Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Third Space Theater - Be Not Afraid

Third Space Theater is yet another example of why it’s so important to find the right collaborators.

When Alex Church (pre theater company name) landed at #3 on my pre-Fringe Top 10 List back in 2023, the mix of artists he was working with was… problematic, shall we say.  A lot of behind the scenes upheaval, leading to a performer leaving in the middle of the run during the festival so… yikes.  Really the less said the better for all concerned.  But what a wild upward trajectory from there over the next two Minnesota Fringe Festival seasons.

Alex bounced right back the next year with “Dutch: Made In America,” the darkest of absurdist comedies meditating on the forces that shaped the young actor who would one day grow up to be President Ronald Reagan.  It was a great gathering of fellow artists bringing the new script to life.

And then last year, under the banner of Third Space Theater, the right group of folks came together and created the unsettling seafaring adventure “Breach,” packing in the crowds through enthusiastic word of mouth around the Fringe, and getting both the Venue Pick and Artists Pick at the Golden Lanyard Awards at the end of the festival for their efforts.  At the time I wrote: “fantastic use of TRP space, all its levels and corners, light, shadow and sound, to create a fishing vessel on a high pressure job, with weather and tempers threatening to undo the crew; great script, cast, direction; plus a giant hallucinatory monster crab - 5 stars”

Then that same group of collaborators started my 2026 theater year off right with a stellar 5-star production of Will Arbery’s wild new play “Plano.”

And now they’re back again with a new script penned by Mariabella Sorini and Alex Church, both of whom also co-wrote last year’s “Breach.”  This time it’s a land-based tale of misfortune called “Be Not Afraid” (so, of course, you should be afraid - besides, it has nearly all the content warnings so…)

Description: 
2012. A struggling farm in a northwestern North Dakota town transformed by the oil boom is given a warning. A savior is coming.
Venue - Southern Theater
Content Warnings - Abuse/Physical Violence, Adult Language, Blood, Crude Humor, Drug Content, Flashing Lights, Gun/Weapon Usage, Loud Noises, Mental Illness, Sexual Violence, Violence, Other Divisive Content
Genre and Content - Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Original Music, Physical Theater, Storytelling
Ages 16 and Up

A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center - learn more about them and their essential work here, https://www.miwrc.org/

The press packet also includes these nuggets of info:

“The oil boom turns a North Dakota town into a modern Sodom & Gomorra.”

Well, okay then…

“North Dakota, 2012. A struggling farm in a town transformed by the oil boom is given a warning: a savior is coming. TST's newest original work places audiences at the edge of a nightmare on the plains. A motley crew of listless men, irate locals, and desperate neighbors fight for security and autonomy in a midwestern gothic of biblical proportions. As the heat rises and hope dries up. ‘Be Not Afraid’ explores what holds us together when the world is falling apart. “

They got the band back together from “Breach” adding on some folks from “Plano” and some additional new artists of promise for this go-round.  Building on the good that has come before.

Am I a fan of horror and violence in the my entertainment diet?  Not normally.

Would I trust these people to take me there for an hour?  Absolutely.  I can balance it all out with something funny and uplifting afterward.  The Fringe has everything.  Also, “Be Not Afraid” doesn’t open until Saturday on opening weekend, so I have some time to fortify myself for a good jolt.

Third Space Theater has found its Fringe audience, so they hardly need my help, but I’m recommending them anyway.

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - One T Productions - After The End

Scot Froelich (he of the one T in Scot) has been spinning ingenious and affecting tales of heartbreak both before and after I flagged him back in 2013 as #5 on my pre-Fringe Top 10 list that year.

The end of the world and/or humanity, one could argue, is just a different kind of heartbreak.  So while I’m not much for dystopian scenarios, if Scot’s telling the story and playing the guitar, I’ll go.

After The End
Description: 
Following a devastating global pandemic, Jeff is left to fend for himself. Twelve years later, he’s built a farm, a solar array, and – to pass the time - a hobby of playing guitar for the audience in his head.
Venue - Mixed Blood
Content Warnings - Adult language, Suicidal ideation/self-harm, No late seating allowed
Genre and Content - Comedy, Drama, Musical Theater, Solo Show
Ages 12 to 15 and Up

No late seating allowed.  
Don’t want to disrupt the vibe of the end of the world by showing up late :)

The More Information tab and press packet provide additional context:

“We've all contemplated questions like, "What's your desert island playlist?" or "If you only had one day to live, what would you do?" and considered the decisions around finality and isolation. Luckily for Jeff, he doesn't have to think of answers. He's had twelve years to live them. There's a meticulous garden, a glorious solar array, the world's most magnificent vinyl collection, and a wide variety of canine companions.

As time stretched on, though, he had to find a true hobby. A way to express himself. Enter: YOU. Thank you for being Jeff's imaginary audience. The solar generator only has enough juice for 60 minutes of performance, though, so make sure to get there early.

The human population has been reduced to... Jeff. He’s learned guitar, but who is his audience?

25-season Fringe veteran Scot Froelich returns to the stage with a question: If you were the last person on earth, what would you do? How would you grieve the loss? How would you remain joyful? How many dogs would you keep? And what keeps you going? After a global pandemic reduces the population to... Jeff, he is left to ponder these questions while learning gardening, hunting, and guitar. But why is he still here and what does he intend to do with his time?”

I do also appreciate that they hired a human (Hannah Boehme) to do the artwork for the show’s publicity.  (In a dystopia, we humans need to stick together and not just submit fully to the computers, which if of course harder and harder to do every day, he says, typing on a laptop and posting to the internet…)

The show has Mike Mellas as director, Nicole Wilder as Music Director, and Sheree Froelich (who helmed recent Fringe shows I quite enjoyed - The Wind Phone in 2024 and My Empty Arms in 2022) as stage manager on this one so we’re in good hands all around here.

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - SUPERMOON - the statue of liberty is nora in a doll’s house by henrik ibsen

This should be one of the shorter blog posts.

Partly because the group SUPERMOON (collaborators Caleb Matthew Byers, Claudia Errickson, Mads Plonski, and Michael Torsch) is deliberately cagey about the details of their shows, so you go in as blind as possible and just experience the performance without a preconceived notion of what you’re walking into.

Partly because, well, they kind of blew the doors off the place in last year’s Fringe with their production “All Your Shimmering Gold” (a mash-up of a weapons contractor client presentation and the opera “Das Rheingold”).  Anyone who saw that doesn’t need any additional convincing from me.  (Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing in hindsight that they were only #14 on my pre-Fringe Top 20 list last year, but there was little detail, as there is this time, so it was hard to do anything more than go with my gut feeling.)

My review of their Fringe show last year is i believe the first time I’ve ever used the phrase “This show f*cks so hard.”

Some less colorful commentary included: 
“Like a lot of the best live theater, All Your Shimmering Gold is fairly resistant to being summarized.  You really have to see it for yourself… [The show] is spectacle meant to be seen with your own eyes, felt personally in real time, not constrained or limited by someone else’s words.  But words are all I have so, I’m going to use them to best of my ability to give you some reasons to go see the show in the theater.

[It’s] is big, both in literal size, and in its ambitions.  It takes some really big swings creatively… It’s exactly the kind of crazy risk a framework like the Minnesota Fringe Festival was created to support.

The quiet genius of [the show] is that it doesn’t hold your hand and walk you through what everything means.  It merely places all the elements before you, and trusts the brains of the audience to work it all out for themselves… It’s a stunning, surprising, mesmerizing, unsettling, really wild piece of live performance.”

Having seen a couple of their productions now, the above is not a bad attempt at me fumbling toward an understanding of SUPERMOON’s mission statement.

SUPERMOON is doing a new Fringe show.  It should be on your list.

The title is almost all we’re getting but it does lay down some markers:

“the statue of liberty is nora in a doll’s house by henrik ibsen”

When I first checked the Fringe site, the show description said: 

"the statue of liberty prepares for and performs a doll's house."

When I check more recently it had changed to:

“The title describes exactly what happens (obviously other things happen too).”

The press packet serves up the following:

“This is a performance about doors, lies, and the American meaning of liberty.

The Statue of Liberty prepares for and performs Nora in A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. This performance is about doors, lies, and the morphed American definition/concept of liberty. It's an Americana kaleidoscopic ritual praying for a miracle.”

Venue - Rarig Thrust
Content Warnings - Flashing Lights
Genre and Content - Comedy, Drama, Musical Theater, Physical Theater
Ages 12 to 15 and Up

I just saw SUPERMOON’s production over the 4th of July weekend “In The Backroom” - another genre-busting meditation on the meaning and identity of America through the lens of deconstructing the life and reputation of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle (and also, tangentially, Land Del Rey’s song “There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard”) - a spectacle of sound, projected dialogue, video, microphone and lip syncing work, and stunning images of (fake) assault rifles, American flags, and 160 boxes - while skewering and exploiting every theatrical convention they can get their hands on.  So I’m all primed for another dose of Americana when the Statue of Liberty tackles Ibsen.

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Tyler West - Small Minded

Back in 2018, when Tyler West’s traveling mime show “Abeyance” landed on my pre-Fringe Top 20 list at #13, we were only his third Fringe appearance, about which I wrote:

“Tyler West's combination of mime, comedy, self-generated live sound FX, and interaction with audience members on and off stage is a delight - 5 stars”

But that was a whole pandemic and two ancient presidents ago so, it’s been a minute, and I was very happy to see he was returning with a new show, Small Minded.

The Minnesota Fringe website being a living, breathing, evolving organism throughout the month of July, the first time I culled information on the show, its description said this:

“When Tyler was a little boy he wanted to grow up and be a clown. Come to find out it was a lot harder to achieve the former, than the latter. 'Small Minded' features magic, juggling, clowning, and much more!”

When I went back to double check and see if more information had been posted, I found this new description:

“Is being a dwarf clown REALLY half the size, but double the fun? Or is Tyler West just Small Minded? Either way, this show features juggling, magic, Shakespeare, story-telling, and some Ha-Ha's! from the heart.”

Both these descriptions are part of the press packet for the show, so it seems OK to post them both.  More context is always helpful.

Small Minded
Created by Tyler West
Directed by Cleo DeOrio
Venue - Southern Theater
Content Warnings - Adult Language 
Genre and Content - Clowning, Magic, Solo Show, Comedy, Physical Theater, Audience Participation, Storytelling, Shakespearian Elements
Ages 12 to 15 and Up

There’s not a lot else on the show’s Fringe website page, but there is a video trailer:



And Tyler has a YouTube page with other samples of his work to watch.

Also, I noticed that back in the day an anonymous poster actually took the time to post a comment on my pre-Fringe blog post on Tyler’s show “Abeyance” to share:

“Fun fact: Minnesota is only Tyler's third fringe, but at his second, San Diego, Tyler won one of the two cultural exchanges that SD Fringe has with other festivals. As as result, he has been offered a slot at Sydney Fringe. (Full disclosure: I am the logistics coordinator for San Diego and I'm a house manager at MinnFringe.)”

It’s weird to find a post on a blog entry that isn’t spam, and also pretty cool that Tyler’s show inspired someone to share more information.  I shouldn’t be surprised, really.  It was a fun show.

And I expect no less from this one.

So if Tyler’s last show was before your time, or you missed him back in 2018, now’s your chance.  I feel very safe in promising you will be entertained.  Small Minded is on my schedule so perhaps I’ll see you there.  

In fact, if you want to start your Fringe on a fun note, Tyler’s show is the first slot, 5:30pm, on the first day of the festival, Thursday 8/6. Can’t go wrong with that.  Trust me. (And it’s a Bring a Friend to Fringe (BFF) performance, too, so you can buy a ticket and get an extra for free to bring someone with you.) 

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Dolly Who - Doozy

An embarrassing pattern has developed.  When I tagged Destiny Davison (aka, Dolly Who) as #7 on my Top 10 list back in 2023 for her show “DollyWho,” my Fringe-going schedule that year jumbled things around so that I ended up catching Destiny’s very last performance, which was also the very last slot in the festival on closing night.  So it was right from there to the closing night party and I never even typed so much as a mini-review online on the fly, like I try to do, even for the last show.  Fell down on the job there.

Last year, when she returned with “Dolly Who’s Holiday Horror Show” I did a little better.  This time it was the next to last day of the festival when I finally caught the show, and at least managed to post the following:

“MN Fringe show #44: Dolly Who’s Holiday Horror Show - Destiny Davison’s cartoons are adorably goofy, and creating a new holiday improv-style as a crowd amidst her established bits was a great communal experience; joy is in short supply so this was a real tonic :) - 5 stars”

So the goal this year is to see her new show “Doozy” sometime opening weekend(?) and actually write a proper review finally.

Description: 
A good friend never forgets. Too bad, Dolly did. But no worries, it's her day off! No agenda, no script, no work...and all the time in the world for a little sweet, sweet revenge.
Venue - Open Eye Theatre
Content Warnings - Flashing Lights, Loud Noises
Genre and Content - Puppetry, Improv, Comedy, Original Music, Physical Theater, Kid Friendly
Ages 12 to 15 and Up

Destiny Davison is both a talented improv comedian (part of the roster at Blackout Improv, among other improviser gigs) and a talented cartoonist, and as Dolly Who she blends the two into delightfully quirky shows with both comedy and cartoons conjured up on the spot with the help of some audience suggestion.

It’s hard to adequately describe the look and feel of a Dolly Who show.

The video trailer for Doozy helps:


As does Destiny/Dolly Who’s website

And Instagram account.

So check out all that art and performance archiving to get a sampling of what’s in store for this year’s Fringe.

And maybe I’ll finally write more than fifty words about it this time :)

Whether I manage to write or not, trust that if Destiny Davison’s Dolly Who is in the Fringe, I will find a way to see it.

We’re woefully low on whimsy these days, so Doozy is much needed.

If you need more convincing, here’s a bit more background from the Fringe show page for Doozy:

“DOLLY WHO? (cartoonist, perpetually exhausted millennial, and part-time, semi-professional “Learner”) is taking the day off! But nobody's resting easy, no siree, Bob. Things are about to get real. Featuring puppets, a giant remote, improvised chaos, and a Best Friend Forever hell-bent on revenge, DOOZY is an equal parts heartwarming and heart-wrenching story of friendship for the whole family, but mostly made for the friend (s) in your life that could use a reminder on how to be better one.

Featuring Britt Johnson as DOOZY, Cody Madison as DOOZY, Destiny Davison as DOOZY, Deanna Pistono as DOOZY, Alsa Bruno as DOOZY, Ross Flores as DOOZY, Jill Bernard as DOOZY, Alexandria Davison as DOOZY, Xylophone as DOOZY, Big Remote as DOOZY, Father Time as DOOZY, and DOOZY as DOOZY.

About DOLLY WHO?
DOLLY WHO? is Destiny Davison (she/they) a Minneapolis-based multi-media artist, cartoonist, and performer. Her work explores the real, the unreal, and the in-between. Right now, she is most concerned with how to stay human in a world of chaos and hurt, being a friend, and snails with fragile, bottomless hearts. Destiny has appeared on stages across Minnesota, including The Ordway, The Jungle Theater, Pangea World Theatre, Strike Theater, the Brave New Workshop, and more. Destiny's first appearance as DOLLY WHO? was at the 2023 Minnesota Fringe Festival. And in 2026, Destiny premiered their first ever puppet show “DOLLY WHO?'S FOR DINNER” at Open Eye Theatre’s Puppet Lab Festival. Destiny's artwork has been commissioned by Apple TV, Planned Parenthood, the Minnesota Star Tribune, TPT Almanac, the Northeast Minneapolis Arts Association (NEMAA), and the Minnesota Billboard Project.”

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Chris Davis - Road Trip!

Chris Davis was last here (his first Minnesota Fringe) in 2023.  He was #4 on my Top 10 list that year and he lived up to the much deserved hype he got from friend and Minnesota Fringe favorite Sam Landman.  I’m very happy to see he wanted to make a return trip to Minneapolis with more of his comedy.

Some things I said in my 5-star review about his combination stand-up and improv comedy show that year:

“Skewering stereotypes and semantics, banning books improv-style, deconstructing which lives matter and the unfortunate naming of buildings, Davis' comedy may be laid back but it still hits all its targets…

Good stand-up comedy is rare.  Good stand-up comedy that deals with thorny topics like race relations or sexuality is even rarer.  So I’m very glad that comedian Chris Davis made the trip up from Alabama to do a couple of his shows for us...

The two “Chris Davis Does Stuff” shows (Just Black Enough, and Seriously, I’m Not Gay) are sort of a cross between a stand-up routine and a solo show.  Basically a much funnier than usual solo show.  And a much more thoughtful stand-up routine, with a larger, overarching theme behind it.  I appreciate comedy that requires that my brain still be turned on and not off.  Chris Davis delivers the laughs I need, and the insight I wasn’t expecting.  Can’t ask for more than that from a good Fringe show.”

This time around, Chris is bringing his friend Rich Mansfield with him and they’re going full improv comedy this time.  As the poster for their show “Road Trip!” says, “Improv Comedy Goes on the Road.  You Choose the Destinations.  We Take You on the Journey.”

Description: 
Too expensive to go on a road trip? Then join two improv comedians as they take a ROAD TRIP without ever leaving the theater! You don’t need to pitch in for gas, just pitch in suggestions for destinations and leave the “driving” and comedy to them. Where will there journey take them? That’s for you to know and us to find out!
Venue - Bryant Lake Bowl
Content Warnings - None
Genre and Content - Comedy, Musical Theater, Audience Participation
Ages 16 and Up

Whatever Chris has in mind for this return trip, I’m happy to check it out.

If you need more convincing, here are Chris and Rich’s bios:

“Chris Davis started doing improv comedy in 2000 and stand up comedy in 2003. He is a member of Ugly Baby Improv, ETC Improv, and hosts Fresh Ground Comics, Birmingham's longest running local comedy showcase. Chris performs comedy, theater, appears in commercials, corporate videos, print ads and hosts many different events around town, including the Birmingham Moth StorySlam. He’s been fortunate enough to have opened for Janeane Garofalo, Al Madrigal, Michael Ian Black, Hannibal Buress, Brian Posehn, Jen Kirkman and performed comedy sets at two TEDX Birminhgam events in Birminhgam, Alabama.

Raised in the windswept cornfields of Illinois, Rich spent a decade performing standup throughout the MidWest , as well as a five year layover in Minnesota performing on stage in scripted and improvised productions all over the upper Midwest. Rich now performs regularly with two separate improv teams as well as producing and hosting his own comedy stage shows in Birmingham, AL.” 

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Small Waves - Cyrano

This is the first of many folks I’ll be posting about returning from my Top 20 list for last year’s festival to the 2026 Fringe.  A lot of artists on my list last year returned again this summer for more fun and entertainment.

Last year, the Small Waves artists were lampooning reality TV dating shows with their all-lesbian (plus one drag queen) extravaganza “Cabin Fever,” for which my 5 start mini-review online included both the phrase “so many lesbians, so little time” and “just as funny as it is bawdy and unexpected”

This year, they’re going in a completely different, but still very queer, direction and adapting the Edmond Rostand romantic classic “Cyrano de Bergerac” which they described for the Fringe’s Instagram account as “a modern, sapphic presentation of a time-honored classic that stays true to the story, even if it lacks any big noses.”

Description: 
A queer heroic comedy in five acts. The story you never knew you already know, like you've never seen it before. An adaptation of Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac."
Venue - Theatre in the Round (TRP)
Content Warnings - Abuse/physical violence, Adult language, Blood, Crude Humor
Genre and Content - LGBTQIA+ Content, Comedy, Drama, Literary Adaptation, Religious Content, Shakespearian Elements
Ages 12 to 15 and Up

In their press packet pitch, Small Waves adds the following:

“Minneapolis-based and queer-owned, theatre production company Small Waves seeks to celebrate theatre for theatre’s sake. This latest celebration - Katie Christ’s adaptation of the 1897 play “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edmond Rostand - presents a classic story that you never knew you already knew, like you’ve never seen it before. This production brings together a diverse group of Twin Cities artists, swapping swords for boxing, and long noses for queerness. Audiences can expect to laugh, to cry, and to wonder just what might take them to the moon.”

They call it “a queer heroic comedy, in a new ‘old’ adaptation of Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac." We've added sapphic flavor while retaining the period language and emphasizing the poetry of the original play.”

All of which I am very much down for.  After watching Small Wave assemble a great group of improvisers and set them loose on a well-constructed and hilarious satirical concept, I’m extremely interested in watching them take a classic, swoony old love triangle and make it queer.

If you’re looking for a good queer show this Fringe, “Cyrano” should be on your list.