning the technique of mask work.
Recital starts promptly at 7pm!
Fall 2024 Clown Class Recital
Come see what our students have been creating!
Our students have been studying and training in clown for 10 weeks. Join us for their end of session recital. Laugh your butt off and come support A R T!
These recitals are some of our favorite performances of the year every time.
Show will start promptly at 7!
Clown Drawing
Calling all visual artists! Join us at Church of clown for drawing sessions with live clown models! Bring your own materials.
Every third Sunday of the month *June’s Clown Drawing will deviate and be held on June 23
FLOP FEST ‘24 Awards Ceremony
💥 Sunday, November 3 at 7pm. Join us for food, awards, drinks, laughs, & a celebration of the beauty & frivolity of life. Bring something to share if you please. Bring your friend, bring yourself, bring a joke — 🐓 see you there.
Help Wanted
Running from la Migra, a runaway child slips into the big top and becomes bonded to circus life in an exchange that sends them on a search to find themselves and their place on the stage.
Inspiritus
Breathing with spirit, alive in a fervent dream, yearning to be filled with the Muses
Ultimately to create great work an artist must confront the epic powers of Muse… and also themself. How does the artist relate to their art? Is the muse lurking around every corner or do you have to pull her out of the corners of the earth?
As the World Rises and Falls
Foggy Notion brings their previously sold out show back to Church of Clown for Flop Fest
Do you believe everything you see? Do you stop to question it? How far will you go to preserve your illusions? As the World Rises and Falls follows the journey of two circus performers living in tattered ruins of what used to be their glory days. Under the dilapidated big top we watch their reality unravel before our very eyes.
A live theatre experience of psychedelic proportions, As the World Rises and Falls is a new devised work of physical theatre told through the style of clown, sans the red nose. Brimming with infectious energy from start to finish, this piece is a kaleidoscope of acrobatic embodiment, spectacle, and straight up stupidity! Prepare yourselves for the strange, absurd, and daringly delicious. These clowns are ready to do whatever it takes to preserve their way of life.
Foggy Notion Physical Theatre is an up & coming company on a mission to create new works of theater that use clown as an absurd and fantastical foundation to tell human stories.
Laura Murillo Hart (she/her) is a physical-theater freak and musician from Miami, Florida. She is passionate about creating works of theater that bend reality and free the mind to play! @lauramurillohart
Mark Farrell (He/They) is a performing artist, environmental scientist, and aspiring old person, hailing from Miwok and Nisenan territory, or Sacramento, CA. He creates work at the intersection of intention and identity with an emphasis on being responsive to the crises of our time.
Mime Masterclass with James Donlon
Discover the fundamentals of Neo-classic Mime taught by master teacher James Donlon. Explore gesture, energy, form, improvisation, and poetic illusion through introductory exercises inspired by James’ 50 years of international performance and teaching. James was the founder of San Francisco's iconic Flying Actor Studio which trained many physical theater performances you've seen in Flop Fest! Molly M Shannon and Nikolas Strubbe included.
Spend your Sunday at the Church. Come for the workshop, head to 7 mile house for dinner, and then come back for the show at 8!
Mime Songs
James Donlon explores surreal worlds, the state of dreams, and social commentary through his unique athletic mime style. Mime Songs mixes Donlon classics with new material filled with comedy, absurdity, and mystery provoking a clear look at the human condition. Donlon's signature mime technique has been seen around the world since 1970.
Oh, Johnny!
Dive into a shadowy world of parlor seances and film noir plot twists. Gildana Desdemona, a down on her luck (or down on her talent?) mystic medium is desperate to resuscitate her career as a successful prophetess. With occasional help from her deceased scene partner, Gildana communes with the spirit realm, meets old flames, encounters new ones, foretells the future and dwells in the past. Join internationally touring San Francisco clown Molly M. Shannon for this one woman clown play featuring old time dialogue with spiritualist shenanigans thrown in! This show is crafted to bewitch and bemuse.
The Bluebird
Take flight with The Bluebird, a wordless & bittersweet journey of dreams and dreamers that invites the audiences to engage with themes of identity, exclusion, and resilience. This production is inspired by Charles Bukowski's evocative poem The Bluebird, Basishvili's own immigration story, and the experiences of countless others who have left their homes for other lands. It poses questions about society's response to the aspirations of newcomers who tenuously hold onto hope, even when their dreams feel unattainable. “There’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out,” opens the first line of Bukowski’s poem, “…I only let him out at night sometimes, when everybody’s asleep.”
Flop Festival 2024
Clowns and Queens, don your finest noses and break out your Sunday best, the Church of Clown is celebrating the beauty and frivolity of life with its 2nd Flop Festival. Spanning 6 weeks from September 13 - October 20 Flop Festival features an eclectic collection of Bay Area artists, movers, and dreamers.
Just Be Happy
The key to everlasting joy is finally here! Join us at the Church of Clown for Just Be Happy, the show that combines the spirit of clown with the emotional suppression of mankind. Observe as Klowndra lives her best hot girl summer: enjoying ice cream, roller skating, and healthy bouts of rage. Just remember, nothing can upset you if you just keep ignoring those pesky feelings!
Beach Day!!! It’s sunny, there’s plenty of snacks, and nothing is going to ruin this perfect day. Join Klowndra as she kicks back to relax in this summer time show, managing setback after setback in the most delightful way possible.
Just Be Happy is an homage to humans everywhere! Mistakes, setbacks, blunders, goofs, unexpected bird attacks– all of the things to induce the rage that we all suppress. Witness the catharsis of releasing yourself from the bonds of emotional suppression in this summer time clown show!
Ten Fold Physique
What’s more scintillating than a freshly created piece of art? Nothing! This weekend-long celebration brings together ten physical theater artists, each presenting delightfully new performances. See clown, mime, dance, and so much more; join us for "Ten Fold Physique: A Festival of New Works in Physical Theater."
Performances Friday, Saturday, Sunday night at 8pm. Each evening will present a different cast and show. Tickets range $40-$20
Spring Student Recital
Come see what our students have been creating!
Spring Session has been poppin' off, with students in the Church 3 days a week studying and training in clown and mime. Join us for their end of session recital. Laugh your butt off, be amazed by the mimes. Come support A R T! These recitals are some of our favorite performances of the year every time.
Show will start promptly at 8!
Space Suckers From Outer Space
Space Suckers from Outer Space is an outrageous, sick, partially improvised, campy, dirty, comedic romp, paying homage to retro sci fi. If you love physical theater, sexy space heroes, badass space vixens, and dirty jokes, strap on your tin foil hat and join us for adventure with SPACE SUCKERS FROM OUTER SPACE !!!
Mr Chonkers
The greatest show in the entire world
It’s a solo show. Kind of a clown show but not really. Absurd. Simple. Outrageous. Stupid. Fun. It’s terrible. An important waste of your time. It’s great. Please strongly consider all of this information before coming.
Created and performed by John Norris / Directed by Corey Podell
OFFICIAL SELECTION: British Comedy Guide’s Top Pick of Fringe
NOMINEE: Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Scotsman
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Skinny
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mervyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Fest Mag
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reyt Good Magazine
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Beyond the Joke
A Retropsection
Claire Woolner blows hard on the brutalist edges of performance art and swims into surrealist clown in this intimate evening of clown confessional. Absurdist comedic bits, playful performance pieces and authentic breakdowns, make this a work of tragicomedy at its finest. Teetering between what is intended and what is improvised, A Retrospection brings the audience on an exciting (and at times nerve wracking) ride of ego battle, failure and creativity and how to survive, discover and connect amidst them all.
“Ultimately, her absurdism answers one question: What if the performance artist Marina Abramovic were a clown?” --The New York Times
“A frantic and bewildering mash-up of clowning and performance art that is far more accessible and emotional than should be possible.” –*****The Wee Review
“There is courage in her clowning, and salvation in our laughter.” -- The TVolution
“A clown, but one whose nose is only red because it’s been smeared with blood following another primal scream of a scene.” –****Chortle
Get a Grip
Get a Grip! is about an ex circus performer turned stagehand with high hopes to be the next superstar. Our underdog is preparing for the big show, doing work they always do in the shadows. But there's a big problem: the performers never arrive! Will our backstage hero rediscover their desire to have a better life and fulfill their dreams once again!?
This solo clown show uses physical comedy and circus acts rarely seen in the US such as: plate spinning, jar juggling, 12ft bamboo pole umbrella manipulation. If you don't know what those things are, you better come find out! Be whisked away to a distorted realm of this oddly eccentric "underdog" and their authentic and strange reality!
“The poetically mischievous clown, Faeble Kievman, infuses his clowning with moving depth .. Faeble’s employment of pole-balancing and jar juggling provides audiences with glimpses of
Chinese skills rarely seen in America”.
— Judy Finelli, Spectacle Magazine
Gastro Absurdo
Gastro Absurdo is a comic culinary confection, a cosmic clown show, blending together the celestial whimsy of the cosmos with the art of the kitchen. With a pinch of this and a dash of that we come together to defy the imagination. Amidst the chaos, sugar and spice mingle with stardust, creating an absurd and delightful experience. Prepare to be enchanted at this all ages show!
Friday, Saturday and Sunday April 12-14. Fri and Sat @ 8PM Sun @ 3PM
The Method Prix
From the mad genius behind international clown drag hit Butt Kapinski comes the next spectacle in audience involvement. Silver fox film auteur Vincent Prix (masterclown Deanna Fleysher) wants to make a new classic of American cinema, starring hot hero Dylan Thruster (LA's wild child Brooke Sciacca) and you. " * * * * Wonderfully sloppy to the point of falling apart at the seams" —Edmonton Journal. Expect egomaniacs, exploding seltzer, homoeroticism, and deep art. Ages 16+
Holy Fools Day Parade
Join us for Church of Clown's Third Annual Holy Fools Day Parade!
We shall gather and parade to celebrate the holiness that is silly, joy, and laughter. Don yourself in your most joyous clown threads and gather at The Church at 10am to prepare for a parade up to our local park. We will be easy to find, so if you're running late, just look up the block for the clowns bumbling their way up the street.
Post parade we’ll congregate for food and yummy potluck. Bring things to share!
See you there!
*Sold Out* Death to Realism
Death to Realism is a dance party, a puppet show and a mystical experience. It infuses positive energy and motivational concepts with magical thinking and comedy. It's an existential thought experiment about the ideas that you hold as true can often be holding you back, limiting you and keeping you from letting magic in. It's about breaking down those beliefs and getting outside of the box in your head.
