Presenting .  .  .

Karen Koziol as Hanna Banana: A Professional Game Player

Put the "Clown School Challenge" and "Games with a Purpose" to work for your Company! 

We Believe Corporate America is full of clowns and the kids need them.

This page is a short explanation of team building, for further information go  www.corpteambuilding.com  

Loneliness  and separation are the biggest destroyer of success, lets us make an atmosphere where relationships and friendships can develop and employees can soar. The Clown School Challenge promotes team building with " Games with a Purpose".  Your can use the employees we train to promote good community relations when they participate in community outreach programs at malls, health fairs, schools, hospitals and community functions.  You can also use your trained employees to entertain your employees and their families at Company functions such as picnics. 

Many companies have spent a lot of money on team building only to have it bomb. People don’t want to play games to let others know them better, they feel their privacy is being invaded. Adults don’t want to be forced to play games but left on their own and not controlled, forced or regulated , we have found people do want to participate. We provide an atmosphere where they are free to interact in our workshops and want to do it.

A. Team building will unite employees to a common cause for the good of the community
B. Give them skills to do volunteer work
C. To do clown work themselves to be cost effective for your company

                                                           Benefits of This Program to your Company

1. Team group effort to find and make the best entertainer from your group.

2. Total participation developing communication skills to work together

3. Decision making: Each team must pick their contestant from the members of their team

4. Working together as a team, the members assist in a purpose: pulling the team together

5. Mental challenges: Dealing with designs and the task of having to complete an assignment

6. Decision making that teaches trust to the members

7. Expressing ideas through drawing, painting and sculpting 

8. Risk taking with script developing

9. Physical challenges

10. Learn and exercising people skills

11. Determining who is best through competition between teams

 We separate your group into teams. All members are trained in all the skills listed below. In the competition, the team with the highest number of points will be the winner. The following categories will be judged individually:

 A. Basic Balloons

 B. Balloon Hats 

 C. Advanced Balloons

 D. Pocket Magic

 E. Appearance

 F. Performance

                                                        Hands On Team Building Instruction SCHEDULE

                               One Day:

1. Hands on balloons: Basic of Balloon Twisting, Multiple balloons and balloon hats.             2 Hours

2. Creating your own clown character.                                                                                   1 Hour 

3. Psychology of Clown Work                                                                                               1 Hour 

   D.    Physical Comedy: Comedy routines, Gags, Magic (Pocket, Walk around, Scavenger hunt)  1 Hour                                                                                 

    E.  Face painting                                                                                                                         1 Hour                                                                  

              Cost: $2800                                                                                                    Total Time: 6 Hours

                                  Second Day Option:

             Advanced Face painting and Advanced balloons

                Cost: $5600 for both days                                                                               Total Time 12 Hours

             NOTE: Large groups may require additional fee for supplies 

     GO TO www.corpteambuilding.com for further information on TEAM BUILDING        

Our Hands On Interactive Workshops are designed for companies large and small.  Our activities are morale builders and provide your company with trained entertainers for community outreach and your company socials.

         YOU CAN HIRE HANNA BANANA TO Entertain the children FOR YOUR COMPANY ACTIVITY

    A. 2 hours Make a Bear Interactive workshop for up   to 50 children, bag craft, prizes and balloon twisting

                                                                           OR

            Game Show, bag craft, prizes and balloon twisting for up to 50 children          

            Total 2 Hours          Cost $500          

       B. 3 hours Make a Bear Interactive workshop for 50  to 100 children, bag craft, prizes, balloon twisting   and magic show.              

             Total 3 Hours         Cost $798

        C. 4 hours Make a Bear Interactive workshop for100 to 150 children, bag craft, prizes, magic show,   face painting and balloon twisting.              

               Total 4 Hours         Cost $ 1000    

          D. 5 and 6 hour show are also available Call for further information.       

Party Host Costumes: Fairy Princess, Jester Clown, Cowboy Clown, Wizard  

           To book or for further information, email:  book@californiaclownschool.com

            Or  Call:  209 464 6677 or 877 CLOWN 90         

       ALL ENTERTAINERS are LICENSED, FINGERPRINTED and carry LIABILITY INSURANCE for YOUR protection. 

 HANNA BANANA WILL ALSO TEACH CLOWN SCHOOL AT YOUR FACILITY, call for details         

Karen Koziol's Key Accomplishments Include . .

Hanna Banana teaches people from all over the world to be clowns. The school is held at Circus Circus in Las Vegas or Reno, Nevada. In one of her classes, there was a writer from Japan. She has been contacted by MTV, PBS, Woman’s Day magazine, Parade Magazine and many more. She was featured on Channel 31 in Sacramento, California as one of the 3 clown teachers in the world. She is world famous and one of the reasons for her credibility is the loving care she puts in her work. She is one of the most famous female clowns and game player in history.  She has been a full time clown and game player for 26 years and has  served over 100,000 children in the Stockton, CA area and stopped counting years ago. She took 4 years of parenting classes and raised 57 foster children and 3 of her own children.  She is a real clown and has  $3,000,000 liability insurance coverage.

More About Karen Koziol. .

Featured in the Stockton Record more than a dozen times over the years. Here is one of them:

By Michael Fitzgerald
Record Staff Writer
Published Friday, November 21, 2003

A clown named Hanna Banana left a voice mail announcing she was opening a school for clowns at the Circus Circus hotel/casino in Reno. PBS was televising her. MTV was calling.

Hanna Banana was blowing up like an animal balloon.

"Our whole goal of our teaching is to put affordable clowns out in the world for high-risk kids," Banana said importantly on the voice mail.

Although some clowns give me the creeps, I called Banana. She said the first clown school was Jan. 11 in Reno. PBS would tape it. Also, Channel 92 was going to film her appearance at the Boys & Girls Club in Stockton. An MTV producer recently e-mailed to screen her for a segment on clowns.

"It's just like rockin' and rollin'," Banana said. "It's just getting bigger and bigger."

We agreed to meet at her house.

"Do you want me in costume?" Banana asked. 

On this bus

"Come in," Banana said. "What's wrong?"

Banana, whose real name is Karen Koziol, had opened the door of her central Stockton home in full regalia. She wears a two-colored harlequin hat and satin costume, brightly mismatched socks and red tennies.

She does not wear traditional whiteface, so her eyes and mouth show. Unexpectedly, her mouth in repose is a gravity-tugged frown. Her eyes, far from twinkling, have a wearily doleful, compassionate look I have seen in veteran social workers: people who've seen the worst pain in others.

Not the expected Bozo.

"Which brings me to what this is all about," Banana said, being unselfconsciously serious -- quite a feat in a clown suit -- as we took seats. "Because this a big house, I raised 57 foster kids here."

Banana's story has been told before. Marries air controller. He loses job. They go broke. She sinks her last $20 into a clown wig. Voila, Hanna Banana: a nontraditional clown with a foster mom's heart. Later, he and she divorce -- a Banana split. She thrives by doing everything from parties to city-sponsored youth violence-prevention workshops. A clown for Stockton.

Bozonomics 101

Getting a Web site, Banana hooked up with an online clown-referral service -- yep, clownsforhire.com -- and pitched the clown-school idea to Circus Circus, which not surprisingly loves the idea of clowns interning all over the hotel and casino.

Two-day Beginning Clowning course: $495.

Advanced Clowning: $595. Price includes hotel stay, continental breakfasts, buffet lunches and inevitably a few drink tickets.

Although she'll conduct Hanna Banana's California Clown School in Reno, "I'll live here," Banana said, still serious. "I'll continue to service the kids here. For as long as I can."

As I left, I pointed out that Banana had not cracked a joke or pulled a single gag. We hadn't laughed. She had barely smiled. A pretty darned serious clown. Offstage, anyway.

"I am," said the successful Hanna Banana. "My clown work is about loving and caring. It's not so much about ha-ha funny. And apparently, it works for me."

Here are some additional press releases:

Here is an interview request Hanna Banana responded to in July, 2006.

Dear Hanna Banana,

I am writing to request a brief interview with you for a book I am working on. This can be done over the phone, or even by email, by typing up the answer since there is only one question.

I am working on a freelance assignment for The Princeton Review, a major publisher of education-based and career books in conjunction with Random House (www.princetonreview.com). I am completing some career profiles for a book they are publishing next year about creative careers, and I am contacting you about information for the career “Clown/Magician.” For each career profile, I have written about a day in the life of a person in that profession. Following that, I need to get an extended quote from someone who is currently working in the field about an “extreme day in the life”--a quote about a day that was more challenging or exciting than most of the rest. A tennis pro might talk about a day in which he played for 16 hours straight and ended up beating someone who was several levels above him, for instance.

I am hoping that you would be able to tell me about an extreme day in the life of a clown. Your name and the “California Clown School” name will be published in the book, along with the quote. The quote can be anywhere from 150-300 words. Feel free to get specific. This book is geared toward high schoolers who are considering creative careers and this quote will be very helpful to them in terms of what they can expect from this field.

I am working under a tight deadline and would appreciate hearing from you about this interview request at your soonest convenience. Please let me know if you have any questions about this book or my request. Thank you for your consideration in helping out with this important book!

I will look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

~Lisa Marie

Lisa Marie Rovito
Freelance Writer

To see the Princeton Review’s books, go to: http://www.princetonreview.com/college/bookstore.asp

***The Ellen DeGeneres TV Show expressed interest in Hanna Banana recently, as well as a producer of the PBS storyteller series!***

 

PRESS RELEASE: For Immediate use

Karen Koziol, known to most people as Hanna Banana, the clown has been chosen to be one of the 500 participants that will provide her diary for the day for this book. All of the diaries will be collected and Three Rivers Press will publish the finalists' diaries next year in a new book. This is a follow up to the first book titled "This Day: Diaries from American Women".