This year as the Long Beach Playhouse is celebrating their 81st season as a company, Alive Theatre will be starting their 4th year as one. Yet, this March the two companies will be joining together to co-produce 4 Clowns. 4 Clowns, conceived and directed by Jeremy Aluma premiered at the 2010 Hollywood Fringe Festival and won the Award for Best in Physical Theater and Dance and was nominated for two other awards in its short five show sold-out run.
4 Clowns is a physical, musical and emotional journey into what it means to be human. Follow four clowns who represent the four clown archetypes; the sad clown, the mischievous clown, the angry clown and the nervous clown as they get together to lament and reminisce about their past. As the old adage goes, ‘laughter is the best medicine’ but, laughter comes most earnestly when reflecting on past sorrows. As the clowns tell their tales of woe and elation from childhood to adulthood we discover that really they are all the sam
e, and so are we.
Alive Theatre and the Long Beach Playhouse have had an entwined relationship through their artists since Alive’s inception in 2008. They share a multitude of designers, directors and actors, but this marks the inaugural production where the companies will work side-by-side. A connection they both hope to continue. “The Long Beach Playhouse is proud to partner up with Alive Theatre to present 4 Clowns.  One the Playhouse’s goals for 2011 is to collaborate with many local art organizations.  There’s huge potential in partnering up with not only Alive Theatre but also with other local theatre communities. We are excited to bring variety and a sense of community to the Playhouse.  In the long run, we hope to see theater audiences expanding, leading to more productions, and more theater jobs, as
well as creating a sense of community which will eventually help the Long Beach theater scene become stronger and more vigorous, appealing to community members who do not currently attend theatre regularly† says Daisy Ramirez, Marketing Manager for the Long Beach Playhouse.
This sense of community in the arts is something that’s starting to ring out all over Long Beach. Some of the local Long Beach theaters, including Alive and the Playhouse as well as the Garage Theatre, Long Beach Shakespeare and other Long Beach theater companies have teamed up to create a community of the theaters called the Long Beach Theatre Arts Collective (LBTAC). Marlon Deleon, a Long Beach theater artist has teamed up with Go Catalyst’s Executive Director, Eric Leocadio to bring together the Theatre Arts community with LBTAC. Company members from several Long Beach theatre companies have joined Deleon and Leocadio in the last few months to develop a core group of theatre professionals focused on a two-sided goal: to unify local theatre companies to create a collaborative dialogue and to bring the theatre to the Long Beach community in a unified, streamlined resource. 4 Clowns is the first of many active collaborations between theater companies involved in LBTAC.
Aluma, the co-founder and Founding Artistic Director of Alive Theatre is excited for the possibilities. “It’s a wonderful endeavor, we have the chance to attract a unique and eclectic audience. The demographics of our audiences are vastly different, so by joining together we can bring people together who might otherwise miss each other entirely. It is an experiment for both the art and the business of it†.
The show, which contains strong sexual situations, simulated violence and a plethora of four letter words is a clown show about life. It is about who we are, and how we’ve become what we were always intended to be. It’s a show that’s hoping to connect the community and what better way to do that then through laughter.
This is the second run for 4 Clowns, which will move on to Los Angeles in May and then tour the country at Fringes and theaters across the U.S. this summer.
4 Clowns conceived and directed by Jeremy Aluma opens on Friday, March 4 and closes on Saturday, March 19. There are eight shows on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8pm. It plays at the Long Beach Playhouse Studio Theater at 5021 E. Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA, 90804. Starring Alexis Jones as Sad Clown, Kevin Klein as Mischievous Clown, Raymond Lee as Angry Clown and Amir Levi as Nervous Clown with pianist Mario Granville.
Who: Produced by Alive Theatre and the Long Beach Playhouse
What: 4 Clowns conceived and directed by Jeremy Aluma
Where: Long Beach Playhouse @ 5021 E. Anaheim Street, Long Beach, CA, 90804
When: Friday, March 4 – Saturday, March 19. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm.
Why: Laughter is the best medicine.
How: $10 for everyone at www.lbplayhouse.org or www.alivetheatre.org
“Aluma may be saying that human pain is at once particular and universal; what’s certain is his cast is gifted…†GO! – Amy Nicholson, LA Weekly & Backstage
“The playful, troublemaking 4 Clowns offer a night out you won’t soon forget. The 4 Clowns are thrillingly unique, and you could possibly leave asking, ‘Did that really just happen?†– Stephanie Forshee, Campus Circle
“WARNING: Do not hire these clown for your 5-year-old’s birthday party. But definitely go see 4 Clowns (sans the little ones, of course). The archetypal clowns (Nervous, Mischievous, Angry and Sad) go through the stages of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and death. Not necessarily a morality play, it does leave the message that even though life is horrible- I mean really f***ing horrible – at least we can laugh our way through the pain. Each clown is an honest, albeit exaggerated, version of humanity, expertly crafted and directed by Jeremy Aluma and his quartet of brilliant clowns. A mixture of classic clowning techniques with singing and improvisation- this is definitely a must see. You’ll be sure to cry…from laughter.†– Ashley Steed, LA Theatre Review
