Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Minnesota Fringe Festival - A Certain Age -Theatre du Bon Chien - Coming At A Show Sideways

Opening night of Fringe, Thursday, August 1st, 5:30pm...

First slot in the Fringe is hard, particularly for a new play.  The fact that A Certain Age has music helps but since it's labeled a comedy and not a musical people could miss that selling point.  I have to admit I don't know either of the two ladies at the center of this play or even the playwright.  Neither mom nor I is even technically a middle-aged woman, so the subject matter of the evening is not the draw.

What brings me (and mom) to this one is the director, Elena Giannetti.  Elena as an actor was part of one of the early public readings of my very first script to get produced here in Minneapolis (we won't go into how long ago that was - I was not yet a middle-aged woman then).

Elena and her husband (also part of that early reading) have always been loyal supporters of my work, and in return I go and see as many of Elena's plays as I can.  She's recently branched out into directing, and from the way she describes the process on this project, it seems like it's been a great collaborative process and they're very proud of the end result.

So, a series of vignettes with original songs thrown in, and I see just now on perusing their show page, they've drafted another talented fellow I do know - Richard Weber, who was part of the ensemble for the latest Project 515 tour I scripted.  Yet another reason to feel we're in good hands here.

I had to look up Bon Chien of course, because I'm a philistine.  It's French for "good dog." Take that how you will.

And as luck would have it, this show is at HUGE Theater in Uptown and the next two shows at HUGE are also ones mom and I would very much like to see, so we get to stay put.

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