For the first time in Occidental’s theater department, Topics and Performance: Clown and Comedy Class is being offered Spring 2025, taught by Wanlass Visiting Artist Professor Daniel Passer. Passer has vast experience in the world of comedy and theater, credits including Comedy Concepter for Cirque Du Soleil Zarkana and director of My Birthday Party at several theaters across LA.
According to Samuel Levy (senior), signing up for the class was extremely competitive due to the many students on campus involved in theater and comedy.
“Trying to sign up for this class was kind of a race,” Levy said. “I’ve been doing improv and sketch comedy for a very long time, and Clown is a world that I don’t know anything about. Hearing we’ve got a cool guest professor coming in, everybody I know in comedy on campus was really interested in it.”
Anika Griggs-Yew (first year) said she was not originally accepted in the class because of her late class selection time slot but was not willing to let that be a reason not to take it.
“I showed up on the first day an hour early. I sat inside [Passer’s] office and just waited,” Griggs-Yew said. “I brought him hot chocolate, and I begged him. I’ve always had a love for clowning.”
Passer said learning and participating in Clown was formative to his drama and comedy education, allowing him and his peers to make bold artistic decisions early in their acting careers.
“When I was in drama school, it was the first class we had,” Passer said. “It’s a very vulnerable form, you allow yourself to be an idiot […] Suddenly you realize the only way to get to the real vulnerable part of you is to go through either a willingness to fail or actually fail.”
Passer said he begins class with a game to facilitate the playful atmosphere. Passer said throughout class, students must wear a costume that would make their best friend laugh and later in the class, assemble their red noses.
Griggs-Yew said she remembers the day the class got their red noses and that it felt sacred.
“He hands them to us like a baby bird, and we cupped them in our two hands,” Griggs-Yew said. “Then we all stood in a circle of trees outwards to put them on. Once we did, the world has to change.”
According to Passer, there is a certain mindset to embody after putting on the red nose.
“You’re seeing the world through the eyes of someone who is discovering everything brand new,” Passer said. “This chair, I wouldn’t understand exactly what it’s used for. I would have to rediscover how to sit in it.”
Clown takes a different approach to its interaction with the audience, Griggs-Yew said.
“With stand-up comedians or magicians, they’re always trying to pull some fast one on the audience member,” Griggs-Yew said. “In Clown, that’s never the case.”
Levy said making mistakes are important in improving clownery.
“If the audience is laughing at us and if we’re making mistakes, we take those as happy accidents,” Levy said. “We find a way to keep the audience engaged.”
Alternative to most pedagogical spaces, Passer said he does not play authority, but chaos, as Clowns wish to please authority. He said with the comparison of the White Clown of authority and the Red Clown of chaos, he encourages his students to choose chaos as well to defy the obedience of conventions.
“You release an element of chaos into the world, and it’s moment to moment,” Passer said.
Andrew Eisenberg* (sophomore) said the class likes these experiments with bending the conventions of authority and chaos.
“We like to see somebody who has no authority get authority, or somebody who has no authority tricks somebody with authority to experience chaos because normally they don’t,” Eisenberg said. “It makes you think differently about things you’re doing — you’re trying to go against your brain.”
Levy said adjusting to chaos was entering the stage with the intent of failing in the first place.
“Looking into the abyss when you’re on stage, you get that feeling when your stomach drops and you have no idea what’s going on,” Levy said. “We’re just learning to embrace that.”
Passer said he adopted a new life philosophy after taking his first Clown class, and he hopes his students are able to experience that kind of freedom.
“I had already been through fire and had buoyancy and success,” Passer said. “If I could recognize [a student] on the street as someone who has that sense of curiosity and play, that’s a success.”
Griggs-Yew said she experiences immense gratitude for feeling joy while taking risks, collaborating with peers and learning from Passer, whom students call Daniel.
“I feel so lucky that I get to go to school and be a fool,” Griggs-Yew said.
*Andrew Eisenberg Is a former staff writer for The Occidental
Contact Lucinda Toft at ltoft@oxy.edu
