What’s happening?
Play in a day!
Join us for a whirlwind day of creativity, collaboration, and circus magic! Designed for students ages 7 to 12, this immersive experience invites young performers to devise, play, and create alongside seasoned instructors. Through mask, mime, clowning, juggling, acrobatics, object manipulation, and more, students will craft their own original performance—culminating in a spectacular final show at 3pm!
Drea’s Clown Lab Workshop
Kick off with playful games, dive into the psychology of comedy, creativity, and connection, then wrap up with low-pressure, hands-on stage experiments. Perfect for aspiring clowns, comedians, improvisers, teachers, facilitators, hosts—or anyone who wants to bring more humor, curiosity, and authenticity to the stage and beyond. Come ready to play, laugh, and explore what it means to be unapologetically human!
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!
Larval Mask Workshop
In this unique workshop at Church of Clown, mask maker and teacher Jamin Jollo will guide students through a world of improvised play using Larval/Basel masks to hone delightfully eccentric physicality and kindle the flames of character discovery.
Bring Life 2 U
Bring Life 2 U is an original song and dance performance of vast scope and profound meaning. Experience the full human lifespan in only 30 minutes! This show features handmade costumes, original choreography, and unstoppable dance music, courtesy of nightmayor, the underground musical theater sensation from Olympia, Washington. Do not miss this once in a lifetime chance to see a lifetime all at once!
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
Student Showcase Winter 2025
Come check out what the heck has been going on at that colorful new spot in Vis Valley for - you got that right - ABSOLUTELY FREE!
Clown & the Animate World
Step into the playful, unpredictable, and joyfully chaotic world of clowning! This workshop explores the profound connection between the clown’s body and the animate world around them. Through the lenses of physical comedy, slapstick, knockabout, and prop play, participants will discover how to transform simple actions into moments of hilarity.
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
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 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 :)
Mime Flow
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.
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.
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.
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 !!!
