NYC Is Having a Clownaissance

On a particularly muggy evening in June, a crowd of about 60 crammed into an even stickier venue on the Lower East Side to watch a man in a rainbow diaper stick his head through a toilet seat and scream, "I'm a piece of shit!" This was, of course, after the diapered man kicked a skateboard labeled "idiot ride" into the front row ("Splash zone! I’m not hurt!" a voice from the crowd reassured), but before a performer called Li'l Debbie wrangled an onlooker on stage using a small fishing net. Another, billed as Lizzy Sunshine, asked the audience if we believed in God as she launched into a flawlessly executed split.

Welcome to The Idiot's Hour, a weekly clowning revue hosted by performing artist Matthew Silver. Founded in the summer of 2023, the show has become a proving ground for a burgeoning clown cohort that has blossomed since the pandemic. Along with monthly showcases like Down To Clown and Fool Around The Block, The Idiot's Hour provides space for comedians who might otherwise feel excluded from traditional clowning. In New York, which has historically been dominated by stand-up comedy, clowning—with its emphasis on audience interaction and physical acting—is an appealingly embodied alternative. As I watched patrons at the Idiot’s Hour form a conga line that wrapped around the bar, I started to understand the liberatory possibilities of acting a little silly. 

In a city that runs on cynicism and a Hobbesian drive for self-preservation, clowning invites its performers—and viewers—to reconnect with a childlike orientation of the world. "The clown is exactly who you would be inside your body at this very moment if you had never been told, 'No,'" writes Christopher Bayes, the head of Physical Acting at Yale's David Geffen School of Drama, in his book "Discovering The Clown." "Because it lacks socialization," he adds, "the clown is free to express itself grandly and truthfully in the moment."