The charming art and history of mime will be on stage at the Bosworth Lecture Series on Thursday, April 11 at 7 p.m. at the Rogers Free Library in Bristol. The event is free and open to the public.

Vlad Tenenbaum, accomplished mime performer and former student of Marcel Marceau, will speak about the history of this rare performing art. Miming or pantomime is acting out a story through body motions without the use of speech.

During the Roman Empire, mime played various roles. Trajan banished mime artists; Caligula favored them and Nero himself acted as a mime. Often comical, but sometimes serious, mime is today a popular street theater art form.

"As a kid it taught me to be physical and entertaining," Mr Tenenbaum said, "to be the center of attention. At 62 it keeps me young and in shape."

He said working with mime great Marcel Marceau was "a thrill. He was skinny and quiet, but he demanded excellence," he said. "He was a perfectionist."

Mime is often misunderstood, Mr Tenenbaum said. "A mime is not a clown, and the art is generally not for kids. In Paris under Marceau, students must be 18."

Mr Tenenbaum was born in Moscow in 1956. He was introduced to mime at 12 and studied and performed with various groups in Russia. He immigrated to the United States in 1981 and performed with the Royal Mime Co. in Boston, The Peter Abbott Mime Circus and the Studio 33 Mime Ensemble.

In 1982-83 he completed master classes with Marcel Marceau in Ann Arbor, MI. He joined the Bit Players at the Firehouse Theater in Newport in 2007 and continues to perform with the group every Friday and Saturday evening. Mr Tenenbaum is the owner of Barrington Dental Labs in Warren.

The Roswell S. Bosworth, Jr Lecture Series is presented by the Men's Club, a local organization that pays tribute to its founding member, former editor and publisher of the East Bay Newspapers, with lectures of general interest to the R.I. audience.