PhysFestNYC Presents: Clown Gym's Clown Flex: a joyful, messy variety show

Come laugh with some of the most beautiful, funny, moving, and weird clowns creating work in New York City! Clown Gym presents CLOWN FLEX to showcase the amazing talent of the NYC Clown Scene!

A joyful, messy clown variety show featuring

Aya Tucker with Kevin Allen and Lex Alston
Dante Fuoco
Richard Saudeck
Sara Raj and Lindita Kulla
Tiffany Riley and Dick Monday

Hosted by Julia Proctor 

Stage Managed by Francesca Piccioni 

Produced by Julia Proctor, Rachel Resnik, Madeleine Joyce, Michael Galligan and Huxley Garrett

Aya Tucker (she/her) is a clown, physical theatre artist and certified Lucid Body instructor. Aya holds an MFA in Lacoq-Based Actor Created Theatre (Naropa University, hosted at LISPA). Her original clown act, Kiki and Ted, was nominated for The 2010 NY Downtown Clown Golden Nose Awards (Audience Choice Best Clown Act). Credits as a physical theatre artist include Hold Music (Sightline Arts; The 2011 NY Innovative Theatre Awards nominee for Outstanding Performance Art Production). After completing a year-long cohort mentorship, Aya has become one of the resident teachers at Clown Gym. She also works as a healthcare clown with Laughter League.

Dante Fuoco (any) is a writer, performer, and educator. The creator of two solo shows, Dante is currently working on a hybrid book / performance text that meditates on death, queerness, and love.

Dick Monday's (he/him) film and television credits include Brain Donors, Sweet and Lowdown, My Life, Saved by the Bell, The Late Show and The Tonight Show. Dick has been featured with Omnium Circus, Big Apple Circus, Circus Sarasota, Circo Atayde, Lone Star Circus, MadHattan in Las Vegas and Ringling. He co-founded the New York Goofs and Laughter League, a non-profit organization bringing the healing power of humor to top rated Children’s hospitals throughout the United States. Dick was Director of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s Clown College and Director of Clowning for The Greatest Show on Earth.

Francesca Piccioni (they/she) is a graduate of University of the Arts (Acting '13) and has performed in both theatre and film. They fell in love with clown through the lense of Pochinko and connected with Clown Gym in 2019. They been stage managing for Clown Gym since 2021 as well as other solo shows in New York.

Julia Proctor (she/her) is an educator, collaborator, and community builder. She's the Founding Director of Clown Gym, NYC's community clown hub, and is a Co-Founding Producer of this festival. She devises and performs her own material, and loves collaborating with artists on smart, funny, and innovative theatre. Julia is a member of Actors Equity, has an MFA from the Academy for Classical Acting, and has trained with so many clown teachers. Julia currently teaches Physical Acting specializing in Clown, Le Jeu, and Shakespeare at NYU Tisch Drama and was Beanie Feldstein’s personal Clown Coach for the Broadway revival of Funny Girl.

Kevin Allen (he/him) is an actor & writer. He'll co-star as Principal Isaacs in the upcoming feature film, Fakes. Kevin was the understudy for Dad/Obama in the national tour of Jabari Dreams of Freedom. As a writer, Kevin is a member of the Writers Guild of America, a Black List quarterfinalist & a Big Apple Film Festival semifinalist. When not writing or performing, Kevin teaches Iyengar Yoga to adults & children. Kevin would like to thank his fellow clowns, his wife, Brooke, and his family & friends for their love and support. kevinjallen.com

Lex Alston (any) is a NY based performing artist and teaching artist. They received a BA in Theatre and Performance from Purchase College where they premiered their silent solo physical-comedy show, Falling on Purpose. Lex has performed in all 5 NYC boroughs with Bindlestiff Family Cirkus’ Flatbed Follies and is a teaching artist with Bindlestiff’s Cirkus After School, Time Flies Circus, and The Muse Brooklyn working as a youth circus skills instructor. They are a hospital “clown doctor” with Laughter League have also had the pleasure of performing with Parallel Exit and Circus Amok.

Lindita Kulla (she/her) is a writer, comedian, photographer and film maker of Albanian-American heritage. She has worked in the TV and film industry for Netflix and Disney as location scout and production assistant. When not writing, performing comedy or on set, she builds stories through her photography. Her photography projects can be found @linditakullafilm. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Screen Studies from Pace University, graduating in 2021.

Richard Saudek (he/him) grew up making faces at himself while he brushed his teeth and ran off to perform in the circus. Since then, he’s played Lucky in WAITING FOR GODOT in Yiddish, toured his one-clown show BEEP BOOP internationally, played a madman in SALOME at The Shakespeare Theater Co, embodied a trilobite at The New Victory, a burlesque pantomime at Ars Nova, an egg at LaMama, and performed in countless other productions for the past 17 years. He teaches clowning with One Year Lease Theater Co. His most recent clown show was Dead + Alive at The Connelly Theater.

Sara Raj (she/her) is a South Asian stand up comic, poet and playwright originally from Toronto, Canada. She wrote, directed and stars in Yoga for Billionaires: Do you want to be enlightened or just filthy rich?! - a 1 hour long immersive comedy produced by the Peoples Improv Theatre in NYC that pokes fun at American cultures interest in eastern spirituality and its obsession with extreme wealth. Her comedy centers on her experience as an Indian woman, and her unique take on social and political issues of our time. She has performed at SOLOCOM NYC, and can be seen on stages throughout NYC and Toronto including Broadway Comedy Club, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and Comedy Bar.

Tiffany Riley (she/her) was the first female clown featured in The Big Apple Circus, has performed with Omnium Circus, Circus Sarasota, Circo Atayde, Lone Star Circus and Ringling. She co-founded the New York Goofs and Laughter League, a non-profit organization that brings the healing power of humor to patients at top pediatric facilities in New York, Boston, Providence, Ft. Worth, Dallas, Atlanta and Seattle. She holds a BFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and Master of Liberal Studies from SMU. Tiffany’s book, Beyond the Red Nose: The Serious Business of Healthcare Clowning, is available on Amazon, Kindle and Audible.

Clown Gym started in 2014 as a collaborative member-sourced experiment in play. Over the years it has grown into New York City’s home for clown and physical comedy by building a thriving learning environment and community. Clown Gym’s mission is to build community, spread joy, and support artists as they embrace their humor, beauty, vulnerability, skill, intelligence, passion, and dreams. We do this through affordable high-quality training, teacher mentorship programming, new work development, performances, and community events focusing on clown and physical comedy.

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PhysFestNYC is a community-focused festival that celebrates, enriches, and envisions our field of physical theaters. As an annual gathering, provides space for practitioners, audiences, and the physical-theater-curious to share in presented works, diverse workshop offerings, and community-building events.

Broken Box Mime Theater's mission is to activate the imagination of our audiences, contemporize the art of mime, and remind us all of the power of simple storytelling.