The 2011 Humanities and Fine Arts convocation featured David Carlyon, author of Dan Rice: The Most Famous Man You've Never Heard Of. Carlyon spoke about the life of Dan Rice, the 19th-century iconic clown who lived at the intersections of art and politics, pop culture and celebrity, with revealing points of comparison for our own times.
Carlyon is an historian, theatre director, teacher, actor, and ex-circus clown. His book on Rice was the subject of a New York Times feature article and received glowing reviews around the country. He has directed plays at Joseph Papp's Riverside Shakespeare Company, the Actor's Studio, and the Goodspeed Opera Company. He has taught master classes in clowning, acting, and theatre history at Northwestern, the University of Michigan, Carnegie-Mellon, and Brown. For three years he toured throughout the United States as a clown with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. He attended Clown College with History professor Phil Adamo. Carlyon has a BA in American Studies from the University of Michigan, a law degree from the University of California at Berkley, and a PhD in Theatre from Northwestern University. He has fought forest fires, served as an MP in the Army, and sold beer at Philadelphia's Vets Stadium.
During his visit to Augsburg, Carlyon also spent time with history majors and even taught a movement class for theater professor Darcey Engen's students.
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