Fringe 2017 - Fringe starts at 5:30pm, where to begin?

Radio silence yesterday, due to one last full day at the day job before my Fringe vacation.  Then Mom and I grabbed some quick dinner before heading out to the Touring Artists Showcase on Fringe Eve to support our Fringe visitors and learn more about some shows going on our schedule.  About that schedule…

You’ll see me and mom out and about.  She has a cane she uses when walking around outside the house.  It’s been described alternately as either golden or snakeskin in design (which makes it easy to track down if she leaves it somewhere). She figured if she was going to have to use one, she might as well find something interesting to look at.

But this means we move a little slower than we used to, so keeping the venues close together is helpful if we want to see something in all thirty slots while she’s here (which is her personal goal).  This is the first year I really had to wait for her to get here to finalize the schedule.  I honestly couldn’t make up my mind.  There are two or three options for any given day depending on what part of town we want to be in.  She seems to be up for a good healthy walk between the various West Bank venues between shows, so our options opened up a little bit.

Right out of the gate on Thursday at 5:30pm, opening show of the Fringe, we’ve got an embarrassment of riches, regardless of where you look. 

In Uptown you’ve got Spy In The House of Men: A One-Woman Show With Balls at the BLB (which was on my top 10 list this year, and her preview in the touring artist showcase last night was hilarious, so that’s a winner).  

There’s also one of my random shout-outs for good scripts at HUGE with Gruesome Playground Injuries. 

Over on the West Bank, there’s a dance show from my top 20 at the Southern, It’s About Love Again This Year, which also had a really fun preview in the touring artist showcase last night. 

There’s a couple more of the random shout-outs with the musical update of Sisyphus at TRP, and a script I saw and liked at the Inge Festival down in Kansas this spring, Facility, in the Rarig Arena. 

There’s some comedic returning favorites with Joshua Scrimshaw and Levi Weinhagen’s Comedy Suitcase on the Rarig Thrust with Intermediate Physical Comedy for Advanced Beginners, and Josh Carson and Andy Kraft with The Wright Stuff at Mixed Blood. 

Finally, there’s also #3 on my top 10 list, Dick White: Ghost Detective in the Rarig Xperimental.

That’s ALL at 5:30pm tonight.  And that’s not all.  There are seven OTHER shows on top of that kicking off at 5:30 tonight. 

(I didn’t even touch on the NE nexus of Crane, Strike and two Ritz theater stages.  Dame daDA & the Meta Show had an enjoyably odd preview last night with the touring artists, and she’s at the Ritz Studio at 5:30pm)

So where do you start?

I have to remind myself which show I MOST want mom to see on any given night, use that as the tent pole show for the night, and build everything else on the schedule around that.  It isn’t always the first show of the night.  For opening night of the Fringe, it turns out to be 7pm, and it’ll put us over in the Uptown area.  We’ll get to the West Bank and NE in coming days, catching a whole lot of the shows above.  Our Thursday schedule will be in the next post.

And here's some handy links to the full list of pre-Fringe top 10, and 11-20, the rest of the returning favorites, and all the random shout outs in these Top 10/Top 20 posts - links all gathered in a single list to take you to fuller posts and Fringe pages.  Enjoy!