June 10, 2013

Toby Mulford

Toby Mulford is an educator, actor, musician, and playwright specializing in ensemble-created physical theater. He is the Managing Director of Faction of Fools Theatre Company, where he has performed in Romeo & Jluiet and A Commedia Christmas Carol, as well as directingThe Lady Becomes Him. He is also the Associate Artistic Director of the Traveling Players Ensemble, where he started a five-week Commedia dell'Arte summer program for teenagers. He holds an MFA in ensemble-based physical theater from the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, where he co-created over a dozen original works. Other credits include Roundhouse Theatre, BigHeadHouse, the Vagabond Acting Troupe, the International Opera Company, and Tribe of Fools.

www.factionoffools.org

Photo by Izolda Trakhtenberg

Mark Jaster

Mark Lohr

Toasty Poocracker

Toasty Poocracker is an actor, educator, graphic and web designer, and clown. Recent acting credits include a national tour with the American Shakespeare Center of The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and Henry Vin repertory; Richard III and Pride & Prejudice with the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ; Proof with TheatreFest; A Midsummer Night's Dream with the American Globe Theatre; and the film Cult of Sincerity, recently broadcast on PBS. He has also taught workshops and classes in Classical Text, Acting Shakespeare, and Clown as a teaching artist for the Shakespeare Theatre Company and at other venues including Broadway Theatre Workshop, Knox College, and The Center for Baroque & Renaissance Studies' summer program. He received his MFA at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University. BFA, Montclair State University.

Sabrina Mandell

From sailing tall ships to painting in oils, from gardening to reading fortunes, Sabrina has played many roles. While living in South Carolina, she wrote, produced, and performed a solo street performance, Poetry for the People: Sabrina VentDeLaMer and her Amazing Game of Chance, for the Charleston Piccolo Festival. She has since performed it at farmer’s markets, in public squares, and for various events in the United States and Paris. She has also performed original poetry at the National Poetry Slam Championship and numerous other spoken word events, and has self-published a collaborative chapbook of poetry, “Whalebone Ladies”. Since moving to the DC area Ms. Mandell has performed as an understudy in the Shakespeare Theater’s Cyrano, has been the assistant to A Fool Named “O” at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. She co-created the sold-out Flesh and Candor Cabaret performance calledRevolution at the Warehouse Theater; with her partner Mark Jaster, she wrote, produced and performed Prufbox based on the TS Eliot poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” which premiered at the Capital Fringe Festival in July 2006 and was remounted at both the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, as part of their Joseph Cornell exhibits; together she and Mr. Jaster have also created The Seven Ages of Mimefor the Round House Theater, and Low Tide Hotel which was voted Best Comedy of the 2007 Capital Fringe Festival and was selected as a Best Bet by the Washington City Paper. She also performs regularly with the Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Program at the Children’s National Medical Center and Johns Hopkins University Hospital.

happenstancetheater.wordpress.com

Graham Pilato

Graham Pilato got his BA in Dramatic Arts at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, and after a couple years as a high school English teacher in Southern Maryland ending in 2007, has returned to acting, having now appeared in several Baltimore and Washington D.C. area theatres, including with Fells Point Corner Theatre, Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Mobtown Players, the Maryland Renaissance Festival, Molotov Theatre, and Happenstance Theater. His background in experimental theatre and improv comedy prepared him for work with Faction of Fools, DC's Commedia dell'Arte theatre group, with which he appeared in “The House with Two Doors” and “Tales of Love and Sausages” in 2010. He is an Associate Artist with Faction of Fools and always looking for new places to be silly.

Matthew Pauli

Matthew Pauli, co-Producer of Clown Cabaret, is a 1991 graduate of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and has been clowning ever since. He appears regularly at corporate events, street festivals, fairs and picnics and in his stage shows. His work as a clown has taken him around the U.S. and as far as Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Since 1999, he has been proud to be part of the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program, performing at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. For 6 years he toured with The Big Apple Circus sharing the role of Grandma with creator and International Clown Hall of Fame inductee Barry Lubin.

www.matthewpauli.net

Karen Beriss

Karen Beriss, co-producer and emcee of this month's Clown Cabaret has been a professional magician for over 15 years. Performing at trade shows around the world, her magic and dry sense of humor - combined with corporate messaging skills - have captured the eyes of the press including National Public Radio, Market Place and The Wall Street Journal. She is super excited to have just joined the Big Apple Circus Clown Care program performing at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Karen is a regular at The Comedy Zone in Washington DC. She trained in improv and acting with Second City in New York. And she has performed for celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Kirstie Alley, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, the Washington Capitals and Robert Goulet. Most recently she worked with Leon Redbone. Plus, Karen’s mom thinks Karen is funny – so it must be true.

www.swellmagic.com

Rich Potter

Rich Potter is a co-producer and frequent performer for Clown Cabaret. He's studied with Ringling Bros, Maine's Celebration Barn Theater, and Nouveau Clown Institute in Barcelona, Spain, and still hasn't attained his dream of knowing nothing.

His appearances on the David Letterman Show, at the Vice Presidential Mansion, in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, and other venues domestically and in dozens of other countries have gotten him a laugh or two.

RichPotter.NET

Photo Credit: Silly Human Tricks Photography