Presented as a part of the first annual NYC Clown Fest at Brooklyn Art Haus!

Are you sad? Me too, bestie. Welcome to VILE, an award-winning clown show that rides the line between pleasure and disgust, where clown and buffon hold a funhouse mirror to the experience of muddling through depression while drowning in modernity. Here, the laughter is tinged with nausea, and the nausea is tinged with relief. Ingredients include: the decay of late stage capitalism, a skewering of rape culture, greasy toes, a balloon penis, extra cheese, and a side of bdsm.

Francesca Montanile Lyons "commands the stage with incredible presence" (Twin Cities Geek). Trained at the Pig Iron School in traditional clown and buffon, she creates work that seeks to disempower shame through radical honesty and voyeuristic delight. Rather than a classic application of these forms, VILE brings them into a modern context with a feminist lens, infused with aesthetics of queer nightlife and influenced by the performer's time making work in the drag and burlesque scenes in Philadelphia. VILE is born from creative research into performance states that are deeply pleasurable in their unpleasantness.

VILE has toured nationally to US Fringe Festivals in Providence, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Minneapolis. It is a Golden Lanyard MN Fringe Staff Award Winner, Encore Series Cannonball PHL Fringe Fest Selection, and Flamboyance Award Nominee.

Writer/Performer: Francesca Montanile Lyons
Creative Collaboration: Alicia Crosby
Sound Design: Tom Carman
Animations & Projections: Francesca Montanile Lyons