Avner Eisenberg enjoyed a generic childhood in Atlanta, Georgia. As a kid his passions were snakes and juggling. He wanted to be a doctor, but after a year as an honors chemistry and biology major his parents forced him into performing.

Applying the art of juggling to education, Avner attended four universities moving counter-clockwise around the United States, and ultimately earned a BA in theatre from the University of Washington in 1971. He studied in Paris with Jacques Lecoq for two years, and once, while street performing in Paris was arrested for buffoonery in public.

On returning to the United States Avner taught at Carlo Mazzone Clementi’s Dell’Arte School of Physical Comedy in California. Avner is greatly indebted to these two men: “Lecoq, who taught me everything I know, and Carlo who taught me the rest.”

Avner is probably best known for his endearing portrayal of The Jewel, the scene-stealing holy man, in The Jewel of the Nile, co-starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. He was also featured in the film Brenda Starr and the television series and Mathnet.

                  ”Masterful… Balletic… Avner will cure what ails you…if only we could bottle it!”– Alix Cohen (full review)

“It was a great clown/existentialist tradition that speaks to me in ways of Fellini and Beckett and of course Marceau and Jacques Lecoq.  He should be booked all throughout the state!!!”  – Chad Piechocki, South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center

I laughed for two solid hours. The show only lasted an hour and a half.
—Joel Siegel,  ABC-TV

Avner Eisenberg in Exceptions to Gravity is a reminder of the theatrical power that can reside in a single charismatic performer who touches the heart.
—Patriot Ledger

Hilarious, take no prisoners comedy.
—New York
(In the unlikely event that prisoners are taken, they will be accorded full protection under the Geneva Convention.)