What is clown? For an art form that's been around 1000s of years, this is a surprisingly hard question to answer. Legendary clown director/visionary/performer and host Chad Damiani -- along with his musical/technical director/sidekick James Venable -- explore this subject by interviewing a variety of artists who employ clown in different ways. That includes circus folks, performance artists, comics and improvisers.. but also musicians, social media stars, filmmakers and even pro wrestlers. What are the universal elements of clown that connect all these very different people together? And when it comes to strongly opposing views about the nature of the work, why is Chad's opinion always correct?

This podcast is named after Chad's monthly show at LA's Elysian Theater (last Mondays at 9:30pm), where he ruthlessly live directs stand-up comics through a grueling gauntlet of clown work.