DeliaDelia desires nothing more than to make the girl’s basketball team. The trouble is, she’s not a girl, but a witch: green-skinned, with heavy eyebrows and a trilling voice that make her indisputably “other.” Despite the spells that she casts and the supportive cheers that she receives from the audience, she fails to fully transform into a “real girl” in every performance of DeliaDelia! The Flat Chested Witch!, the tour-de-force solo show that bears and declares her name. Created and performed by Amando Houser, DeliaDelia provokes us to laugh along at her journey to belong. Her recurring situations of deliberate failure and improvised recovery are rooted in Houser’s training in clown, a performance form that finds radical potential in celebrating the “flop.” It is in moments of failure that the clown asserts their humanity—despite forces that might insist on the contrary.

In this interview with curator Alessandra Gómez, Houser speaks to the ongoing development of DeliaDelia and the ways the character’s endeavor to become a “real girl” mirror the current political obsession with and witch hunt of trans people. Ongoing attempts by the federal government to erase trans existence have fueled Houser in growing the character’s level of absurdity and visibility. The resulting performances push us as an audience on our pleasures, expectations, biases, and limits, providing a unique opportunity for release and critical self-awareness in increasingly chaotic and repressive times.

– Lumi Tan, 2025 EIR

Alessandra Gómez: I was planning to send questions in advance, but then remembered you’re a master improviser. It’s such a treat to dive deeper into your work. To start, what was your introduction to clowning? 

Amando Houser: The more romantic version of my story is that I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and spent a lot of time as a child at this pizzeria where they played the Marx Brothers on TV all day. The Marx Brothers were vaudevillian clowns, legendary figures of Golden Age Hollywood, and I was fucking fascinated by them throughout my childhood. Those films left a huge impression on me. But I come from a more traditional acting background. I became interested in theater in high school and then went to Bard College, where I eventually met Geoff Sobelle, who introduced me to clown as a performance form after he cast me in a play that he was directing. 

Instead of enrolling in an MFA program, you decided to study with French clown master, pedagogue, and theater professor, Philippe Gaulier. What was that like?

I initially studied with Master Philippe Gaulier during a month-long summer intensive in 2022. I was so entranced that when I came home, I knew I needed to figure out how to save enough money to go back. Then I studied there for six months in 2023. There were people who were trained actors who had been performing for forty-plus years, and there were people who had never performed in their lives. The people who never performed were some of the funniest people that I have ever seen. I felt really attracted to going there for that reason—you’re never going to study acting with people like that at a graduate program in America.

I wonder if people with less acting experience are perceived as funnier because they have less formal training to unlearn, whereas those with previous performance training might be more weighed down by techniques and habits. I’ve watched a few interviews on Gaulier’s pedagogy. He said if you want to discover your clown, it’s essential to listen to the audience. When they don’t laugh, it’s because the clown is not “close to your body.” What is that internal process like for you to bring the clown “close to your body?”

You really develop a sensitivity to the audience with Gaulier’s training. You learn how to improvise by listening to them. If they don’t find something funny, you can sense it immediately, and you have to figure out how to respond. It’s like playing hot potato with the audience. Clowning is simple, though. It’s about finding your inner child on stage.

I’ve heard that when the act runs out, it’s the moments after the act that the clown truly emerges. Do you agree with this? 

Yes, totally. A clown teacher explained it perfectly—it’s like watching someone come on stage with a chair and they do something to try to be funny, but no one laughs. Then, when they sigh in exasperation, we all laugh. The realness of failure is what’s funny. I find that so fascinating.

Besides Gaulier, are there other artists, thinkers, or figures who have influenced your work as an artist?

I’m most inspired by what I’m absorbing in the moment. I think Crackhead Barney is a modern-day bouffon, which really fascinates me. What she’s doing is so brave and hilarious.

The bouffon has the same sort of charm we associate with clowns. We often say, “Oh, I love that little clown, I want to listen to him!” The bouffon works the same way: “Oh, we love him.” But then, he turns on us and hits us with, “I know what you did.” A bouffon is like the clown’s ugly, nasty little sister who’s not afraid to tell her parents what she did last night, who isn’t too shy to tell the truth or say naughty things. We trust the bouffon. Gaulier always said that when a bouffon is doing their job right, the person being made fun of—the one being exposed—will experience a moment of realization while watching the performance: “Oh shit!” Then, they will go home and cry because everyone’s laughing. But deep down they’re thinking, “Damn, that’s true.”

DeliaDelia embraces the grotesque nature of the bouffon. She finds pleasure in absurd gestures, like wiggling her wand up her nostril and sliding it in and out of her mouth without cleaning it. I’ve also seen her chew on an eyeball-shaped candy, grinning as mushy gummy bits fall to the ground. After proclaiming “three-second rule!” she pops the dirty chewed-up pieces back into her mouth. She certainly knows how to provoke disgust, but it’s also part of her charm. Could you tell me about the day that DeliaDelia was conceived? It was in a Gaulier class, right?

Yes. In a class, we had to find a character who was nothing like us—whom even our own mother wouldn’t recognize. I found a witch costume in my landlady’s basement and thought it was so ridiculous. I put it on and literally just smeared the green makeup and the unibrows on my face. I thought, “How do I make myself ugly, like an old witch?” I started doing this high-pitched voice, and the audience thought it was funny.

I’m really impressed with DeliaDelia’s voice and your own vocal control as a performer. Have you seen the remake of Nosferatu (2024) yet? I’ve been considering how different vocal techniques can shape a character, like how Bill Skarsgård transformed his voice for the role of Count Orlok. Before speaking, he takes long, shallow breaths, as if he’s gasping for air. He even trained with an opera singer to lower his voice an octave. DeliaDelia’s voice is quite the opposite. It’s tonally bright and high-pitched. It’s impressive how you sustain a high vocal register throughout your performances, especially with vibrato! Did you go through any vocal training?

I haven’t seen Nosferatu. I did not do any vocal training to get into this character. Gaulier’s whole pedagogy is based on pleasure and finding voices and performing things on stage that make you feel good. 

DeliaDelia is also a total carbon-copy imitation of my own grandmother. That’s where the voice comes from. She was a music teacher, but she now has Alzheimer’s; that little high-pitched vocalization that DeliaDelia makes, the “aah-aah-aah,” is her way of communicating now. It sounds like something between an operatic song and a cat chirp. It’s just very adorable. I decided to imitate her and found it really pleasurable. I showed her a video of DeliaDelia making that noise, and she was like, “What kind of noise is that?” She was surprised to hear the sound, even though she does it all day.

There’s DeliaDelia the character, and then there’s the larger performance, DeliaDelia! The Flat-Chested Witch!. I’ve seen it four times, and each time, I’m in tears laughing. But it’s also incredibly serious. The piece addresses the modern-day “witch hunt” on transgender rights in the United States while exploring DeliaDelia’s quest to become a “real girl” and make the women’s basketball team. Can you share more about the piece’s early development and the inspiration behind it?

First, the character was born. Then I wondered, “Why is this funny? Why are people enjoying me dressed up like this?” I found meaning in that for myself. I’ve been exploring my own desires and pain. I think it comes from my own experience of being trans and the heartbreak of wanting to find a sense of belonging through competitive sports. 

Can you say more about your relationship to sports? There’s a moment in the performance when you invite an audience member to play basketball on stage, then you surprise them with your skill. As you pass the ball back and forth, the interaction feels relaxed—until suddenly, you lunge forward, darting around the stage as they attempt to steal the basketball, all set to the energetic pop song, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”

I grew up playing competitive sports. I was very serious about squash. I was on all sorts of teams at school: basketball, baseball, softball. I’ve been coaching sports to kids as a side job and I’ve really stayed involved in practicing my skills.

There’s always a sense of anxiety bringing someone on stage to play, though. I worry, “Oh, man, I hope they’re not better than me.” There have been some people who have put up a pretty good fight. I think it’s just total luck that I haven’t encountered a basketball pro yet up there. I need to get more athletes to come to downtown theater and clown shows. It’ll be interesting when someone just completely balls out against me. I can’t wait for that. 

I’m curious to hear more about your approach to audience participation. How do you choose whom you engage with? Is it an aura they give off?

Yeah, it’s all about energy. You can tell who doesn’t want to be pulled up on stage and who is a little more open to it. I would never want to pull someone on stage who didn’t want to be there. I feel like the audience understands that is going to be terrible. And then the show is over.

At one point, you instruct the audience to chant “Be a real girl now!” so that DeliaDelia can grow breasts as part of a spell. I was thinking about how magic might function as a form of resistance or way to reclaim power. 

I use witch and spell tropes to make the performance fun and relatable—I want it to feel like a game. But the idea of magic as also being a form of resistance is so beautiful. It’s a happy accident, just like DeliaDelia herself.

When I thought about taking my boobs off, I wished there was a magic spell. So, the audience chant is sort of an inversion of that. In America, trans people are sometimes treated as if we’re not really human at all. We’re creatures whom they can’t fully understand. So DeliaDelia being a witch sort of represents that otherness. It’s what keeps her from being a “real” girl. 

That’s such a compelling way to connect it to your own experiences; it adds even greater depth to the performance. I also noticed a parallel in how religious beliefs have historically been used to justify mistreatment towards witches and transgender people. Both have endured exclusion and harm for being seen as “other.” 

It’s just so absurd. Our culture has developed such an obsession with transness. There’s so much mystery and lore surrounding it. I explore that when DeliaDelia comes in with a wand that doesn’t work. People think, “Oh! she’s a witch, so she’s going to put on a magic show for us.” And then she’s immediately like, “This doesn’t work, guys, let’s move on.” I’m trying to subvert the expectation that the trans performer has some sort of supernatural capacity.

Witches are having a moment right now with the release of Wicked. Did you know that the association of green skin with witches supposedly originated in The Wizard of Oz (1939)? I read that L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz, was the son-in-law of Matilda Joslyn Gage, an abolitionist and Suffragist who was among the first to connect the witch hunts to misogyny. Many believe that Baum’s work was inspired by her reframing of witches.

Wow. What a king. I just saw Wicked for the first time and had to be held. I feel like also playing DeliaDelia now, the emotional journey of Elphaba is just hitting home. Though I suppose DeliaDelia is a little naughty like Glinda, too. And she’s got a similar voice.

Once the lights go down and the curtain closes, do you leave DeliaDelia behind or do you carry parts of her with you after the show?

I’m so green when the curtain goes down! It’s literally hard to leave her behind: I had to get a green shower curtain because the makeup leaves so much residue. My partner helps me get the makeup off every goddamn time. It’s also really hard to stop doing the voice. We share the same mind for an hour after, and then finally, once the makeup is off, I can transition out. It’s an intense state of mind to be in.

I bet! During your show at the Brick Theater, you brought together an amazing lineup of opening acts from the experimental performance scene, like Claywoman. What does collaboration bring to your practice?

I have way more fun when I collaborate. I feel so lucky that I get to do that with my director, Kedian Keohan, and sound designer, K Hurley, who occasionally plays my pussycat best friend in the show. So much of this show and the ideas that have evolved are because of our conversations. We play in the studio together and we talk to each other in high-pitched voices. There’s something about the looseness of that—it helps ideas flow, and we end up laughing the entire time. 

The openers for the Brick Theater show were artists who have really inspired me: Becca Blackwell, Charlene Incarnate, Jen Kidwell. These are clowns and performers whom I have looked up to for years, so it was so unreal to have them. I didn’t expect anyone to say yes to the invitation. And Claywoman is such an inspiring person and artist. She’s so truthful, honest, sweet,

I can imagine these opening characters existing within the same universe as DeliaDelia. But you’ve also collaborated with performers from outside the fringe performance scene. Could you share more about when you performed with pop musician Dora Jar?

I opened for Dora Jar at Irving Plaza while she was on her national tour. I wrote the lyrics with my sister and my partner, and one of my best friends, Simon Paris, wrote the music. Having a clown show at a pop concert was really unexpected. I wish every clown show could be a pop concert. I’m chasing that feeling. I’m trying to make clown more pop now.

We’ve witnessed the unethical rollback of rights, exemplified by the NCAA’s recent ban on transgender women competing in women’s sports. This follows Trump’s executive order threatening to rescind federal funding from educational institutions supporting inclusive policies for transgender athletes. This is part of a larger pattern of systemic violence, including revoking gender-affirming healthcare, suspending gender X on passports, and more. How do you emotionally navigate these profoundly harmful issues while still maintaining humor in your work?

In some ways, it feels like things are worse right now. But it’s also been a longstanding struggle. It’s scary, but it also fires up the bouffon in me to be like, “Okay, now I’m going to go pump some iron.” I’m wondering how I can translate that feeling into something even that’s more powerful. As the world becomes increasingly absurd, it makes me want the show to be funnier and crazier. 

Your work feels hopeful, though! I just wish magic could protect us. Does DeliaDelia have a recommended spell?

Ugh, thank you. She’d say, “Winnika, Winnika, Winnika,” then stick her wand up Trump’s nostril and wiggle it around. I hope I can bring this show to more people and continue this project because it feels really important right now. At the end of the day, DeliaDelia is for everybody. Her goals are very relatable: she wants to be on the Lakers, she wants the gold. She is talking about some intense stuff, but she just wants to be everybody’s friend. I don’t want to scare anyone away.

How will you continue to develop DeliaDelia? 

I’ve started writing more material for her, and I think there’s a lot in store. DeliaDelia episode two, and DeliaDelia the movie are in the works. She has a lot she wants to get good at, which might include a boxing match, and more magic as well. I’m trying to have as much fun with her as possible. There is so much going on in the world right now that feels so absurd. It makes sense to continue the character.

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Alessandra Gómez is a New York-based interdisciplinary curator and writer whose research focuses on the intersections of performance and visual art. She is the curator of a forthcoming public art initiative at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and curates at Offerings, a performance series at the historic Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Times Square. Previously, she was a curator at Luna Luna and a member of The Shed’s founding curatorial team from 2018 to 2023. She has guest-curated shows for Nike, Center for Performance Research, Queens Museum, and Knockdown Center.

Amando Houser is wearing: Miss Claire Sullivan, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, Vaquera, Vintage, from the Personal Collections of Amando Houser and Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Quori Theodor.