Clowns cheer up sick kids

NEW YORK — Stephen Ringold is a clown facing a tough audience — a sick child in a hospital room who needs holiday cheer.

For a few minutes, Stephany Nieto sits on her mother's lap, suspiciously eyeing the tall man with the red-and-white checkered shoes half-hiding behind the curtain. Smiling doesn't come easily to the little girl, who her mother says is being examined for a serious illness called moyamoya, an rare inflammation of the brain arteries that can cause seizures and paralysis.

But for a few moments, something whimsical captures her attention.

As Ringold — a k a Dr. Meatloaf — stoops to pick up something, his ukulele-playing partner played by Phyllis Capello plants a hard slap on his behind with her instrument. Suddenly, Stephany is giggling and ordering Capello to plant another hard one on his back side.

"We put nature back into a very controlled, unnatural environment. We bring breath," Capello said later.

Ringold is part of a program run by the Big Apple Circus called Clown Care — the first residential professional clowning program in a hospital. On this December morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, as the world outside gears up to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, children who can't leave get a needed boost from the program.

"We take the kids from diagnosis to whatever fate they have," said Ringold, who is also an actor. "We go through worlds together. Sometimes I break down crying — because there's nothing I can do, really."

Medical clowning started more than 20 years ago at New York-Presbyterian, the brainchild of Big Apple Circus co-founder Michael Christensen. Clown "doctors" have since sprung up around the globe, from Argentina and Australia to South Africa and Turkey. Israel's University of Haifa started offering a bachelor's degree in medical clowning this year.

In the United States, Clown Care has 84 professionals who have passed auditions for the paid jobs. In addition to New York, they work at hospitals in Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; New Haven, Conn.; Providence, R.I., and Washington.

The clowns at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, part of New York-Presbyterian, perform three days a week, year round. Their holiday lineup includes a Hanukkah party Dec. 18, a Christmas feast two days later, and Kwanzaa on Dec. 27.