February 9, 2015, 8PM

Mark Jaster

Mark Jaster studied mime with Etienne Decroux and Marcel Marceau, and served as Mr Marceau's teaching assistant in a series of 1980's master classes and seminars. Clown training includes study with Dody DiSanto, Ami Hattab, Jango Edwards, Emanuelle Delpeche, many hours logged watching Chaplin, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers, and many more hours (almost 30 years!) performing at the Maryland Renaissance Festival as A Fool named 'O'. He also performs regularly with The Big Apple Circus' Clown Care Unit, and he co-directs Happenstance Theater with Sabrina Mandell, devising and appearing in critically acclaimed collaborative, original works of "Visual, Poetic Theater." He is a clown.

Michael Rosman

Comedy Juggler Michael Rosman loves to perform. His smart, original and clean humor has provided 30 years of laughs on more than 25 cruise ships, at more than 125 colleges, a few Las Vegas and Atlantic City Casinos and for more than 1000 corporate and festival events around the world.

MichaelRosman.com

Toby Mulford

Toby Mulford is an educator, actor, and playwright specializing in ensemble-created physical theater. He is 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. He has also studied with Antonio Fava and with faculty from the Moscow Art Theatre School. Originally from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, he has performed with BigHeadHouse, the Vagabond Acting Troupe, the International Opera Company, and Tribe of Fools. His plays have been produced at the Dell'Arte Company (California), the Brick Playhouse (Philadelphia), and the Festival of Animated Objects (Calgary, Canada).

Sarah Olmsted Thomas and Alex Vernon

Sarah Olmsted Thomas is a fourth generation artist. She creates and performs original dance and theatre pieces. She is also a professional actor and has worked with Faction of Fools, Washington Shakespeare Company, Synetic Theater, Young Playwrights' Theater, the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, Ambassador Theater, and Factory 449. Sarah studied clown with Le Samovar École de Clown in Paris and physical theatre with the Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia. B.A., Sarah Lawrence College.

saraholmstedthomas.tumblr.com

Alex Vernon is an actor, street artist, puppeteer, and tinkerer. Originally from Tennessee, he's made the DC area his home for the last 4 years. He's performed locally with Young Playwrights' Theater, Adventure Theatre, Happenstance Theater, and can be found cutting silhouettes on street corners during the weekend

Matthew Kaiser

Michael Burgos

Michael Burgos is a writer, performer, director, and teacher. He holds a Diplôme from École Philippe Gaulier and a B.A. (Theater) from George Mason University. In addition to studying with theater guru Philippe Gaulier, Michael trained with master teacher Dody DiSanto, a teaching protégé of the late Jacques Lecoq. He has taught theater with Acting For Young People since 2010. Currently, he is writing and producing THE EULOGY, a one-person show which is set to debut in 2015.

Fanny Duret is an actress and occasional clown who graduated from the Dimitri school in Switzerland in 2013 with a B.A. in physical theater. She also studied Clown and Vaudeville at Ecole Philippe Gaulier. In 2014 she toured Italy in a physical theater show directed by Mario Perrotta, then co-created and performed a clown show with the "Plague of Idiots" – a company of Gaulier graduates – in London. This spring, she makes her Swiss debut acting with Omar Porras, a director well-known for using masks with classical theater pieces.

Fanny Duret

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 domestic venues and in dozens of other countries have gotten him a laugh or two.

RichPotter.NET

Photo Credit: Silly Human Tricks Photography