Here's a list of links to the full write-ups on each of my pre-Fringe Top 11 to 20 list for the 2026 Minnesota Fringe Festival:
11 - The Quiet Piggy - Dawn Bentley
Minnesota Fringe Executive Director and theatre virgin Dawn Bentley makes her first (and only?) fringe show. A personal, political, and playful storytelling experience fantasizing about how IT finally happens.
12 - Maniac - Todd Sullivan
A solo clown show loosely inspired by history's most intelligent serial killer — blending masks, movement, lo-fi origami, and absurd logic into a lunatic tribunal of comedy, tenderness, and chaos.
13 - Don't Be Scared - Band Practice
Two zombified post-war corporate professionals attempt to run a workshop with the audience on how to face your fears. Outside, the darkness is creeping in threatening to end the show and maybe their friendship.
14 - A Real Piece of Work - Moral of the Story
When a bumbling community theater group rehearses for their production of Hamlet, one actor tries to help them get their act together. This ensemble comedy is a love letter to community theater.
15 - Pistachio's Playhouse - Samuel Karie
When the host of the beloved children’s show Pistachio’s Playhouse experiences a sudden tragedy, she has to try and keep the Playhouse from closing while maintaining her sanity in front of an impressionable audience.
16 - The Choose Your Own Adventures of Turtle Boy - Tiger Love Studios LLC
A one-person puppet show with call and response/audience participation. The bashful but rowdy Turtle Boy leads you through an action movie of your own making. John Wick meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Karate Kid meets Mr. Rogers.
17 - That Was Shakespeare: A Revue - The Redmond Players (aka Technically Thespians)
Connie thinks Shakespeare belongs in the past. Her uncle Ford knows better. A whirlwind tour through comedy, tragedy, and romance reveals the Bard's words may be closer to home than she thinks.
18 - Therapist Zero - be-Creative (Brian Leonard)
Therapist Zero is a darkly funny solo show about a father trying to help his brilliant but struggling daughter, only to run headfirst into a maze of psychiatrists, broken systems, and his own past.
19 - Hell on Wheels: The Winter Strike of 1934 - Local 574
The true story of the families and truckers in Minneapolis who organized in order to survive the Great Depression. This first strike of 1934 led to the transformation of the North Star State.
20 - This Body, This Fruit - Davi Gray
This Body, This Fruit is a solo performance in 3 acts: a narrative journey built from poetry bringing the audience into, through, & out of the rage, sorrow, despair, revelation, awakening, & joy of transness.
And here's a list to similar posts with links to the Top 10 entries on this year's list, as well as a post with links to all the blog posts on returning favorites coming back to this year's festival.
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