1A Clown’s Way: A Clown’s Guide to Falling in Line

Overview

Madi Distefano has a lesson for you. As the United States government becomes an absolute clown show, one deranged and desperate clown teaches an incoming circus class. This shitshow is our circus, these are our monkeys. In this experimental solo workshop production, one of the founding fringe artists returns with an original new piece. Directed by 13-time Barrymore nominee and Best Director winner (X2) Matt Pfeiffer, 1A Clown’s Way reunites the actor/writer and director team that created Popsicle’s Departure, 1989 which won Best Solo Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and a Fringe First for innovative writing. Distefano is a 9-time Barrymore nominee with one win for Best Leading Actress. Inspired in part by Roberto Athayde’s Miss Margarida’s Way, Distefano explores fascism and indoctrination in this comic look at the seductive nature of power.

About the Artist

Madi Distefano is a Philadelphia performance artist celebrated for her inventive genre-blending theatre, her leadership in Brat Productions, and her contributions to the City's experimental and immersive arts scene.

She is the recipient of the F. Otto Hass Award for an Emerging Philadelphia Theatre Artist, one of the founding Fringe artists, and also a 9-time Barrymore Award nominee winning one for Best Leading Actress.

In this experimental solo workshop production, 1A Clown's Way reunites the actor/writer and director team that created Popsicles Departure,1989 which won Best Solo Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and a Fringe First for innovative writing.

Her work often blends physical comedy, quick-change techniques, and genre-bending storytelling creating high-energy, audience-engaging experiences. Memorable productions include:

Meanwhile... ---a quick-change comedy where two actors play all 12 roles, drawing from crime noir and mid-century pulp fiction

The Twenty-Four Hour Bald Soprano ---a 24 hour no-break revival of Ionesco's classic with audiences free to enter and leave at any hour

Haunted Poe ---an immersive room-to-room warehouse-scale adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's supernatural writings

She has also produced Bar and Social Club shows, such as Rum and Vodka, adapting Conor McPherson's bar tales for live performance in a pub setting.

Madi has a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Theater, and a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Directing from Temple University. Her training has laid the foundation for her career in performance, film, directing, and producing, which has included work with Brat Productions, Walnut Street Theatre, and appearances in the films Bottomfeeders (2001), Headspace (2006), and Diorama (2007).

Credits