Cirque Boom's Madness and Joy! (2005)

William (Watson) Kawecki (AEA) is proud to make his debut with Cirque Boom in this production of Madness and Joy!. A graduate of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Clown College, he is also a clown doctor with Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care Unit program.

Alex Kipp acts, writes, and directs with John Brown Theatre in New York City. His alter ego, Captain Napkin, hosts a monthly clown soiree called The Big Bad Hour of Fun at CRS in Manhattan. For more info, go to www.crsny.org. He also plays & sings in the band, REPUBLiCKiNS (www.republickins.com.)

Zoë Klein is a dancer and acrobat from Brooklyn. She has been partner balancing for the past three years, including two years privately with LAVA and two years with Kirkos. Zoe has been performing and teaching acrobatics in Los Angeles, Germany, Holland and Montreal with her partner Dave Paris and recently toured to Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan.

Rob Lok is a graduate of the famed Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Clown College and subsequently became the first Chinese American Clown to tour with "The Greatest Show on Earth". He now resides in NYC creating new works of circus-theatre including his solo show "Revolutionary Chickens", a spectacle of the Cultural Revolution. www.revolutionarychickens.com

Dave Paris is the director of Mambo Theater Dance Company and producer of the instructional video series "Salsa Lift and Aerials" and "The Salsa Guide." For the past 11 years, he has been teaching and performing his acrobatic style of salsa dancing in New York and around the world. With his dance partner Zoe Klein, he recently toured through Asia.

Dwoira Scheffer is a graduating drama major at LaGuardia High School. This is her first production with Cirque Boom. In addition to rhythmic gymnastics, Dwoira is developing aerial and fire-spinning skills.

Jeff Wills (AEA) is appearing in this, his third show with Cirque Boom, with great enthusiasm. He is also a founding member of the circus-theatre group Kirkos, and the commedia dell’arte troupe Zuppa del Giorno.

Anna Zastrow’s (AEA) sample roles include Helena in A Midsummernight’s Dream, Lady Capulet in Romeo & Juliet, Lord Capulet in same, Yvette in Mother Courage, and Frau Bergman in Spring Awakening in both Off & Off-Off Broadway and regional theater. Anna is a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts as well as Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. She is currently studying human behavior and the treatment thereof at the New School.

Helda emerged into consciousness in Paris in 1998, although she is not French, (she is not quite sure where she is from.) Helda has been seen around town at various venues, such as Cirque Boom’s Circus of Vices and Virtues and The Hoffman Circus, One Arm Red, Six Figures Emerging Artists Festival, and other locations and situations...

Matt Gray is a writer, actor, director, etc. sort-of-person living and working in Brooklyn. A BFA graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts, he was recently seen on stage in Ian W. Hill’s critically-praised World Gone Wrong at the Brick Theatre. He spends his days and many nights producing new operas with American Opera Projects.

Michael O’Brien has been seen recently in "All In the Timing" (Strange Sister), "Nevada Territory" (DM-Theatrics), and "Dracularama" (Alternative Theatre Machine).

Silkweed, a chamber/folk ensemble based in New York City, is the musical brainchild of composers/multi-instrumentalists Colin McGrath and Rob Moose, joined for these performances by clarinetist Mateo Massanet. The music of Silkweed weaves together bluegrass-inspired motives, traditional Irish music, rural American flatpicking, African Cora music, and the rhythmic and harmonic language of classical composers like Stravinsky and Poulenc. Please visit silkweed.net to find out when and where Silkweed will be performing next.

The Walt Whitman Project is a Brooklyn-based community arts organization devoted to exploring the life and influence of this great American writer through readings of his poetry and prose and performances of musical compositions based on his works.

Cirque Boom (www.cirqueboom.org) makes content-driven circus theater: circus that matters and theater that amazes. Founded by Ruth Juliet Wikler in January 2002, Cirque Boom has created The Circus of Vices and Virtues (2002 & 2003), recently featured on BBC Television, and The Hoffmann Circus (2004), which was profiled on WNYC’s Morning Edition and called “Among the funkiest” of New York City’s alternative operas by the New Yorker. After working with the drawings and prints of Pieter Bruegel and the opera of Jacques Offenbach, Madness and Joy! is Cirque Boom’s first encounter with poetry—and the spectacularly beautiful and surprisingly relevant Leaves of Grass.