Media Clown (think Keaton, not Bozo) is an ongoing, devised research project that includes live, digital, and hybrid in-person performances. This  interdisciplinary team is based at the University of Iowa department of Theatre Arts with team members from theatre, art, engineering, and computer science. The purpose of the project is to explore how the clown exists in both the physical and digital worlds, its relevance to the digital age, the codependency between the analog and the digital, and the blurred lines between real and imaginary spaces. In an increasingly digital world, how does the traditional, theatrical, analog clown remain relevant and coexist with the newest digital technologies? What is the nature of the codependency between live, physical performance and digital media design?

Media Clown is available for virtual and in-person bookings. Please contact us for performance information.

Media Clown is sponsored by Epic Mega Grants and the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies.

The Team:

Daniel Fine

Co-PI, Co-Creator, Co-Producer, Director

Daniel is an artist, scholar, and technologist working in immersive physical/virtual environments, site-specific locations and installations for interactive users, audiences and live performance. He is an assistant professor of Digital Media in Performance at the University of Iowa in Theatre Arts, Dance, and Public Digital Arts. He is the co-author of Digital Media, Projection Design & Technology for Theatre. By combining the simple, traditional forms of storytelling with that of new media technologies and digital video, he produces, directs and designs large scale and intimate experiences in order to engage the imaginations and hearts of a twenty-first century audience. Learn more: danielfine.net

Paul Kalina

Co-PI, Co-Creator, Co-Producer, Performer

Paul Kalina brings twenty years of professional clown work in multiple styles to the collaboration. His company 500 Clown deconstructed classic texts to create full length productions that were performed throughout the country and at theatres such as Steppenwolf, Lookingglass Theatre, PS 122 in NY and many others. He created three full length variety circus shows with his company The Bumblinni Brothers, which utilized acrobatics, magic, precision bullwhipping, and aerial skills in a Marx Brothers esque comedy format. Kalina also spent five years supervising the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit, where professional clowns made the rounds as clown doctors at the University of Chicago Children's Hospital. Paul is a Represented Artist with Cirque du Soleil. He is currently the Head of Acting and teaches movement at the University of Iowa.

Matthew Ragan

Co-PI, Co-Creator, Director of Technology

Matthew has worked as an educator, mentor and counselor for over 15 years. He has a robust archive of teaching resources for the creative-coding community, and specializes in creating interactive systems for digital environments. He received his MFA from Arizona State University in Interdisciplinary Digital Media and Performance in 2015. Previously, Matthew has worked as the Director of Software specializing in Real Time Content Creation at the Madison Square Garden Company, as an interactive engineer Obscura Digital.

Leigh M. Marshall

Co-Creator, Lead Writer

Leigh is a multi-disciplinary writer, performer, and San Franciscan. Plays include MARAT’S DEAD (winner, GPSG Research Award; finalist, Bay Area Playwrights Festival); SPELLS FOR GOING FORTH BY DAYLIGHT (recipient, Felton Fund Grant; semifinalist, National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill, the Jerome/Many Voices Fellowship, Lila Acheson Wallace Fellowship at Juilliard, the Corkscrew Festival); LATERALITY (official selection, the Examined Life Conference at Carver College of Medicine); and FAME HEAUX (semifinalist, the O’Neill). In an artistic development/editorial capacity, she has worked at Arena Stage, New Dramatists, and the International Writing Program. BA: Stanford University. MFA: Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

Chelsea June

Co-Creator, Co-Head of Art Department, Costume & Character Design

Chelsea is a theatrical designer focusing in costume, mask, puppetry, and media. While her design work varies form and style, she focuses on a designs ability to change and grow throughout the arch of a show – aging, maturing, regressing, swelling, shrinking, and ebbing. She strives to create work that represents society in truth and allows an audience to question how what they see permeates their own lives. She believes that as artists it is our responsibility to tell untold. Chelsea is a freelance designer on the east coast.

Courtney Gaston

Co-Creator, Co-Head of Art Department, Physical & Virtual Set & Lighting Design

Courtney is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Lighting Design at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She joined the Media Clown project in 2018 as a production designer for the debut performance at the 2019 Prague Quadrennial. Courtney received her MFA in design from the University of Iowa where she designed for productions including Sweat, Sunday in the Park with George, and Hit the Wall, among many others. Most recently, her media design work was seen in Wesleyan’s broadcast of She Kills Monsters and upcoming work can be seen next Fall in Oedipus el Rae at Wesleyan University.

Sarah Lacy Hamilton

Co-Creator, Associate Director, Director of Marketing & Alternate Storytelling

Sarah is a director specializing in actor-driven productions of new and contemporary plays that foreground the human condition and highlight the experiences of underrepresented communities. Past directing credits include PALANQUIN, Sweat, Blackberry: A Burial, HIR, and Nothing But Days at UI; Dry Land at Upstart Productions; and Gruesome Playground Injuries, Julius Caesar, and True West with House Party Theatre. She currently serves as the Director of Development at River & Rail Theatre in Knoxville, and will direct the Knoxville premiere of In the Next Room or the vibrator playat R&R in the spring of 2022. MFA, University of Iowa. BFA, Southern Methodist University.

Noel Nichols

Head of Audio & Sound Design & Integration

Noel is a Sound Designer and Engineer based in the New York area. Select design credits include: The Masses are Asses (Wesleyan CFA), ain’t no dead thing, We are Proud to Present a Presentation…, How to Relearn Yourself (Yale Cabaret); Fun Home, In His Hands (Yale School of Drama), Latinos Who Look Like Ricky Martin (Verano Cabaret); Ghost Card (Fullstop Collective); Counting Pebbles (Faultline Ensemble). Select Engineering: The Prisoner (Yale Rep), 2019 I Hate It Here (Studio Theatre, DC), Sundown Yellow Moon, Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova). NoelNicholsDesign.com.

Travis Kelley

Associate Director of Technology, System Integration

Travis is a recent graduate of the University of Iowa with a degree in Computer Engineering and a certificate in Public Digital Art. He loves projection mapping/design and explores the intersection of art and technology. He currently works with a startup non-profit that connects industry professionals, educators, and students fostering collaborative projects.

Emily Berkheimer

Assistant Director of Technology & Lens Studio Character Development

Emily is a fourth-year informatics major with minors in art and theatre, and a certificate in Public Digital Arts. Her areas of interest are XR production and media design. In her last year at the University of Iowa, Emily has done programming and animation for an MFA dance thesis, assisted in the media design for Blue Whale Variations, and has been a student researcher in the UIowa XR Studio.

Brillian Qi-Bell

Stage Manager

Brillian is a recent theatre arts graduate focusing in stage management and arts entrepreneurship at the University of Iowa. Previous UI Theatre SM/ASM work includes: Global Express, Twilight Bowl, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cat Found God, Pastoral Play, The Wolves, Laterality, Polaris, Monument, Perils of the Flowerbed, Hit the Wall, and A Plant.