Dust jacket notes: "Clown, teacher, artist, and writer, Bill Ballantine was for eight years the Dean of Clown College, the remarkable institution established in 1968 by Ringling Brothers - Barnum and Bailey Circus to train young clowns for the Greatest Show on Earth. Clown Alley is the rollicking story of that unique enterprise - a circus adventure that is, like clowning itself, full of surprises, both funny and poignant. The great clown gags, the zany idiosyncrasies of circus troupers, the nuts and bolts of last-minute slapdash props and makeup are all here, seen from the author"s special perspective: what"s it really like behind the comic masks, inside the outlandish costumes? What skills, emotional and physical, are essential to clowning? And how can they be taught to beginners? (Veteran clown to first-timer: "Here"s what we"ll do. You be funny first, and I"ll be funny next.") Through his own experience as performer and educator, and with vivid portraits of clowns ranging from such old-time masters of buffoonery as Otto Griebling and Lou Jacobs, down to the brand-new clowns ("joeys") joining the circus today, Ballantine takes us into the hearts and minds of clowns, while showing us how dramatically the American circus has changed since its days under canvas. Star-spangled with backstage anecdotes and rich in sawdust-and-greasepaint atmosphere, Clown Alley is a salty and affectionate memoir sure to delight the circus fan in all of us."