Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510130001
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA P. SMITH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Taibbi, a third-grade teacher at Fishburn Elementary School, claims to be a "ham."
"I am the one most likely to crack a joke" during teachers' meetings at school.
Donning a clown outfit, he says, "allows me to let it all hang out."
"I feel it is a gift to be able to make people forget about their everyday lives for a while."
Taibbi's interest in clowning began at the College of William and Mary. During his freshman year, a friend taught Taibbi how to juggle.
Although he double-majored in English and anthropology, Taibbi says his minor "should have been juggling" because that is all he did in the evenings after classes.
In his junior year, Taibbi saw the Russian juggler, Gregori Popovich, perform with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Williamsburg.
After the show, Taibbi went backstage to see if he could get the juggler's autograph. He could not find Popovich, but he did find the Barnum & Bailey clowns, and one of them, Steve Patient, offered to help him.
He told Taibbi to come back the next day. Taibbi skipped classes and did just that.
Not only did he get to meet Popovich backstage, but Taibbi also got to juggle with him and the circus clowns.
While backstage, Patient told Taibbi about the Ringling Brothers' clown college.
During Taibbi's senior year, he applied to the two-month clown college, answering such questions as: "When was the last time you cried?" and "Do you like children?" In addition to the application, he went to Norfolk in early 1992 for an audition with 5,000 other hopefuls. Only 30 would be accepted.
While waiting to hear from the clown college, Taibbi began reading up on the college and the circus. He even talked to Leon McBryde, formerly known as "Buttons the Clown" before retiring from Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey.
Also doing the wait Taibbi "deliberately took a job" he previously had at a Charlottesville bank's credit department. He was planning to use the money to buy a car if he didn't get into the clown college. "If I did get accepted, I would use the money for living expenses."
The acceptance call came in June 1992, and in August Taibbi was on his way to Norfolk to learn how to be a clown.
He learned stage presence, juggling, unicycling and how to fall down, put on make-up and write skits.
In 1993, after clown college, Taibbi joined the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus because it claimed to be the "greatest show under the big top."
It was under that big top that Taibbi, in the center ring, proposed to his future wife, the former Julie Drewry of Roanoke.
The two had met during their freshman year at William and Mary, before he had the juggling lessons. Therefore, he says, "she knows more about my clowning career than my parents do."
In November 1993, Taibbi left Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. because "the circus lifestyle is a tiring one and one year was enough. Another incentive was that I had gotten engaged."
On Aug. 6, 1994, Taibbi and Drewry were married in Roanoke, with him wearing big, floppy clown shoes.
"I get asked all the time how do I put up with him at home. I tell people he is just like any other person - he just happens to be someone who does clowning on the side," says Julie Taibbi, also a teacher.
"He is always juggling around the house," she says, and "if something is lying around, he will pick it up and start juggling."
To teach others what he learned in the clown college, Taibbi has conducted a few workshops for the Red Cross. He's also taught clowning during a summer program at Fishburn Elementary's Plato Center for Gifted Students.
Taibbi doesn't care who sees him as a clown. But, he says, he is very careful that children don't see him in half make-up.
"When a child sees a clown, it's like a fantasy for them, and I don't want to destroy that for them."
Taibbi performs mostly on weekends and after school, getting his engagements mostly by word of mouth, or through his production company, Up and Up Productions. However, Taibbi has performed for such businesses and organizations as Proctor & Gamble, Burger King Corp., and Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Roanoke Valley Inc.
To get in touch with Chris Taibbi, contact his company, Up and Up Productions, at 776-3478.
by CNB