Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05

Famed Physical Comedian Performs with Appalachian Symphony Orchestra April 18 and 19

Dan Kamin, who created Johnny Depp's physical comedy routines in Benny and Joon and trained Robert Downey, Jr. for his Oscar-nominated performance in Chaplin, will bring his unique blend of comedy and classical music to the High Country when he performs The Classical Clown with the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra on Friday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. at Ashe Civic Center in West Jefferson, and on Saturday, April 19, at 8:00 p.m. at Farthing Auditorium in Boone. Kamin’s shows will benefit the Ashe and the Watauga Arts Councils.

Sparks will fly as Kamin battles conductor James Allen Anderson for control of the orchestra. By the time it’s over, the clown conducts and the maestro turns into a clown! The whole family will be enchanted by Kamin’s antics and amazing skills, as they discover great musical classics by Beethoven, Stravinsky, Strauss and many more.

Kamin will also do a series of performance stunts in the area during the week. He’ll walk in slow motion through Appalachian’s Student Union, visit several schools “to combat the influence of rational thought,” make the rounds of Ashe Memorial Hospital as the goofy “Dr. Dan” and become “the worst speaker the Rotary ever had.”

Asked about his movie work, Kamin said, “Classic movies inspired me, and I came full circle by adding classic visual comedy to modern films. I taught Johnny Depp how to roll the coin around his fingers the way he does at the end of Pirates of the Caribbean. But does he call? Never.”

In addition to working with Depp and Downey, Kamin played the wooden Indian that came to life in the cult classic Creepshow 2 and created Martian movement for Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! His Comedy Concertos, which blend comedy with classical music, have become popular with symphonies around the world, including Boston, Philadelphia, Singapore, Shanghai and Malaysia. In addition to The Classical Clown, they include The Haunted Orchestra, The Lost Elephant and The Horrible History of Music.

Despite his impressive stage and screen credits, Kamin's artistic beginnings were humble. At age 12, he began his performing career as a boy magician, “bravely struggling,” as he put it, “to entertain hordes of unappreciative, hyperkinetic children.” Attending Carnegie Mellon University to study industrial design, Kamin's hopes for a normal life and career evaporated when he saw the eye-popping movement illusions practiced by master mime Jewel Walker. He promptly became the sorcerer’s apprentice.

The great silent comedy films of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin added more fuel to his fire, and soon Kamin was touring the country with his first original show, Silent Comedy...Live! Undeterred by the fact that vaudeville was long dead, he cobbled a new vaudeville circuit out of colleges, theatres and corporations, for whom Kamin often appears as a keynote speaker who falls apart. “I applied my industrial design skills to building a collapsing lectern.” He also becomes "The Corpozoid Man," an eerie character who strolls into arts festival crowds in slow motion “terrifying the very children who tormented me as a youth.”

Kamin returned to his comedy roots to write Charlie Chaplin's One-Man Show, revealing the secrets of Chaplin's comic art. Hailed as a breakthrough work, the book boasts a preface by another Chaplin fan, Marcel Marceau.

Under the musical direction of conductor James Allen Anderson, the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra is a performance ensemble comprised of more than 100 members—undergraduate and graduate students from the distinguished Hayes School of Music and talented student musicians from across the campus and community.

Kamin’s appearances are a unique collaboration between the Ashe County Arts Council, the Watauga County Arts Council, ASU’s Office of Arts & Cultural Programs and Appalachian’s Hayes School of Music. The performance and residency schedule has received funding support through the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (PennPAT Program), the North Carolina Arts Council’s Arts & Audiences Grant and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets for Kamin’s shows are $12 for adults and $5 for students.

For tickets to the Friday, April 18, performance at the Ashe Civic Center, call 336-846-ARTS.

For tickets to the Saturday, April 19, performance at Farthing Auditorium, call 828-262-4046.

Want To Go?

Dates: Friday, April 18/Saturday, April 19
Time: 7:30 p.m./8:00 p.m.
Location: Ashe Civic Center/Farthing Auditorium
Cost: $12 adults/$5 students