After a year of assembling photographs, quotes, personal comments, essays, and more photographs we finally have a beautiful book to offer the fans and friends of Rob Torres.
Sarah The Bird Girl performing at Coney Island USA
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With her uncanny resemblance to Minnie, Sarah presents a haunting and visceral account of the beauty of difference and a hidden story of endurance, from the voice of a natural born freak. Koo Koo and the other unlikely stars of Tod Browning’s revolutionary film, Freaks (1932), are also honored in this performance. Significant, because the film was banned for 30 years for being too controversial, yet it is so much part of our history. Minnie went on to work at Coney Island, ensuring she was free from the life of asylums. This is a very special Coney Island show that will give you both answers and leave you wanting more.
As an internationally acclaimed circus and physical theater performer, Sarah has performed for several companies around the world, including Cirque Du Soleil. Most recently she starred as lead female in feature film ‘Reflections in the Dust’ and toured with Extant Theatre UK. She has a TEDx talk and recently spoke at the United Nations. “Koo Koo the Bird Girl” won an Australian Green Room Award 2019 for Contemporary Performance.
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REVIEWS
“This is a terrific show – intelligent, emotional and witty, and a direct challenge to the audience’s expectations about performance, identity and what it means to look and be looked at.”
“This is a performance that explores, beautifully, the capacities of the body and the self, rather than letting the differently abled body be shaped by restrictive legal, social and medical strictures that mark ‘deviance’ as a negative thing, instead of a marker of the breadth of human experience.” – New Zealand Theater Review
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“Amazing, moving and revealing… This is an important performance… ” – Express Magazine, Nov 2015
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“Houbolt’s performance evokes a frisson that every misjudged soul can recognise… Evocative… impressive… Houbolt has a gravitas earned through many years performing around the world… Her demonstration of side show is a rare treat.” – Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane, Nov 2016
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“A show that smashes boundaries between herself and the audience… truly unique” –The Creative Issue Nov 2016
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Excerpt from Tod Browning’s “Freaks” featuring Koo Koo the Bird Girl.
“This book, a collection of prose and poetry by David Cale, changed the way I look at life and love. Cale’s way of putting human emotion into words liberates and invigorates. His meanings are sometimes obscure, so I do not recommend this book to the linear thinker. It’s out of print, but find it and read it any which way you can.”
An international clown duo, combining their talents and sense of humor, depart on an absurd adventure. Whether they are singing, spitting on each other or painting fine art, it all seems to make sense until they make a left turn or a U-turn or park illegally. Just imagine slapstick and circus skills with the good looks of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
Performed, written and directed by Tim Tyler and Joe DePaul.
Right away you begin to laugh at these two wonderful performers.
The routines are timed perfectly and get some serious laughs.
A uke and wonderfully funny voice with voice sound effects.
It is hard to describe the antics these two perform in the show. Go see it!
Christmas time. Wake Up!
King Kong is loose in the theater. Watch out!
It is a very funny show! If they happen to be performing near you go see them!
What happens when you put a clown in a room with 1000 ping pong balls? KING PONG!
KING PONG’S PING PONG RODEO is a truly unique variety show that dares to ask: When is enough, enough? How much is TOO much? Why do Americans go so far? KING PONG combines two of America’s favorite pastimes, “spittin’ and shootin!’”
Michael Trautman has mastered the skills of working with Ping-Pong balls!
His pure joy of manipulating and playing with Ping-Pong balls is so contagious.
He brings together skills from many disciplines and weaves them together effortlessly.
Managing to put so many Ping-Pong balls in his mouth is hysterical.
Michael works with so many wonderful ‘vaudeville’ style routines in this show.
There is so much to see in this show and his character makes it all very playful.
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As of this posting you only have 2 more chances to see his wonderful show. Great for the entire family!
Chain of Fools traces the art of slapstick comedy from its pre-cinema origins in the ancient pantomime through its silent movie heyday in the teens and twenties, then on to talkies, television, and the Internet. As in his first book, the critically acclaimed No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, author Trav S.D. mixes a wicked wit, a scholar’s curiosity, and a keen critical appreciation for laugh-makers through the ages, from classical clowns like Joseph Grimaldi to comedy kings like Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton . . . to more recent figures, from Red Skelton, Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs to Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey and Steve Carell . . . all the way down to the teenagers on YouTube whose backyard antics bring us full circle to slapstick’s beginnings. This valentine to the great clowns contains enough insights and surprises to open the eyes of even life-long comedy fans.
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Silent Film Music Composer Ben Model has this to say about the book!
“I have read a lot of books on silent comedy in film. A lot of them. “Chain of Fools” is not like any of these books, and in a refreshing way. Trav S.D. manages to combine a personal journey through the work of the various luminaries of wordless comedy with the act of also laying them chronologically end-to-end, and manages to do so in an entertaining and humorous way. As he did in his book on Vaudeville, “No Applause, Just Throw Money: the Book that Made Vaudeville Famous”, Trav traces the arc of silent comedy back further than most film historians do in their books, and follows it further into the present as well. “Chain of Fools” is not just about silent comedy itself but its place in our culture and how it’s been a consistent part of it. It’s a fun read, and accessible to both novice and seasoned historian. I thoroughly enjoyed it. (And if you’re not aware of it already, do pick up Trav S.D.’s No Applause–Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous)”
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“When I first saw the cover of the book I smiled. This was not Chaplin and Eric Campbell from “Easy Street” or something, it was Author Trav S.D.’s little joke. The principles of the cover were Billy West and Oliver Hardy, THAT introduced me properly to this wonderful book of other film comedians, some famous, some obscure. This is not a reference book, it can be read for pure joy and the author adds his opinions to these characters making them come to life again. You may consider me a fan of Trav from his first book “No Applause Just Throw Money,” for this author brings the same amount of joy and authority to enrich reader’s knowledge of the legacies of the unknown or forgotten. This is pure prose from cover to cover and it could pass for a course study…only this tome is too entertaining for dry lecture. The author has contributed something special in “Chain of Fools,” (Bearmanor Media). This is a five-star rating.” – William Cassara