"Shows For Special Needs Kids!"

I did a show yesterday at a camp dedicated to special needs kids.

I just love these shows, I love these kids, I get a big kick out of how much they will laugh.

A lot of people don't deal with this population. I would do the shows for free, it's just a treat to me.

What's great about being a clown, is whatever happens during the show, I can "comment" on it, either physically or verbally and I do. It gets the councilors howling. Every kid there had a one on one councilor. So, it's an interesting show. Sometimes, I can have people just wandering right into a routine or in the case of yesterday, I had one young lady, stand front and center in front of me to watch. Each time, I tried to put her off to the side (gently and in a funny way), she came back to the center. Oh well, no one can see, but I just put that much more energy into working with what's there.

I have a choice going in, I can be super sarcastic and edgy because it will go over the heads of the participants and go to the councilors that tend to be sort of hip people. (yup, I've visited lots of special needs places and there are more facial piercings, porkpie hats, beanies and tattoos than the normal population).

I choose to do routines that will have the participants enjoying the show. Now this can be uncomfortable because sometimes there is no response, it's a weird feeling to be doing a routine in the quiet. While I'm doing it, I know it works, I have to trust it. I could get easy laughs by going for the self commenting route "well, I guess that doesn't work..."

That will get a laugh but it's easy cheap comedy.

At the end, I really am not sure how I did. There were participants on a higher functioning level that had a great time. But I also got a lot of stares. A couple of the councilors came up and told me, they loved it. They paid attention, watched for the entire time, that's unusual.

This is a part of the job I get a kick out of. Every day is new. Who knows what will happen next?