“Satisfy people’s desire for the ridiculous and they will accept your idea of the sublime.”
THE IDIOT
The Idiot is the most serious and important of all performance mödes.
The Idiot is where clown, boufon, trickster, comedian, improvisor, dancer, musician, actor, imp, bullshitter, joyful provocateur, anarchist, purveyor of nonsense, haranguer and conniver, sprite fairy and puck; where the little shit, bugbear, fool, jester, arlecchino, punchinello, brighella, zany, august, pierrot, funambulist, thesp, mime and mimic, antic and wag, rascal, scoundrel and lout meet. The Idiot rests on the truth of paradox and all things in between. Imagine a hammock. Now a turtle farting. The distribution of wealth in a classist society. The play of opposition provides the balance pole for a wire walking Idiot who is endlessly falling upward. A string stretched between two continents and plucked by a virgin resonates at the same frequency as a sperm whale chuckling to hermself. The Idiot is the answer to all problems which do not exist.
The Idiot Workshop is an institution dedicated to upholding, nurturing and catapulting Idiots. The Idiot Workshop is governed by a set of rules held together by a rubber band and a piece of tape and is kept unlocked inside of an ageless matchbox.
The Simples Simples
“Your limitations make you the wonderful disaster that you are.”
Welcome to The Idiot Workshop, home of the modern clown scene in Los Angeles.
What is now a thriving scene making waves and garnering international press kicked off in 2012, with Cirque Du Soleil star John Gilkey leading a once weekly clown class in a small studio on Santa Monica Blvd in Hollywood. The popularity of John’s early classes coupled with Wet The Hippo, a hit show in the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival, launched the scene that is now attracting artists of all kinds including big names like Will Farrell and Melissa Villaseñor.
With Wet The Hippo, John pioneered the live-directing model now seen throughout the clown scene including Chad Damiani’s popular show, Stand Up And Clown, at the Elysian Theater. You can still see it in its original form as performance in Cruel Babes or as an open jam in Hippodrome.
“This show should simply not be missed ...transcendent...absolutely hilarious ...beautiful ...the whole thing feels like a jazz symphony made up on the spot by Duke, Miles, Coltrane and Fitzgerald. Yes, the members of Wet The Hippo are that good.”
— L.A. BETTER LEMONS
Wet The Hippo was an ensemble clown show composed of a collection of John’s early students including now popular figures like Natalie Palamedes (Edinburgh Fringe Best Show Winner), plus Alec Jones Trujillo, Gabe McKinney, and Tyler Watson who all later joined Las Vegas juggernaut Spiegelworld to headline the show Absinthe, and Claire Titelman whose short film, remember me, was recently featured in the 2025 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Program.
Following Wet The Hippo, John assembled another live-directed show, The Murge, which featured popular America’s Got Talent figure Sethward, Claire Woolner and Kevin Krieger (star and director, respectively, of Hollywood Fringe Best Show 2023), Max Baumgarten (Spiegelworld’s Opium), Grace Lusk(Opium), John Norris (Absinthe), Eli Weinberg (Opium, Atomic Saloon, Disco Show), and the aforementioned Chad Damiani.
“Spontaneous Theater of the absurd... lascivious, blasphemous and potentially dangerous... This could be LA’s craziest improv show”
— LA WEEKLY
The current iteration of the live-directed model and heir to Wet The Hippo is Cruel Babes. This show continues the raw, risk-taking form of modern clown that represents the cutting edge of comedy in Los Angeles. Join Cruel Babes for this special late-night experience as we usher you into a liminal space where the collective unconscious rises to the surface and swallows you whole for a nightcap full of live music, liberated laughter and deep deep feels.
“Somewhere at the intersection of the sacred and the profane, of poetry and dire scatology, of clown and Dada, of community and exile, of fourth walls and no walls at all, lies Cruel Babes. Cruel Babes welcomes you to their family playroom for laughs, tears, and live-directed anti-theatrical chaos that is at its very least…absolutely not like anything else.”
KEITH FULTON - Filmmaker (Lost In La Mancha)
The Idiot Workshop and its teaching represent a modernization to the form of clown first developed by Pierre Byland and Philippe Gaulier at the Jacques Lecoq School of Physical Theater in Paris in the 60’s, often referred to as red nose clown or European theatrical clown.
Clown is a core skill for any performer. Clown challenges you to play from yourself, without any masks, and with full commitment to your strongest choices. Ultimately, we aim to lead you into your own groove, giving you your full creative voice in all of its humour, poetic beauty and resonant depth.
The Idiot Workshop is dedicated to supporting the performer as creator. We encourage our students to break the rules of live performance, to find new levels of vulnerability and absurdity, and to forge a relationship with their audience that is engaging, risk taking and provocative.
Our community consists of actors, comedians, improvisers, dancers, writers and musicians who seek to discover new creative territory and to collaborate with a wide range of talented artists who share a similar affinity for deep and ridiculous play.
John Gilkey, he/him/his, has performed internationally for more than thirty-five years in circus, variety, comedy clubs, theater and television. Beginning in 1987, he spent four years as clown, acrobat and featured juggler with The Pickle Family Circus. This troupe is widely recognized as a pioneer in the contemporary circus movement.
In 1996, John joined the popular French Canadian troupe, Cirque Du Soleil. In his first production with Cirque, he created and played the lead character for the show entitled Quidam. His collaboration with Cirque Du Soleil continued to grow with the creation and performance of clown numbers for the shows Dralion, Varekai and Iris. John also wrote for and appeared in the Cirque Du Soleil television program Solstrum. With Cirque Du Soleil alone John has performed live for more than four million people.
In 2002 John was invited to Pixar Studios to consult on the physical comedy routines that were eventually included in the Oscar winning film Ratatouille. John also consulted for Pixar on the character voices in the Pixar short film, La Luna.
Additionally John worked with acclaimed director Franco Dragone to create Le Reve, a water spectacle for the Wynn Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas. As “Comedy Concepteur,” John was in charge of casting a team of seven clowns and, with them, developing the comic material for the the show. With a budget of over $135 million, this show stands as one of the most spectacular in the world.
John continues to create challenging and experimental theater in California, including shows like We Are Nudes which earned a Best of the Fringe award in the 2009 San Francisco Fringe Festival and Wet The Hippo which was nominated for Best Comedy in the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
John now spends most of his time leading The Idiot Workshop and various Wet The Hippo productions in Los Angeles.
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Amrita Dhaliwal, she/her/hers, is an international award-winning Punjabi American arts leader, educator and devising artist based in Los Angeles, whose work spans multiple mediums, from stage to TV & Film. Her work explores the core themes of humanity, like death and love, through a lens of the current social-political climate. In addition to the Idiot Workshop, Amrita is also an Adjunct Lecturer in Comedy at University of Southern California.
Amrita is a graduate of the School for Theatre Creators, a Lecoq based physical theater program. She has trained extensively in clown with with Paola Coletto, Aitor Basauri, Philippe Gaulier and more. In addition to her physical theater training, Amrita has an in-depth background in improv, sketch, Viewpoints, Meisner and traditional theatre.
For more information about Amrita, check out amritadhaliwal.com.
“Theater takes place all the time, wherever one is, and art merely facilitates persuading one that this is the case”