Photo credit: Courtesy of Feld Entertainment
Taylor Albin sounded happy when he sat down for an interview with Hollywood on the Potomac, but I guess he’s supposed to; he’s a clown, that’s the point. He’s actually the ‘Boss Clown’ in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® circus that will take over the Verizon Center with their newest show Built To Amaze!
Taylor Albin (top right)
So, how does one become a clown?
“I used to attend Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus every year growing up in a small town outside the Dallas-Fort Worth area,” said Taylor, “and every single year my family and I would go to see the show. One of my earliest memories was seeing the clowns and everyone around me was just laughing and having such a great time. I don’t know how I put this together but I figured out, you know, that it was really awesome that somebody had the ability to bring joy and laughter to people. From that young age on I was like, ‘I want to be a Ringling Brothers clown.’ Most people would say okay ‘I want to be president’ or an astronaut or something crazy, but as you get older reality sets in so it becomes ‘I’m going to be a firefighter or I’ll be a police officer, or a teacher.’ For me, I still wanted to be Ringling clown.”
After college, after a previous circus tryout, and after trying to avoid the family employment at Lockheed Martin, an offer to join the circus arrived when he was in Washington from David Kaiser, director of talent. He took the job.
So how do you tell your parents you’re going to be a clown? Not that there is anything wrong with being a clown, but it’s usually not one’s first line of employment.
“I’m an only child and my mom and I are very close so I always tell her everything,” he explained. He gave her a call saying he had good news to tell her. At first she thought he was moving back home but he explained it was better then that. When she realized it was the circus she went ‘oh Taylor I’m nauseous.’ “She was like – have you called your father? And I was like not yet. Then I called him. He says ‘as far as your mom is concerned, next time you have big news call me first I will take care of her’.” He did.
We thought it kind of unusual for the dad to approve and the mom not. Mothers are usually the first line of defense. “Exactly, and I was kind of shocked by it too,” he said. “But now since this is my fifth year on tour, I think both of my parents, my entire family and to be very honest my entire town anytime we’re near Dallas Fort-Worth honestly hundreds of people come out to see the show, and to see me in the show, and I’m so blessed and fortunate to have a supportive team of people that you know really support me and are kind of my own little promoters if you will.”
And Taylor is now the Boss Clown. We asked him to explain what that entails.
“A Boss Clown basically is a liaison between the performers and our management team. There are 13 clowns in our show and what I do is I always ensure that they’re always on time, making sure they’re following through with different rules, different things like that. Basically I’m just like a general liaison who makes sure everybody’s funny. All 13 clowns think they’re the funniest person in the world and so you know that can be a little crazy at times as well, but at the end of the day like I said, I have a great time. It’s so important that all the clowns on the show enjoy the job and enjoy what they’re doing.
For me, my favorite part about working for Ringling is when a family comes to our show, they swipe their ticket or whatever they have to do, and they check reality at the door. When they walk through those doors of whatever arena we’re in they enter this world, this magical world of the circus where their dreams become reality, and the impossible becomes possible, and for those 3 hours, 3 and half hours however long that they’re with us they become a family. A family where they sit there and enjoy something together and create a memory that will last for years, and years, and years to come. That to me is what I love the most, and the fact that I’m able to be a part of that family memory for them is incredible.”
There’s a notion that comedians and clowns hide a sad heart. Obviously not true for Taylor, but he explained it this way: “Traditionally clowning goes so far back in history. I mean it dates way, way far back, medieval times with jesters, so perhaps a product of the times. There’s a great example, Emmett Kelly, a very famous American clown, was like a hobo character and that character was designed as a reflection of America at a point in time. When Emmett Kelly was performing with Ringling and other shows it was based on the Depression.
It was a way for people to see their reality but at a comedic level, you know, a little bit heightened, a little funnier, and to poke fun of the situation. Clowns today dress up in bright colors and our costumes are really over the top, they’re very loud. Our makeup nowadays really isn’t real heavy, it’s a lot lighter and there’s not a lot of heavy, heavy colors. In fact, some of the clowns don’t even wear clown noses. Even further, several of the clowns don’t even wear wigs, they use their normal hair. So it’s just a kind of a sign of the times that we’ve evolved over the years and it’s something that has allowed us to adapt and work well with each other and the people around us.
A lot of people always ask if are kids scared of you? How do you react to children that are scared of clowns? “Honestly nowadays we’re finding more and more kids really aren’t that scared of us. I attribute that to the fact of how we handle children. We have something called the all access pre-show. It starts an hour before the show and it’s free to all ticket holders and it allows you to come down to the arena floor an hour before the show, try on costumes, meet all the performers, take pictures.
This year’s show is the 143rd addition of the greatest show on earth. We are older than Coca-Cola, older than baseball and all that crazy cool stuff, but we have some really cool new things in this year’s show. It’s built to amaze, we actually build the show before your eyes. One of our brand new acts this year comes all the way from Russia, they’re a comedy duo – Alex and Irena – and they are amazing, they are so funny. They do acts, the first act is a comedy magic act where they use bunny rabbits and it’s really funny, and the second half of the show they have a dog act. I’d like to say we have oodles of poodles, because there’s all kinds of poodles and they come out and they dance and jump and it’s really a great time. So that’s one of our new acts this year.
We also have another awesome act – the tower tumblers. They’re a trampoline act that has a two story wall in the middle and a trampoline on either side, and these guys jump over the wall, through the wall, on top of the wall. It’s another great energy boosting act, it’s really, really awesome. Like I said. it allows you to walk down on the arena floor where the show takes place. You get to see acts that you don’t see in the show.
In fact, toward the end of our pre-show, two of our elephants even come out and one of them even paints a picture. And we have a wardrobe section where you’re actually able to try on authentic Ringling costumes from some of our past productions, and you actually get to try them on and feel how heavy they are. I mean, some of those costumes weigh like 10 and 15 pounds, it’s crazy, and the fact that we run around and dance in them means we really get the work out, that’s for sure.”
Built to Amaze opens on March 20th. You can purchase tickets online.
