Laughter Is Medicine for These Clowns
The clown doctors will be on call in East Hampton on Sunday when performers from the Big Apple Circus demonstrate why laughter can be some of the best medicine.
Proceeds from a 3 p.m. reception at Mary Jane and Charles Brock’s house on Main Street and a performance following at Guild Hall will benefit the nonprofit circus’s Clown Care program, which sends professional artists on “clown rounds” in 15 pediatric hospitals around the country, spreading cheer to lighten the load as families deal with difficult medical realities.
“I love bringing joy and wonder into the hospital in this way,” said Karen McCarty, the circus’s creative director of community programs. “Not only is it a nice thing to do, it’s an important thing to do. The children want to be children, to play and laugh, and we allow them to do that. We treat the healthy part of the child. . . . We bring a normalcy to the hospital and laughter is part of that.”
Ms. McCarty manages about 100 clowns who see more than 250,000 children each year. Their duties range from dispensing laughter through small shows to accompanying cancer patients as radiation escorts. “We make it more like a parade rather than something that’s filled with anxiety,” she explained.
“We realized early on that we’re there as much for the hospital staff and the parents and the caregivers. They need that sort of release as well.”
At the Brock residence, members of the circus’s Clown Care team will roam the garden tweaking noses, balancing on balls, spinning plates, and wowing guests with wondrous bubbles of all shapes and sizes. At the close of the reception, partygoers will join a procession down Main Street to Guild Hall, where veteran Clown Care artists will perform in “Red Nose Revue” at 5 p.m.
The Clown Care program will have its 30th anniversary next year. Ms. McCarty, herself a childhood cancer survivor, has been with it for 27 years. She is directing and will M.C. “Red Nose Revue.”
Tickets to the party and the performance cost $125, or $120 for members of Guild Hall. Tickets to the performance only are $50, or $48 for members.
The Big Apple Circus, a classical European-style one-ring circus, has a run each fall and winter at Lincoln Center, with a new show and new acts each year. This year’s show, called “The Grand Tour,” opens on Oct. 21. In addition to the Clown Care program, which also has a geriatric branch called Vaudeville Visits, the circus has a number of other outreach programs, including a Circus of the Senses for the hearing and vision-impaired, after-school circus programs, and a new initiative with Autism Speaks to adapt Big Apple shows for audiences on the autism spectrum.
Tickets to Sunday’s party and show are available through Guild Hall.