Austin Has a Clown Class

The City Kid Gone Country Returns to Teach Tom Foolery

The oversized, metallic Chevy truck I’ve been borrowing from Alan’s family ranch winked at me as I spun around to give it a last peek. It stuck out. Leaving it parallel-parked on the narrow Austin city street amidst the average-sized sedan carried a deserving dose of joke. It looked like how I felt—obscurely located. Stuffing my receipt in the pocket of my overalls, I smiled. I am a country bumpkin in the making, and the city feels more foreign to me than it ever did.

Making my way down the sidewalk, I lept about the curbside architecture as I did for many years. More tentatively, though. My movements through the city space felt less like the sturdy, scrawling signature they once were and more like a self-aware, hesitant remembering. Living in cities without a car, catching the bus from gig to gig, errand to errand, while frolicking with my balloon was once a most effortless manner of being. A way of being that very much tied me to myself.

Even before I moved to the mainland from Hawaii, I’d ask my Dad to drop me off in the grime of Honolulu’s Chinatown. There, I would stomp about in my Converse and dresses and take film photography of the market and houseless community. I learned a lot from those kind people–how quickly an injury can turn a life inside out to land a person squarely on the streets.

The filter of tarnished dreams that lay over cities once made me feel so…at home. More so than any suburban rental I’d occasionally hole up in. Cities are beautiful but grotesque. They ooze the magic of in-betweens and perhapses. Anything can happen. The song of a city is both silent and filled with a million unique and timeless little shouts all at once.

An hour's drive away, my cozy home in small-town Texas dreamt of me as the dusk tucked it in. As it nestled into the night, listening to the lullaby of crickets and the wind in trees.

Turning the corner, I saw the swinging sign for the Fallout Theater. The Fallout Theater! Where I’d be teaching for the next lot of time. CLOWN 101. Austin’s first regularly offered clown class. Not a one-off workshop or a brief stint of clownportunity, but a home for it to live and grow.

I am buoyant with gratitude and curiosity for the packed list of students who eagerly joined my class.

Who are they? Why are they doing this?

I recognized the place. I’d done a stand-up set while running on a treadmill here as a guest on a show a few years back. It has a lovely foyer. One that appropriately presents as “Theater!” “Black Box!” “Weird!” “Supportive!” “Cool!” “Bar!”

Flashbacks of when I was interning at Los Angeles’ Upright Citizens Brigade’s theater on Franklin flooded my heart. It was all so familiar. Yet, I sensed in myself such an… otherness.

Checking in with the barkeep, I discovered she’d be joining the class, too. Her excitement made me nervous.

Who are they? Why are they doing this?

She pointed me in the direction of the classroom and disclosed that she had no idea what I was referring to when I asked about the passes I was supposed to hand out to students.

“I guess the teacher’s handbook is old, cause I’ve never seen those.”

Heard.

I felt like my truck parked out on the street. Made for this, but noticably sticking out.

The classroom was small and smelled like cigarettes. It was eerie. Red walls. Haunted vibes… “RedRum” was appropriately bleeding from the disheveled door.

The students slowly filtered in. And off we went to the hippodrome.

Our class show is October 3rd. If you’re in the area, I’d appreciate your support of these brave students. Honestly, having a class show after a 101 is absolutely wild. That’s what the theater wanted! And it’s bold. They are so fresh! But also, so great. There is so much uncertainty in their understanding of what we are doing. But that is clown! There is no clear answer to what it is or to what a show will be.

I’ve quickly learned that explaining it is not an option. Some will get it, and some will keep trying to, and some will give up for more familiar modalities of performance.

“Clowning is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument while people stare at you.”

- Samuel Butler / English Author

Again, I urge you to join us on October 3rd to see what these daring performers attempt. I have no idea what we’ll get up to for the show, but we are halfway through this inaugural effort, and something that combines the differing West and East Coast clowning experience is shaping up.

Austin! Thank you. I am not of you, but I am here for you.

A hui ho,

Julia Fae