A thousand Clowns

Playwright Herb Gardner (I’m Not Rappaport, Conversations with My Father) made his Broadway debut with this 1963 comedy, a tribute to an unconventional family in a deeply conventional time, which won the Tony Award for Best Play and was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. Set against the backdrop of live children’s television, A Thousand Clowns takes place in 1962, when the agents of Eisenhower-era conformity first began to clash with the free-thinkers who would one day change the world. Sari Ketter, who staged Intiman’s 2008 production of The Diary of Anne Frank, directs.