Deanna Fleysher is an American comedy artist teacher and director, totally devoted to audience inclusion! She created the Naked Comedy Lab, a workshop for training in interactive/immersive comedy and clown/bouffon. She is the director and co-writer of Red Bastard, the internationally acclaimed bouffon show. We caught up with Deanna right before her WATHT TOUW tour comes to the UK to talk about vulnerability, her travels and teachings.
Mariana Feijó: You’re an expert in using vulnerability on stage to create characters that capture the audience – what attracts you in the use of vulnerability for art creation?
Deanna Fleysher: I’m pretty convinced vulnerability is the tits. It’s the great unifier: something we can all relate to, and something that, when we witness it in others, makes us love them. It is the quickest way to an audience’s heart, and thus their funny bone, and perhaps straight to their genitals, if you go for that sort of thing.
MF: You use clowning and improv in your performances and your shows have a tonne of audience interaction. Do you think it all makes your performance richer or do you have a preference from any kind of comedic practice?
DF: There doesn’t seem to be much point in doing anything with a fourth wall anymore. An audience who dares to put on trousers and leave their home is an audience who wants AN EXPERIENCE, and AN EXPERIENCE means at the very least, being acknowledged. In terms of the workshops I offer, I feel good about preparing performers for intense connection with their audience, whether their work is interactive or not. Increased sensitivity to the audience always means a stronger, more captivating performer.
MF: You travel a lot with your shows. Is that a necessity or do you do it for pleasure?
DF: It’s a necessity if I want to get paid. But there is certainly something cool about seeing how your work resonates with different cultures.
MF: Do you take inspiration from your time away from home to create your characters and shows?
DF: Nope, I’m usually just trying to stream “Rupaul’s Drag Race” and scouting local escape rooms. I love being inspired by other artists and other places, but I don’t work on new material when I’m on tour.
MF: For the past few years, you’ve been to London every year. Do you feel a kinship with English people? Does the comedy scene in the UK excite you? Any favourite performer or someone you are keeping under your eye?
DF: Frankly, yes, I do feel a kinship with the English. I feel more understood in the UK, weirdly, at least artistically. I feel like I fit in. I think there is a lot more room for wildness and risk-taking in the British comedy scene than anywhere else I’ve been. I have a lot of gratitude for the smart and cool John-Luke Roberts and Thom Tuck of ACMS, which has been a cool thing to be a part of in Edinburgh. I am also a sucker for Simon Munnery, Lucy Hopkins and Marcel Lucont. I’m inspired by people telling painful truths and getting laughs while they’re doing it. I’m inspired by people who make new shows all the time and go to Edinburgh year after year. That shit cray!
MF: I’ve seen Butt Kapinski live in London and loved it. Was it always easy for you to be that brave to bare all or has it all come from hard work?
DF: Bravery is feeling the fear and doing it anyway, right? I’m scared every time I perform. And I’m exhilarated and high for hours afterwards. The cocktail of bravery and fear is like heroin, but probably a better kind of heroin than, you know, actual heroin.
MF: I love the way you include being a high school teacher as part of your clowning training. I think being aware of yourself, your surroundings and the way you act in life is very important in the creative process. Do you have any advice or exercise that would help increase creators awareness of their surroundings and how to better use it in their creations?
DF: Hmm! I think being a high school teacher helped make me a good clown: it trained me in the art of engaging the semi-willing. Of course, the more we know ourselves, the better art we make. We learn a lot from doing other jobs and activities besides performing, and really being present in those jobs and activities, being open to their lessons. I don’t think it’s coincidental that a lot of the best actors and comedians have something else that they’re really passionate about, too. Balances the scales, maybe. Whatever that means. I should leave you here; I might need a snack.
Deanna Fleysher is performing and teaching in London, Oxford, Brighton, Bristol and Devon. In London she’s performing and teaching as part of London Clown Festival and with C3?. For tickets and more information click here, here and here!
