Ask a…

Photo: Martha Williams

You own Little Clown Pizza in Logan Square, and you also perform as a clown for pizza parties. What’s the day-to-day life of a Little Clown like?
I make balloon animals for all the kids that come to my pizza place. A little puppy or whatever. A sword for the big ones, a heart for the girls. I’m five-foot-seven, or seven-and-a-half; I use a tall hat. I’m a good clown, but I’m not little. I do more than 150 shows a year. About 3 percent of the kids, they get scared. But by the time I finish, they are hugging me and they want to go home with me. Some kids hit the clown because they believe the clown is not a person. I took my glove off once in front of one kid. He told me, “Oh, you’re not a clown; you’re human.” All the kids, they’ve got different ideas about what the clown is: He’s a toy, he’s a doll. They believe a lot of things about the clown.

I’m 64 now; I was born in the Dominican Republic. I’ve been in the United States for about 40 years. I do shows in English or Spanish. I’ll tell you something, sweetheart: The worst part of my job is when you invite me to a party, and when I go over there, I’ve got eight kids and I got about 30 adults, and the adults don’t even care about the party for the kids. They talk like they are in a stadium or something. They destroy completely the show. I have to tell them to please, give me a break. That is the most heartbreaking part.

Jose Acosta’s Little Clown Pizza is located at 2801 N Central Park Ave (773-276-7776).

Read our picks for the best pizza in town, plus find out who delivers the fastest in this week's feature story "The upper crust".