At a clown school near Paris, failure is the lesson
toggle caption Rebecca Rosman for NPR
ÉTAMPES, France — The man in control tonight is named Carlo Jacucci. You're on the stage. He's the audience. And there's almost no chance you're going to please him — which, somehow, is exactly why you're here.
"The games begin," Jacucci, a matter-of-fact Franco-Italian, tells his students, then taps a drum between his legs.
The stage lights go bright. The music starts. A group of red-nosed clowns in various costumes begins a ritual that has been the heartbeat of this place for more than 40 years.
toggle caption Jacinta Oaten
This is the École Philippe Gaulier, a school named after its founder, a teacher who believed comedy and clowning begin not with jokes, but with the pleasure of being ridiculous. Or, as Gaulier calls it, finding "your idiot."
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Doctors, priests, actors — they come from all over the world to study this philosophy in the otherwise sleepy village of Étampes, about an hour'
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