Rob Mermin is the founder of the award-winning international touring youth circus Circus Smirkus.

Biography

Rob Mermin ran off to join the

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

in 1969. He clowned with various European circuses including England's Circus Hoffman, Sweden's Cirkus Scott, Denmark's Circus Benneweis in the Circus Building by the Tivoli, the Hungarian Magyar State Cirkusz, and circus palaces throughout the former Soviet Union. His formal training includes mime with masters

Marcel Marceau Marcel Marceau (; born Marcel Mangel; 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", and he performed professionally worldw ...

and Etienne Decroux, and a degree in Drama and Literature from

Lake Forest College Lake Forest College is a private liberal arts college in Lake Forest, Illinois. Founded in 1857 as Lind University by a group of Presbyterian ministers, the college has been coeducational since 1876 and an undergraduate-focused liberal arts i ...

in 1971. He is former Dean of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and President of Blackfriar’s Summer Theater. In 1987 Mermin founded Circus Smirkus in Greensboro, Vermont.

Awards

Mermin's awards include Copenhagen's ''Gold Clown''; Vermont's ''Bessie'' Award; ''Best Director Prize'' at the International Circus Festival on Russia's Black Sea; the Lund Family Center's "It Takes A Village" Award; the Vermont Arts Council Award of Merit; Lake Forest College's Outstanding Alumni Leadership Award; and the 2008 Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts.

Personal

, Mermin resides in

Montpelier, Vermont Montpelier () is the capital city of the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Washington County. The site of Vermont's state government, it is the least populous state capital in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population ...

. He is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

.Rabbi blesses the circus
Harris, Ben. ''Jewish Telegraphic Agency.'' JTA.org Published June 29, 2009. Accessed January 8, 2016.

References

External links

Rob Mermin

Circus Smirkus

An Audio Remembrance of Marcel Marceau
by Rob Mermin
A 2006 interview of Rob Mermin on Vermont Public Television's show ''Profile''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mermin, Rob American clowns American circus performers American Jews People from Orleans County, Vermont Living people Lake Forest College alumni Year of birth missing (living people)