Marceline Amaris

Amaris acknowledges her knack for performance has been a lifelong trait. “I really made a spectacle of myself, even as a three year old, five year old, seven year old, without being super intentional about it,” Amaris says. Much later Amaris started performing slam poetry in Houston. Be it out of a tendency to find the humor in everything, or a resistance to taking things too seriously, this stint was dashed in pursuit of comedy.

Before Amaris made a name for themself in experimental comedy, she took to standup as a comedic outlet. Her curiosity was piqued after being brought to an open mic on a first date (not an idea we’d recommend). Just a week prior to her first ever standup set, an introductory book on the form was all Amaris needed to draft her own material while she learned to “fill in the blanks” of the formula. “Can you tell I was a great test taker?” Amaris says. “And then I went and told probably one of the most traumatizing stories of my life.” Jarring the audience right out of the gate was a lesson for Amaris on the stakes of being vulnerable on stage, but it was also a revelation of the catharsis of writing.

Amaris found the improv community to be, admittedly, more fostering than the lone wolf world of standup. After so much time spent doing open mics (six nights a week, multiple a night) she transitioned to improv. Through improv she discovered clowning. Amaris speaks of her clown awakening; “I just felt what a lot of ‘baby clowns’ feel, which is ‘what the hell just happened, I don’t know what this is’, but I feel so powerfully drawn to it.” Amaris’ eyes were opened by luminaries like Courtney Pauroso and John Norris. From there Amaris embarked on a cross-country trip taking classes in different cities. All this experience set the tone for her own Clown Garden, an experimental comedy show she produced wherein performers had free rein to do character work, miming, juggling, or really anything they set their heart to barring traditional improv or standup. “I think it’s a beautiful space” says Amaris of the monthly show at the Fallout Theater. “I feel very honored to have been there to create that space for people.” After a grand finale in December, Clown Garden is no more, but the creative spirit is carried wherever Amaris takes it.

Amaris made her one-woman comedy debut with the aptly titled Trisha: A One Woman Comedy. The tale of a woman losing her husband to war and becoming a single mother is turned into an over-the-top camp affair with hilariously grotesque stage antics. Trisha squeezes milk through a prosthetic breastplate and gives birth onstage, among other things. Amaris is no stranger to character work; she's even performed in character as a pickle. “I actually dedicated my pickleness to Adam Sandler,” explains Amaris, referring to the inaugural Clown Garden where she did a presentation on the observed relationship between pickles and the actor often photographed eating them. Sandler, we learn, is a guiding force in Amaris’ work.