Out of Towners - Les Kurkendaal - A One-Way Ticket To Crazy Town

Les' mother is suffering from dementia and doesn't remember who he is. She remembers the rest of the family, just not him. So Les is going to tell his mother stories and hope they will jog her memory

Mom doesn't really consider Les an out-of-towner, since every time she's in town to visit me for the Fringe, Les is always here, too.

Les is blessed with some major Fringe Lottery good karma.  The ping pong balls always seem to go his way.  And I can't complain.  Both Mom and I love seeing Les perform, and just hanging out with him in general.  In fact, when Les saw me after the show last night, his first thought was not of me but upon spying me he immediately asked, "Where's Mom?!"  Right behind me, of course, so they had a fun little reunion.

Oh, his show.  You want to know about his show?  It's more vintage Les, which is to say the man has an enviable skill for taking his life and finding that key story around which to create a show.  In this case, it's Les dealing with the fact that his mother no longer knows who he is.  My own mom is caretaker to my 99-year-old grandma (her mom) and so the family knows where Les is coming from.  Grandma still knows who the key people in the family are, but the memory bank is shot for the day to day stuff.  When people ask about grandma, Mom will joke, "She'll be 100 in March, if I let her."  Given the daily challenges, I was wondering if this Les show would hit a little too close to home.

But it's Les, which means the key ingredient in any survival recipe is humor.  The guy just knows how to tell a story.  With Les, you're in good hands.  We're catching him in performance on Tuesday to help close out Mom's last day of Fringing, but he has a performance today, Thursday 8/2 in the 5:30 kickoff slot.  Les, now as ever, comes very highly recommended.