The "Alternative Clowns" of Idiot Theatre Are Not What You'd Expect

"When I tell people I do clown, they're like, 'Oh, gee. Can you do my kid's party?'" says Alice Gillette. "I'm like, 'Well, yeah, but it would be totally weird.'"

And unless your kid is Damien Thorn, it would be. In clown form, Gillette becomes Meat Show, a pro wrestler with a soft side. When she takes the stage at Rise Comedy, she is completely transformed, wearing a pointy ginger beard that juts over a teal tutu around her neck. A skullcap makes it appear that she is half bald, and a chestplate mimicking a six-pack flaps around her torso with each exaggerated stride. She bites into a lemon and gnaws its carcass out.

Gillette developed the startling yet goofy character for her "alternative clown" troupe, Idiot Theatre, which will be performing at The Lodge at Woods Boss during the Denver Fringe Festival. And one minute into the showcase, it's clear that alternative clowns don't involve the squeaky red noses, enlarged shoes or balloon tricks of circus clowns. They're more like class clowns, indulging in irony, metaphor and sometimes dark humor.

"Modern alternative clowning borrows from the old traditional clown, where there's a buffoon, but then we're also taking from clowns that we've all known from modern comedy," Gillette explains. "For example, Andy Kaufman: clown! He was a clown. Steve Martin: total clown. A huge clown that has generational appeal is Lucille Ball. When she's on the conveyor belt and her job is to pack those chocolates and then she stuffs them in her mouth, she's doing an easy task in the dumbest way possible."
Gillette began her journey to alternative clowning while living in Portland, Oregon. "I was really involved in the comedy scene there. I am trained through Kickstand Comedy; they have an improv training program...and I went all the way through the program, and I performed in their weekly improv show," she says. "It was great. I was in a development team at Kickstand, and around that time, I also started doing storytelling around town, then I was getting into standup...and then the lockdown happened."

COVID halted everything for Gillette...and most of the rest of the world. Then the George Floyd protests took over Portland, and so did the counter-protesters. The alt-right Proud Boys occupied a park across from Gillette's house, and she couldn't open her windows because of the constant tear gas. "Uh, maybe Portland's not a cool place for me right now," she recalls thinking.

She moved back to her home state of Maryland, thinking that her burgeoning comedy career was over. "But then when the vaccine came out, I was like, 'Okay, I guess I can do comedy again,'" she recalls. "My partner, Bryan, and I wanted to pick a city; he's a musician and I'm a comedian."

Denver offered a perfect scene for both professions, so the two moved to the Mile High in June 2021. Longing for community, Gillette decided to go to a workshop at Rise. "And that's where I met all my clown buds," she says.

After the workshop, "I was just like, 'Man, I really want to see these people again, but I don't want to reach out individually.' So I just group-emailed everyone. I was like, 'Hey, I really like all of you. Here's all of my socials. You can add me; if you don't want to, it's okay. Totally fine. You don't have to be my friend, but I would love to be all of your friends and would love to play with you guys again.' And to my surprise, everybody was like, 'Me, too!' It was so cool," Gillette recalls. "It's about taking that risk of letting people know how you feel. It's really very clown, not being afraid to fail."

And so Idiot Theatre was born in March, with Rise allowing the improv crew of clowns to practice there every other Saturday. "We just kept asking Rise if we could play, and then eventually they're like, 'We could just have a clown show on Sundays.' That's a very low-stakes day," Gillette says, laughing.

While that run of Rise shows is over (though there will be a final performance on July 16), you'll be able to catch Idiot Theatre every Friday at Chaos Bloom starting July 14. In the meantime, the troupe has been perfecting its Fringe performances. Audience engagement is a major factor for Idiot Theatre and clowning in general, which makes for an amusing experience for those invested in the fun and bizarre. But soon the clowns will have something to offer people who aren't as comfortable with audience call-outs yet still want to enjoy the spectacle. "We are planning to film some of our clown and put some of our clown sketches online," says Gillette.

The alternative clown scene is poised to blossom in Denver, she says, and everyone who partakes is opening themselves up to childlike joy.

"Every time I do clown, it brings me back to those times in my childhood where I was just playing and my best friend was my imagination," Gillette says. "And I was so excited to be on the playground and see what other people were thinking up and dreaming. And how often does that happen now? But every time I'm a clown, I get in that space again. And I love when we're able to tell the audiences through our clown that we're here to have fun, and when a clown show goes really well, the audience feels the same way, too. They feel like they can be kids again. It's such a special privilege for us to be able to do that with audiences. So I would love for audiences to come and feel it's okay to have that childlike wonder. Because that's what we want for every show."

Idiot Theatre performs for Denver Fringe at The Lodge at Woods Boss, 675 22nd Street, at 5 p.m. Friday, June 9; 8 p.m. Saturday, June 10; and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, June 11. Tickets are $15.