Marta Hyland, development director of the Imperial Theatre, is in the hot seat.
A suited individual holds out a microphone and lets her speak about the site’s history, fundraising goals and place in the community. Nearby, a camera crew executes pans, tilts and zooms, all while teetering on the edge of an open orchestra pit. Once the interview concludes, the team begins discussing a shot list for the former vaudeville house and movie theater.
But this isn’t the work of a news anchor or a journalist. This is the doing of a clown.
Meet Softmaxplus.
In the summer of 2023, Michael Sawan donned the now-iconic getup he thrifted from Casablanca Vintage and channeled what he calls “a strong tradition of guy in a suit doing interviews” for internet videos. His objective? Marketing the four books (and counting) he’s authored.
Having dabbled in video editing, Sawan began taking classes at Improv Cincinnati to help give his videos an edge, yet initial success (sans face paint) was minimal. In spite of the whimsical plaid suit, cold calling strangers with a camera yielded little returns.
“They’re already on the defensive, and they already aren’t comfortable, and usually it wasn’t great,” Sawan explains.
While taking improv classes, Sawan learned about the art of being a clown. And with a smattering of makeup from Cappel’s, the next summer, Softmaxplus was manifested. A greater openness from pedestrians followed.
“I noticed almost immediately that fun people would come up to me,” Sawan says. “So we could skip all the question-and-answer — they were ready to rock. They wanted to talk to the clown on camera.”
During a particularly fateful shoot in June 2024, a shadowboxer happened to be in the frame as Softmaxplus waxed poetic at the Northside UDF. The clip took off, and it remains one of Sawan’s most viral.
Now, Softmaxplus maintains thousands of followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Many regional spots and events, from Kenwood Towne Centre to BLINK, have begun to harbor the odds of a Softmaxplus sighting.
But he doesn’t do it alone. Content is usually filmed guerilla-style on camcorders with a two-person camera team, creating a feel videographer Kevin Doyle calls “better than a crappy Handycam…but it still has that kind of raw analog element to it.”
“You’re capturing this moment that you might never get to capture again,” fellow videographer Aaron Ellis says. “You’re very present with what’s going on.”
No matter the setting, there’s a fearlessness to Softmaxplus. He’s scaled dumpsters in broad daylight, chanted in Latin alongside the highway and taped flyers where he probably shouldn’t have (like impounded Big Boy statues). He is the man who cracked open a cold one on Local 12 during a morning segment and is considered a cryptid by the City of Covington. While he pushes the envelope of what might be considered “conventional” — and sometimes ventures into the mildly anarchic — that’s sort of the point.
“Generally, I feel like people are a little too cautious,” Sawan says.
The origin of the clown’s now well-known calling cards are surprisingly simple, most being objects that Sawan just had on hand. The Miller High Life? That amber nectar offers the cheapest yet still palatable buzz. The bag? It allows him to say “My writing’s been in The New Yorker…tote bag.” The ubiquitous red microphone? He had the bright pop filter for a decade or so before this gig; its resemblance to a clown nose was pure and convenient coincidence. And his alter ego’s name is a riff on the softmax function, a machine learning concept Sawan chanced upon in a writer’s group.
But as Softmaxplus has become more known, Sawan acknowledges the need to keep things fresh.
“I think what got me by at the start was I was local, and people were amused just to see places they recognized,” Sawan says.
He recounts a recent trip to Gatlinburg, where Softmaxplus could interact with the public as a relative unknown. In the Cincinnati area, however, the landscape has changed.
“It’s almost like we had a bell curve kind of thing, where before the clown paint, it was tough. And then when I was still unknown, it was like, okay, the clown paint attracts fun people. But now I attract a lot of people.”
Regardless, the Softmaxplus universe is expanding.
Sawan continues to sell books and create content. As of late, Sawan has pursued more longer-form, sketch-based videos. Right after his rendezvous with Hyland at the Imperial Theatre, he was joined by Tone Branson of Improv Cincinnati. The pair spent two hours improvising — and headbutting — throughout the historic space, loosely following a script Sawan occasionally pulled out for clarification.
Production was touch-and-go. Occasionally, the team paused to regroup. What’s going on in this scene? Were they accounting for continuity? And was there still time for the requested fan shout-out at the end? The approximate two-hour shoot of the improv side of things ultimately yielded a 21-minute video and a handful of shorts.
In a departure from his more unpremeditated methodology, Sawan recently premiered the first episode of The Softmaxplus Show on YouTube (18+ only) and plans to source sketches for forthcoming installments.
Sawan credits numerous friends-turned-collaborators who’ve contributed their own creativity in one way or another. His real-life improv colleague BJ Casey plays Softmaxplus’s brother, Bo Jangles. Ellis is another Improv Cincinnati contemporary, and Sawan knows Doyle from his previous days in the local music scene. With an abundance of fan homages, including a mural by artist Technique2012, Sawan sees even more chances to connect with artistic minds (he subsequently interviewed a masked Technique2012 on the show).
Sawan’s life is not clown-exclusive. Alongside his exploits across the city, nation and his basement-turned-soundstage, Sawan, a Cincinnati native and Walnut Hills High School alum, works a day job and remains involved in Improv Cincinnati. He continues to write, but he admits that much of his current time is devoted to video editing.
Yet Softmaxplus, the alias embedded in the social handles, and Michael Sawan, the name printed on the book covers, are, in a sense, one in the same.
“This isn’t really a character,” Sawan says. “Like, I’m just kind of doing what I do. I forget I’m wearing the paint more often than not.”
To learn more about Michael Sawan and Softmaxplus, visit softmaxplus.com.
Watch an episode of Softmaxplus’s show on YouTube:
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Jan. 8 print edition.
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