TESTIMONIALS
“I had no idea what to expect from The Supers. But from the first moment to the last, I was transported to another world (literally) and experienced a new language of words, of performance and of storytelling. While I didn't understand everything word for word, I was on the ride from the get-go, thanks to the wildly talented cast, the extremity of performance style, and the emotionality underpinning the entire journey. It combined moments of Fellini, Chaplin, Dadaism, Melodrama into a new kind of theater that made me let go and just travel with Sara Moore and company.”
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Jonathan Moscone: Chief Producer for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts SF Former Artistic Director, California Shakespeare Theater
“I have seen many of her solo performances, often going well out of my way to do so. It’s worth it. She is fearless and utterly engaging in performance, combining physical dexterity, blazing intelligence, vocal acrobatics and mind- boggling juxtapositions to create comedic alchemy. Her pieces have the irresistible combination of being both utterly unique and completely recognizable. She is unquestionably on a par with all the great clowns. “
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Michael Butler: Artistic Director Center Rep, presenter of Wunderworld
“Terrifyingly bright and verbal...Moore is a thoroughly post-modern mix of weird characters, funny voices, bizarre situations – a quirky theatrical synthesis of her idols, influences, and inspirations. Imagine Fanny Brice meets Daffy Duck, Lucille Ball, Lily Tomlin, Laurie Anderson, Audre Lorde, David Bowie...”
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Marilyn Lois Pollack, THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER MAGAZINE
Multi-award-winning clown, actor, director author and filmmaker Sara Moore titles her new production, The Supers, A Science-Fiction Magical Realism Human Cartoon Opera. That's quite a mouthful of multi genre styles but is an adequate description of this highly ambitious, thoroughly engaging and brilliantly acted performance piece.
Moore, who's constantly pushing the boundaries of clowning as director of the SF Clown Conservatory, has cast herself with masters of their craft to create an other- worldly tale of quirky cosmic refugees challenging authoritarian forces and finding their individual healing powers. Performed entirely in pantomime, the seven performers incorporate every type of physical comedy imaginable: mime, facial manipulations, acrobatics, pratfalls and balancing. You probably won't see anything quite like The Supers and for that reason, it’s must-see theater. Employing an eclectic score by composer Rob Reich and some mirror work animation projections Colin Johnson the characters perform their intricate choreographed movements with breathtaking skill. Johnson also doubles as director and brings Moore's fantastic vision to fruition.
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Steve Murray - Broadwayworld.com
“A multi-dimensional, multi-media expedition, The Supers unfolds across a playfully conceptualized universe. Propelled by a cinematic score composed by Rob Reich and accompanied by videos of colorful constellations designed by director Colin Johnson, a quintet of mostly non-verbal clowns hurdle through space in search of sanctuary.
That each character is able to convey so much of their backstory non-verbally— assisted by some key animated sequences—is The Supers ecstatic superpower. And while it’s not always clear how each vignette connects to the next, the plucky performances occasionally becoming overwhelmed by the force of the immersive soundscape, this vibrant and colorful ‘human cartoon’ admirably showcases its whimsical ensemble with genuine heart.”
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Nicole Gluckstern- KQED.org/National Public Radio
“What she does is genius.”
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Sharon Gless, Emmy-winning star of TV, film & theatre
“She is my own Fanny Brice. And the hardest working clown in show business."
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Merv Griffin, entertainment mogul, producer, actor & singer
“When Sara Moore embodied Valerie Solanas’ alter ego in the long-delayed world premiere of Up Your Ass (1965) at George Coates Performance Works in 2000, she was relentless, single-minded, depressed and destructive. (She’d make a great Hedda Gabler.) That was just the dark side of the moon. In this year’s long delayed West Coast premiere of Madeleine Olnek’s Co-Dependent Space Alien Seeks Same (1992) at Theatre Rhino’s Studio, Moore unleashed eyebrows like caterpillars, lips like earthworms, wildly swiveling google eyes and a voice like Buddy Hackett’s to incarnate an extraterrestrial with a heart of Play-doh. Amazing. (Think Valeska Gert. Think Fanny Brice.) Coates brought her back for a production designed to fail without her. In The Crazy Wisdom Sho, Moore plays an out and proud multiple personality who switches channels like you and I blink. These outward displays of talent are special because they make emotional sense. She’s not a grimace machine. She lends form to the intangible realities of our souls. That’s what makes her an artist.”
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Erin Blackwell - Best Artist Award, SF FRONTIERS MAGAZINE
“Sara ‘Toby’ Moore stands at the vanguard of clowning in America. Years spent in the spotlight with old-school industry behemoths like Ringling and Merv Griffin gave Toby a deep, practical knowledge of the artform's traditional expressions. As they matured as an artist. they found more freedom to marry this expertise with the creative dramaturgy of their theatrical writing. The combination has yielded a rich, prolific body of work that achieves nothing less than the reinvention of American clowning.
Their central innovation is to de-emphasize the external trappings of clowning and apply techniques drawn from across the performing arts and animation to express the clown's core identity: the Human Cartoon, a uniquely expressive physical storyteller. Human Cartoons embody the misfit, contradictory, and outrageous aspects of humanity through heightened physical expression informed by emotional nuance - what Toby describes as "precision idiocy" - to create empathetic, relatable characters that use their very "otherness" to connect with their audiences.
Toby has worked out this new evolution of clowning through their writing and their pedagogy, but most of all in dramatic practice, by applying its principles to characters in a wide variety of shows. They've explored and defined human cartooning in solo, ensemble, cabaret, and big top formats. Human cartoons have starred in superhero stories, teen adventures. fairy tales, confessional dramas, pantomimes, and more. Their last project. The Supers, combined superhero motifs with original music and themes of inclusion and alienation in the creation of something wholly new: a clown opera.
Toby has written eloquently, including in their essay State of the Clown, about the way that their genderqueer identity is part of their vision for what the clown is and means in society. They have expressed this better than I could: I will only pause to point out that circus and clowning, like so many traditional art forms, has been heavily dominated by cis-het males for most of its history, all the way to the present. It's one kind of accomplishment to break through in that world as a performer, which Toby did from an early age. It's another entirely to redefine an art form in a radically inclusive way around a deconstruction of traditional gender norms and identity. That is part of Toby's legacy, too.
Toby is truly an unusual genius who has enriched the cultural landscape and substantially advanced their chosen art form.”
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Barry Kendall, executive producer The Supers/Executive Director Circus Center, San Francisco, CA
“Wunderworld is a miracle of originality. It is impossible to describe and brilliantly performed and those of us lucky enough to experience this first production came in as jaded grownups but left as enchanted 7-year-olds.”
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David Weissman, award-winning documentary filmmaker: The Cockettes, We Were Here
“SHOW HO pays off in connections, compassion and yes, humor. Moore is a very talented comic with an exceptionally flexible voice and excellent physical control.”
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SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Show posters and printed media
“The best part of SHOW HO is that Moore evokes all the characters herself: I’ve never seen one person portray an entire circus before! Moore’s SHOW HO is a beautifully bizarre solo performance. Hilarious.”
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SAN FRANCISCO WEEKLY
“Moore proves a comedic powerhouse in the vaudeville tradition with shades of everyone from Fanny Brice to Carol Burnett to Tim Conway.”
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SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN
“One foggy summer day I was watching Make-A-Circus in Golden Gate Park. As a former member of the Pickle Family Circus, I was eager to see some of my friends performing– Paoli Lacey and Joan Mankin, among others. But then I noticed a performer I had never seen before. At one point, she was imitating an opera singer. As the song blared over the speakers, her body mimed the gestures of the performance and singing. At one point, the vibrato of the singer was so strong that the table she was standing on started shaking. I laughed out loud and thought to myself, keep an eye on this one. I wasn’t the only one who noticed Sara Moore’s talent, generosity and skills on stage. She soon hit San Francisco by storm in both the circus and theater worlds. Years ago, I sent some of my theater students at San Francisco State University to see her solo play, Show Ho, a gorgeous tribute to a friend that had died of HIV and a coming out story of a fictional lost teenager finding her voice in the circus. Moore’s characterizations and writing were exquisite and the show was both funny and deeply moving. I was even thrilled that I got to read so many student essays about the show. So, it’s no surprise to see Moore responding to tragedies and crises in her life with the same sense of pathos that she brought to her circus and theatre work. We all know that laughter is healing and theater has saved lives, but it is poignant to see this played out literally. When Moore started posting the photos on facebook of how she approached her cancer treatments, I fell in love with humanity again. How could someone confront this scary and painful period with so much love, generosity, whimsy and humor? The best part for me was how she included the nurses and staff in her scenarios. At that point, she wasn’t performing for us but with us. We loved being part of the delicious complicity in her subversive interaction with the medical system.
In my tradition, the word “simcha” is usually translated as a happy occasion, like a wedding or the welcoming of a baby. But one of my rabbis translates it as “the fullness of life.” In that sense, Moore’s work is a simcha – something that fully explores what it means to be alive. After all, who better than a clown can help us laugh at the scariest and most real moments as she inspires us to live life fully?”
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Sara Felder - Professor of Theater, San Francisco State University - Theatre artist, Juggler, Clown
“Sara Moore’s radical hustler Bongi strikes like lightning. Moore draws upon her extensive clown skills for an antihero who displays brains and pain. She rules the stage.”
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TIME OUT NEW YORK
“Camp humor worthy of John Waters meets ‘Dick Tracy’-style comic book direction, peppered with an ‘Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert’ kind of irreverence in this surreal, soapy and amusingly offbeat picture full of witty narrative clowning...almost continuous laughs and many brilliant performances.”
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VARIETY
"If Ziegfeld were still producing his FOLLIES, Sara Moore would be his new Fanny Brice. SHOW HO is a clowning achievement.”
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BAY AREA REPORTER
“A multi-dimensional, multi-media expedition, The Supers unfolds across a playfully conceptualized universe. Propelled by a cinematic score composed by Rob Reich and accompanied by videos of colorful constellations designed by director Colin Johnson, a quintet of mostly non-verbal clowns hurdle through space in search of sanctuary.
That each character is able to convey so much of their backstory non-verbally— assisted by some key animated sequences—is The Supers ecstatic superpower. And while it’s not always clear how each vignette connects to the next, the plucky performances occasionally becoming overwhelmed by the force of the immersive soundscape, this vibrant and colorful ‘human cartoon’ admirably showcases its whimsical ensemble with genuine heart.”
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Nicole Gluckstern- KQED.org/National Public Radio
"Hilarious...their fluid physicality and impeccable execution matches the clever concept. The brilliant yet simple tale, complemented by perfectly coordinated music that says more than words do and has universal appeal. Moore’s talents are wondrous to behold."
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Leslie Katz – SF Examiner
"Irresistibly charming...The 60-minute play showcases the elastic features and sharp comedic instincts of Sara Moore as a hilarious and heartfelt Alice, whom no one recognizes these days unless she stretches her face smooth again…”
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Robert Avila – SF Guardian
"Tonight was one of those nights I felt gratitude for living in my troubled city. This show defies description. Political clown opera doesn't even begin to explain it. It's beautiful. It's about refugees, about love, about working together, about standing up to tyrants... and it is funny and human and not like anything I've ever seen before... In troubled cities during troubled times, art is required. And this show... just wow."
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Deborah Oak Cooper