ABOUT KENDALL CORNELL, Creator and Director.

Kendall has been creating and performing clown work in New York City and abroad since falling in love with it 13 years ago. Her dynamic solo clown pieces, such as Pink Salome, The Maneater, Glamourpuss, P.S. de la Resistance, and The Wallflower have been presented at LaMama, The Brick’s New York Clown Theatre Festival, Chicago’s City of Fools Festival, Six Figures’ Artists of Tomorrow Festival, the 92nd Street Y’s Makor, and elsewhere in NYC and abroad. She also created and starred in an innovative short clown film, A Clown Idyll, which will premiere in NYC this year.

Last year, she directed and ringmaestraed a troupe of 16 women clowns in The Clown Pageant. Subsequently, Kendall was commissioned by Canada’s Cirque du Soleil to create a special clown extravaganza with her women clowns for the NYC opening of their circus, Corteo. Kendall has also worked with David Shiner (Fool Moon, Cirque du Soleil) in directing the U.S. version of the circus-theatre spectacle, Pomp, Duck & Circumstance. For Brooklyn-based Cirque Boom’s The Hoffman Circus, she created the various clown entr’actes. She worked for five years with Waterline Theatre Company as a member of the Artistic & Producing Board, presenting a great number of new artists and new works. On her own, in the guise of Moxie Productions, Kendall produced (and performed) in Danny & the Deep Blue Sea and Strindberg’s Miss Julie. She has also produced all her own clown creations (listed above), including the full-length collaborations Working Without Annette and The Holiday Show.

Kendall has a background in modern dance, and she danced alongside Jennifer Muller/The Works Company for over 15 years, also teaching Muller technique classes in NYC and Europe. Kendall’s foremost acting training has been with Alan Langdon at Circle in the Square, and she has trod the boards in many downtown NYC theatres. Her clown training has been with some of the best clowns and teachers in the western world such as David Shiner (whom she assisted in his master classes), Chris Bayes, Angela de Castro, Ami Hattab, and the renowned Philippe Gaulier (whom she also assisted, after bringing him to teach in the USA for the first time). Currently, Kendall is a sought after teacher in her own right, holding regular workshops for women clowns in NYC.

Philippe Gaulier is a world renowned Clown and teacher, heading his own school for the past 25 years and turning out such familiar faces as, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emma Thompson and the founders of Theatre de Complicite. He says:

“I did a lot of work with Kendall. Always I was surprised by her humour, fun, pleasure. She is simply great. And I don’t care women or men clown --I care funny or not funny clown.” -Philippe Gaulier

Chris Bayes is an acclaimed performer, teacher and director of Clown. He has taught workshops at Cirque du Soleil and Big Apple Circus and classes at Yale, Julliard and NYU. He says:

“Kendall Cornell clearly has a great understanding of the world of the clown. She is an astonishing unteachable pain-in-my-ass. Her opinionated rants are truly inspirational and give me pedagogical nightmares but mostly she has a managed to carve out a fierce and playful spot for hilarious women to get together to make vital and outrageous theater. We may have to coin a new term......clo(wome)n!” -Chris Bayes