About the Show
The only clown who’s achieved featured-performer status in the circus “trifecta” of the Big Apple Circus, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and Cirque du Soleil — Mark Gindick presents a highly personal performance about circus and clown life. Part masterful and hilarious clown-show, part memoir, part TED-style talk, Death Defying Schtick traces how a lawyer’s kid in the New York suburbs fell in love with physical comedy and by his late teens was touring the country with Ringling Bros.
Rich with humor, honesty and historical sweep, Death Defying Schtick showcases a major American clown’s deeply personal story of experiencing outsider and insider-status within the predominantly white male-dominated world of elite circus clowning. Gindick relives how he got into the circus, thrived and then, after a series of setbacks, almost left it forever. Audiences will gain insight into the day-to-day life of the circus, the artistry of high-level physical comedy and, most of all, this performing artist’s compelling roller-coaster ride of a life story. This hybrid hilarious solo clown show teaches and celebrates the art and daily life of a clown, while interrogating the history and culture of the circus.
Mark Gindick’s collaborators are co-writer Adam Koplan (FCT Founding Artistic Director, The Flying Carpet Theatre Company) and director Jessi D. Hill (FCT Interim Artistic Director). The Flying Carpet Theatre Company received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop Death Defying Schtick.