Every Tuesday morning, students in “Clown: Art of Play” leave the world behind them. For the next three hours, they’re not just college students — they’re clowns.
Red noses go on, a few students are called to the stage and laughter fills the room. One performer freezes mid-act, lost in thought, then bursts into laughter at their own hesitation. Michael Brown, an associate professor in the School of Theatre and Dance, steps forward with a grin and a few words of encouragement.
Brown said the art of clowning has two sides: developing a personal relationship with comedy and uncovering a “golden ticket,” an exaggerated piece of themselves that defines their clown. The goal, he said, is to explore both sides, break rules and learn not to fear failure.
“There’s a basic package of human failings, human vulnerabilities that will lead us into shame or lead us into some sort of masking,” Brown said. “When we laugh at something, we’re freed in a way from it even for just a moment from our anxiety, our oppression of it.”
For comedy courses to work, there has to be room for both discipline and spontaneity. The best classes balance humor with mutual respect and recognize that material drawn from everyday life requires sensitivity and trust.
Part-time instructor Britt Anderson, who’s been teaching within the comedy writing and performance major at Columbia since 2020, had gone through trials and tribulations during their start of teaching but soon found their own close morals and how they approach their teaching skills to their students.
“You can’t make any assumptions as an instructor about what a student is going through at the moment,” Anderson said. “You don’t know their backgrounds. You don’t know what their family and home life situation is like. You don’t know how big of a commute they have.”
Anderson said that being restricting and overly cautious about comedy isn’t an option, even when material touches on current politics or uncomfortable topics. They believe everyone has the right to respond to what’s happening in their students’ lives and communities, and comedy is a way to do it.
“I don’t think anyone wants to see cautious comedy.” They said, “I think it’s important, especially in a classroom setting, to create a place where people can take risks and learn what is too far for them, or learn through their peers what feels risky or feels exciting.”
Some comedy students find classes like the clown course to be an open place for students to be themselves and share their work with other students.
Senior musical theatre major Beau Lamb said the class exceeded their expectations, becoming their favorite class this semester. With an already established background of clowning in their previous comedy courses, this class has been able to offer an extension in exploring the art of clownary, being a freeing space for Lamb and their peers to act and play.
“I know that even if I am not feeling great that day, even if I don’t think that I’m particularly funny that day, just showing up, being me is more than enough,” they said.
Senior theatre directing major Maybelle Patterson took the course out of an artistic and academic interest in clowning and wasn’t sure what to expect at first. “I was nervous prior to the class but I felt great after taking a couple classes and learning more.” Patterson said.
For other students, the class also became a space to let go of fear and rediscover joy in performance. Junior theater major Brooke Rose said safety and openness Brown’s class offers is what makes it unique. Rose deals with some performance anxiety but when she stands in front of the class to perform, it gets less scary for her.
“There’s such a different feeling in that room than any of my other classrooms because you are there to discover something new about yourself and to have fun,” she said.
For other students, the class became less about comedy and more about confidence. Patterson has found the class to be a great activity for getting out of their head and becoming more confident.
Lamb agreed, adding that the lessons reached far beyond performance. “I think that anyone can find things to bring into their everyday life from, it teaches skills that are important, even though it seems like it’s just like, ‘oh, it’s clowning’,” Lamb said. “It’s really teaching about life and being an artist and I think that’s really important.”
Rose said that in Brown’s classroom, she and her classmates could let their inner child roam free — free of judgment, free of control. “You can see all of us in this room coming in and trying to be put together and ready for class,” she said. “And then Mike was like, ‘no, we’re going to strip it down and we are going to just play.’”
Copy edited by Brandon Anaya
