That's funny! These clowns have Ph.D.s

Who's that silly person with the red rubber nose and the huge green glasses? It's Cricoidea (pronounced CREEK-oy-DEE-uh), the forgetful clown. She works her magic at elderly patients' bedsides, with a routine that never fails to please.

At LinkedIn, where we connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful, there's room for performers like Cricoidea, too. LinkedIn’s membership spans practically every line of work, including 64,000 pastry chefs, 10,000 magicians -- and more than 6,000 clowns. Many of those clowns are full-timers, who have parlayed theater or arts degrees from four-year colleges into jobs at circuses in the world's largest cities. 

But it’s the part-time clowns whose stories are most enchanting. According to LinkedIn Talent Insights, 6% of the clowns with degrees listed on LinkedIn have Ph.D.s or other doctoral-level diplomas. Their regular jobs often involve sober disciplines such as computer security and hospital administration. For them, a side interest involving greasepaint and crazy gestures can be a great way to unwind. It might even sharpen up their communication, performance and leadership skills.

Yes, the concept of clowns with Ph.D.s sound preposterous at first. It's hard to imagine pivoting between the world of pedagogy and pie-throwing. The same goes for rubber chickens versus peer-reviewed research. Yet who are we to judge? In the past few weeks, I've decided to leave my initial skepticism behind, in favor of immersing into the small, proud -- and delightful -- community of scholarly clowns.

Cricoidea, it turns out, is the creation of Nidia Garza, director of organizational effectiveness at Methodist Health System in Dallas. While Dr. Garza isn't a medical doctor, she holds a Ph.D. in organizational leadership. Growing up in Mexico, she told me, she loved doing musical theater and pantomime. Now, with a career that’s focused in a hospital setting, she's eager to perform again, especially in a way that brings joy to patients' lives.

During her first job in health care, Dr. Garza led Doytor, a volunteer group of in-hospital clowns. "It took me a while to figure out my character," she recalls. As she experimented with oversized props and giddy confusion, her sense of Cricoidea took shape.

In a typical act, Cricoidea and a sidekick enter a hospital room together. Cricoidea points to the patient and declares: "You hug her!" The sidekick shakes his head and snaps back: "No, you hug her!" The two clowns wave their arms. They order each other around. Finally, a truce breaks out, with both clowns hugging the patient. Everyone starts giggling.

"That gives me the greatest pleasure," Dr. Garza says.

It's a similar story for Elias Bou-Harb, an assistant professor of computer security at Florida Atlantic University. He got drawn into the clown's world in 2009, in the course of his late sister's battle against cancer. "I wanted to give back to the institution that treated her," he explains. At one point, he would put on multi-hour clown shows in hospitals as a volunteer, three or four times a month.

Prof. Bou-Harb isn't doing as much formal clowning now, but he keeps his favorite prop -- a red rubber nose -- by his desk. "I miss those moments," he says.

For those who hold Ph.D.s in the arts, connecting with the clown's life isn't a distraction; it's central to their livelihood. One of them is Jorge Balca, a theater and opera director in London. He routinely tells his performers to put on big, clown-like masks in rehearsals, so that they can concentrate harder on expressing their roles via physical gestures, rather than via facial expressions.

"I get them to think about what the left shoulder is doing," he explains. "It compels people to be more creative. The clown forces the performer into a state of innocence, and of 'Yes.'"

Dr. Balca (left) says he focuses mostly on directing because "I'm better at telling people what to do than doing it myself." But as the his inset photo reveals, the temptation to be the clown himself never disappears.

In Toronto, Byron Laviolette has won fame as the creative director of nearly a decade of clown performances by Heather Marie Annis and Amy Lee, better known as "Morro & Jasp." Partway through their run together, Laviolette earned a Ph.D. from Canada's York University in interactivity and play theory. That's let him expound on the magic circle that separates real from playful -- or sociologist Roger Caillois' four types of play.

This new expertise has created temporary challenges. In working with performers, Dr. Laviolette recalls, there have been times "I was expressing thoughts in language that I knew well but they didn't.” But everyone has found a common way of communicating again, he says. Dr. Laviolette will direct another Morro & Jasp work in January 2020. 

For others, the life of a clown with a Ph.D. is a smooth continuum, in which each discipline supports the other. At Methodist Hospital, Dr. Garza says, her appetite for clowning might actually make her a better leader. She's been known to start meetings with high fives, fist bumps and other bursts of exuberance. If that helps get people pumped up about their jobs, she says, it's all good. In her words: "The energy will define the experience."