Justin Cimino talks about clown work and devising, how they relate to the Meisner technique, and their capacity to give voice to underserved communities in the United States and abroad.
TKS: How do you describe clown work, which is very different from the popular concept of the circus clown?
Justin: Clown work is reverting the actor back in time to rediscover the little one in each of us – about age five – before we were socialized, before anyone told us what to do or what to think or what to wear. Before anyone said, “You can’t do that.” Clown frees the actor to play with abandon, have fun, and have a very different relationship to failure. The circus clown is related, but it’s an adjacent world.
In Clown, we often devise work. Devising is another word for creating your own original theatrical work from scratch. I teach four levels of Clown at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio: In Clown I, you learn about yourself and your playfulness. In Clown II, you get your red nose and your Clown name. In Clown III and IV, you continue to flesh out who your Clown is, and I introduce devising tools, because we say that, once the clown has the red nose and a name, all it wants to do is create pieces of theatre. Clown IV culminates in the creation and sharing of a full devised piece of theatre.
TKS: How did you become involved in clown work?
Justin: I was an undergraduate at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where I studied at the Meisner Studio. Clown was required – just like voice and movement. I fell in love with it.
TKS: Why is Clown so aligned with the Meisner technique?
Justin: The main parallel is the use of the imagination. Imagination is central to Meisner, so having an additional gym for the imagination is a vital asset. In both cases, imagination is a vehicle for discovering who you are and enabling that discovery to empower you.
The first year of Meisner is all improvisational, and improvisation is another form of devising. You are creating your own work out of your imagination. In the Meisner technique, character must always be informed by you. That approach is modeled in the Clown room.
TKS: You’ve taken your love of Clown and applied it in the community. How did that happen?
Justin: After graduating from NYU, I simultaneously pursued teaching Clown and applying it. I worked in the nonprofit world as a teaching artist and also began apprenticing with Clown teachers with whom I’d studied at Tisch. After apprenticing, I began subbing for teachers as needed. I later started teaching at Tisch.
At the same time, I became involved in running an American nonprofit working in Madagascar called Zara Aina, which means “Share Life.” Zara Aina was founded by Clown teachers and helps underserved children harness the transformative power of theatrical storytelling and performance. It enables them to expand their capacity for achievement, pursue their sense of possibility, and recognize their untapped potential. It has also empowered community members in the United States from ages four to 84. I joined Zara Aina as an administrator and teaching artist and then became Artistic Director. I’m now Artistic Director Emeritus and Head of the Advisory Board.
In that context, Clown gives children in underserved communities a voice. Its focus on improvisation – or using your own voice – and its focus on joy and play are empowering.
TKS: Did you meet Terry Knickerbocker when you were studying at NYU?
Justin: No, I didn’t know Terry then. I met him when I came to interview for an administrative position at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. When we met, my passion for Clown and his for the Meisner technique immediately connected. I joined the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in 2019 as a part-time administrator and soon began teaching Clown. It caught on quickly, and now I teach all four levels of Clown at the Studio.
TKS: What’s it been like to grow as a faculty member at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio?
Justin: Five years ago, when I first joined the Terry Knickerbocker Studio, I was a part-time administrator. But I was able to grow from there in innumerable ways – as an arts administrator, as a teacher, as a leader, as a director, as a designer of artistic programming. From the beginning, Terry understood my passion for Clown work and devising, and he recognized the teacher in me. He first gave me the opportunity to teach Clown I. When he saw the students’ response and their desire to study Clown further, he asked me to teach Clown II. The same thing happened; the students wanted more. Terry then added Clown III and later Clown IV.
Five years later, I teach all four levels of Clown and devising. I’ve been able to meet and work with hundreds of students with incredible talent, and the biggest hearts, many of whom I’ve then cast in my own artistic projects outside the Studio after they graduated. When I consider all of this, I can sum it up by saying, without a doubt, that the Terry Knickerbocker Studio has been my artistic home. For that, I will always be especially grateful.
TKS: What has impressed you most about the students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio?
Justin: What’s especially impressive to me about the students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio is that they are so game, free, willing to jump into whatever the Clown asks of them. They seem to crave the work; they’re hungry for it; they keep coming back for more. That’s a very special characteristic that is pervasive at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. That’s what led to Clown going from a weekend trial offering in 2019 to becoming a pillar of the Studio’s curriculum with four levels, like voice and movement.
The students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio are also incredibly effective at forming cohesive supportive ensembles. A sense of community is a core value of the Studio. I think that in turn leads to the strong sense of ensemble in the Clown room. It’s also what provided the resilience that was key to us all surviving the COVID-19 pandemic. When the Studio shifted from in-person to virtual training at the height of the pandemic, the sense of community kept us together and helped us be there for each other.
The students also truly understand how to apply their training in Clown to their work in the Meisner acting room. When they can be more playful and imaginative there, it improves their work. And they know Terry values playfulness greatly. He wants students to be unafraid to show their truest selves, to express emotion anywhere on the spectrum – just as we did as children!
TKS: What other kinds of initiatives has the Terry Knickerbocker Studio enabled you to pursue?
Justin: In 2022, I worked with Terry to design a brand-new Summer Acting Program for High School Students – a goal Terry has had for a while. I ran the Program that year and taught Clown. The students had a wonderful time; it was very special. This year I’ve been working with Terry and Marena Dunnington, the Studio Manager, to run the program again, and we are actively recruiting high school students. The program is designed to help students find their unique artistic voices and create their own work. It includes training in Acting, Clown, Movement, and Voice. High school is a period when young artists first discover this is what they want to do, and we want to provide a space for them to cultivate that interest further.
Since I started at the Studio, I’ve also been able to create and shoot a video series for social media called “Feelings at the Fountain” – to highlight and promote further the sense of community that is so much a part of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. Each episode features me interviewing someone from the Terry Knickerbocker Studio community – a student, faculty member, or staff member – in front of the fountain that is such a prominent focal point in the entrance space at the Studio. I ask the person being interviewed, “When you look at the fountain, what do you feel?” The videos are improvisational, silly, joyful, playful – values that I’ve always tried to encourage, and I know Terry values so greatly. We’re serious about the training, about the work, but not so serious that we don’t have fun, not so serious that the Clown in each of us is stifled.
TKS: Clown work seems to be coming much more into the mainstream. Is that your sense?
Justin: Absolutely. Look at Sascha Baron Cohen. All of his outrageous stuff is Clown. Playwrights Horizons recently had three Clown shows running in repertory together. I’ve never seen that before. Emma Stone’s Academy Award-winning role in 2023’s Poor Things is essentially Clown. Clown is more a part of contemporary life than we may realize. We all benefit when the clown in us is appreciated, encouraged, and allowed to inform our approach to acting, art, and life.
Justin Cimino talks about clown work and devising, how they relate to the Meisner technique, and their capacity to give voice to underserved communities in the United States and abroad.
TKS: How do you describe clown work, which is very different from the popular concept of the circus clown?
Justin: Clown work is reverting the actor back in time to rediscover the little one in each of us – about age five – before we were socialized, before anyone told us what to do or what to think or what to wear. Before anyone said, “You can’t do that.” Clown frees the actor to play with abandon, have fun, and have a very different relationship to failure. The circus clown is related, but it’s an adjacent world.
In Clown, we often devise work. Devising is another word for creating your own original theatrical work from scratch. I teach four levels of Clown at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio: In Clown I, you learn about yourself and your playfulness. In Clown II, you get your red nose and your Clown name. In Clown III and IV, you continue to flesh out who your Clown is, and I introduce devising tools, because we say that, once the clown has the red nose and a name, all it wants to do is create pieces of theatre. Clown IV culminates in the creation and sharing of a full devised piece of theatre.
TKS: How did you become involved in clown work?
Justin: I was an undergraduate at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where I studied at the Meisner Studio. Clown was required – just like voice and movement. I fell in love with it.
TKS: Why is Clown so aligned with the Meisner technique?
Justin: The main parallel is the use of the imagination. Imagination is central to Meisner, so having an additional gym for the imagination is a vital asset. In both cases, imagination is a vehicle for discovering who you are and enabling that discovery to empower you.
The first year of Meisner is all improvisational, and improvisation is another form of devising. You are creating your own work out of your imagination. In the Meisner technique, character must always be informed by you. That approach is modeled in the Clown room.
TKS: You’ve taken your love of Clown and applied it in the community. How did that happen?
Justin: After graduating from NYU, I simultaneously pursued teaching Clown and applying it. I worked in the nonprofit world as a teaching artist and also began apprenticing with Clown teachers with whom I’d studied at Tisch. After apprenticing, I began subbing for teachers as needed. I later started teaching at Tisch.
At the same time, I became involved in running an American nonprofit working in Madagascar called Zara Aina, which means “Share Life.” Zara Aina was founded by Clown teachers and helps underserved children harness the transformative power of theatrical storytelling and performance. It enables them to expand their capacity for achievement, pursue their sense of possibility, and recognize their untapped potential. It has also empowered community members in the United States from ages four to 84. I joined Zara Aina as an administrator and teaching artist and then became Artistic Director. I’m now Artistic Director Emeritus and Head of the Advisory Board.
In that context, Clown gives children in underserved communities a voice. Its focus on improvisation – or using your own voice – and its focus on joy and play are empowering.
TKS: Did you meet Terry Knickerbocker when you were studying at NYU?
Justin: No, I didn’t know Terry then. I met him when I came to interview for an administrative position at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. When we met, my passion for Clown and his for the Meisner technique immediately connected. I joined the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in 2019 as a part-time administrator and soon began teaching Clown. It caught on quickly, and now I teach all four levels of Clown at the Studio.
TKS: What’s it been like to grow as a faculty member at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio?
Justin: Five years ago, when I first joined the Terry Knickerbocker Studio, I was a part-time administrator. But I was able to grow from there in innumerable ways – as an arts administrator, as a teacher, as a leader, as a director, as a designer of artistic programming. From the beginning, Terry understood my passion for Clown work and devising, and he recognized the teacher in me. He first gave me the opportunity to teach Clown I. When he saw the students’ response and their desire to study Clown further, he asked me to teach Clown II. The same thing happened; the students wanted more. Terry then added Clown III and later Clown IV.
Five years later, I teach all four levels of Clown and devising. I’ve been able to meet and work with hundreds of students with incredible talent, and the biggest hearts, many of whom I’ve then cast in my own artistic projects outside the Studio after they graduated. When I consider all of this, I can sum it up by saying, without a doubt, that the Terry Knickerbocker Studio has been my artistic home. For that, I will always be especially grateful.
TKS: What has impressed you most about the students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio?
Justin: What’s especially impressive to me about the students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio is that they are so game, free, willing to jump into whatever the Clown asks of them. They seem to crave the work; they’re hungry for it; they keep coming back for more. That’s a very special characteristic that is pervasive at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. That’s what led to Clown going from a weekend trial offering in 2019 to becoming a pillar of the Studio’s curriculum with four levels, like voice and movement.
The students at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio are also incredibly effective at forming cohesive supportive ensembles. A sense of community is a core value of the Studio. I think that in turn leads to the strong sense of ensemble in the Clown room. It’s also what provided the resilience that was key to us all surviving the COVID-19 pandemic. When the Studio shifted from in-person to virtual training at the height of the pandemic, the sense of community kept us together and helped us be there for each other.
The students also truly understand how to apply their training in Clown to their work in the Meisner acting room. When they can be more playful and imaginative there, it improves their work. And they know Terry values playfulness greatly. He wants students to be unafraid to show their truest selves, to express emotion anywhere on the spectrum – just as we did as children!
TKS: What other kinds of initiatives has the Terry Knickerbocker Studio enabled you to pursue?
Justin: In 2022, I worked with Terry to design a brand-new Summer Acting Program for High School Students – a goal Terry has had for a while. I ran the Program that year and taught Clown. The students had a wonderful time; it was very special. This year I’ve been working with Terry and Marena Dunnington, the Studio Manager, to run the program again, and we are actively recruiting high school students. The program is designed to help students find their unique artistic voices and create their own work. It includes training in Acting, Clown, Movement, and Voice. High school is a period when young artists first discover this is what they want to do, and we want to provide a space for them to cultivate that interest further.
Since I started at the Studio, I’ve also been able to create and shoot a video series for social media called “Feelings at the Fountain” – to highlight and promote further the sense of community that is so much a part of the Terry Knickerbocker Studio. Each episode features me interviewing someone from the Terry Knickerbocker Studio community – a student, faculty member, or staff member – in front of the fountain that is such a prominent focal point in the entrance space at the Studio. I ask the person being interviewed, “When you look at the fountain, what do you feel?” The videos are improvisational, silly, joyful, playful – values that I’ve always tried to encourage, and I know Terry values so greatly. We’re serious about the training, about the work, but not so serious that we don’t have fun, not so serious that the Clown in each of us is stifled.
TKS: Clown work seems to be coming much more into the mainstream. Is that your sense?
Justin: Absolutely. Look at Sascha Baron Cohen. All of his outrageous stuff is Clown. Playwrights Horizons recently had three Clown shows running in repertory together. I’ve never seen that before. Emma Stone’s Academy Award-winning role in 2023’s Poor Things is essentially Clown. Clown is more a part of contemporary life than we may realize. We all benefit when the clown in us is appreciated, encouraged, and allowed to inform our approach to acting, art, and life.
