CLOWN BAR Set for redwhite+bluezz at Pasadena Playhouse Next Month

Clown Bar is an immersive play in a genre best described as "clown noir." redwhite+bluezzArt Productions is presenting the West Coast premiere of this off-Broadway smash hit by Adam Szymkowicz on Thursday nights in January 2015 at redwhite+bluezz @ The Pasadena Playhouse (37 S. El Molino Avenue in Pasadena).

Award-winning director Jaime Robledo (Stoneface, Watson) and producer Brandon Dobbins (Cirque-a-Palooza and Associate General Manager at The Pasadena Playhouse) are putting patrons in the middle of the sexy, dangerous, hilarious action of a bar filled with wise guys who happen to be funny.

Ken Jaworowsky of The New York Times calls Clown Bar's noir-parody script "unabashedly silly but also shrewd."

The hard-boiled hero, Happy Mahoney - a former-clown-turned-cop- comes to the Clown Bar looking for answers- and vengeance. Somebody killed his brother, Timmy. But not everyone at the old honking grounds is happy to see Happy. And to find the killer, Happy will have to face his past without being pulled into clowndom's seedy underbelly of violence and vice.

There are eight million stories under the big top, but this play is one-of-a-kind. Clown Bar puts audiences right inside an underground clown bar, complete with a sad sack lounge singer cabaret and a sexy stripper-clown burlesque, for a night of tongue-in-grease-painted-cheek comedy.

So put up your enormous feet, strap on your big red nose, and order up a gin-and-comic, Clown Royal, or Bloody Larry. The Clown Bar has clowns like you've never seen them before. Yet somehow, they're even funnier this way.

Tickets are available now and include a prix fixe dinner with a choice of entrée. Clown Bar runs every Thursday night in January (the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th) at 8:00 PM (show and dinner begins). But come early. There's a 7:30 pre-show for ordering clown cocktails and otherwise bracing yourself for night of libations and laughter.