Jeff Raz is an American

clown A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms. History The most ancient clowns have been found in ...

, actor, teacher, and director. He founded and served as director of the

Clown Conservatory The Clown Conservatory is a performing arts school in San Francisco, CA. The school began in 2000 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Curriculum Jeff Raz founded and served as director of the Clown Conservatory from 2000 to 20 ...

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, the country's only remaining professional clown training program from 2000 to 2010. As a performer he has had leading roles with Vaudeville Nouveau, Make*A*Circus,

Pickle Family Circus The Pickle Family Circus was a small circus founded in 1974 in San Francisco, California, United States. The circus formed an important part of the renewal of the American circus. They also influenced the creation of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal. ...

, and

Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 Ju ...

Background

Raz grew up in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, in the 1970s.

Roles

A large man, Raz has a long running collaboration with five-foot-tall clown Diane Wasnak as "Pino and Razz". The pair performed, among other places, as leads in the Pickle Family Circus. Raz toured in 2007 as the "Dead Clown", the lead in Cirque du Solei's production,

Corteo Corteo is a Cirque du Soleil touring production that premiered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on April 21, 2005. As of May 24, 2005, Cirque du Soleil had broken its record of spectators for the première location in Montreal; more than 200,000 p ...

. In 2009 he reprised this role in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka Japan http://www.jeffraz.com/ Raz is part of the

new circus Contemporary circus (also known as new circus, and ''nouveau cirque'' and ''cirque contemporain'' in French-speaking countries) is a genre of performing arts developed in the late 20th century in which a story or theme is conveyed through traditi ...

movement—circuses without animals. He is an admirer of

Charlie Chaplin Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...

, Wavy Gravy,

Bill Irwin William Mills Irwin (born April 11, 1950) is an American actor, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a n ...

. Raz performed in the

Flying Karamazov Brothers The Flying Karamazov Brothers (FKB) are a juggling and comedy troupe that has been performing since 1973. They learned their trade busking as street artists starting in Santa Cruz, California, eventually going on to perform nationally and internat ...

' Broadway production of ''

The Comedy of Errors ''The Comedy of Errors'' is one of William Shakespeare's early plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. It ...

''. In the summer of 2011, he played Aristophanes/Playwright in his play ''The Road to Hades'', performed by the Shotgun Players of Berkeley, California.''The Road to Hades'' play-bill He recently performed with California Revels.

Other work

Raz has taught at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and the

San Francisco School of Circus Arts Circus Center is a circus school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1984 by Wendy Parkman and Judy Finelli as the San Francisco School of Circus Arts. History In 1974 the Pickle Family Circus was founded by Peggy Snider and Lar ...

. He wrote solo plays ''Father-Land'', about a secular Jew's understanding of the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, and ''Birth Mark'', about adoption. He has written two books ''The Secret Life of Clowns: A backstage tour of Cirque du Soleil and The Clown Conservatory'' and ''The Snow Clown: Cartwheels on Borders from Alaska to Nebraska.''

Personal life

Raz describes himself as "very political". He is married to Sherry Sherman, a psychologist. The couple has two children, Micah, and Joshua.

References

External links

- professional website American clowns Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) Male actors from Berkeley, California {{US-entertainer-stub