Fringe 2022 - Promising Preview (3 of 3) - What Takes Who

The handy thing about Fringe previews is that sometimes, there’s a couple of shows that hadn’t really been on your radar yet, but seeing a little snippet of the performance makes you think, “Hmmm, I’d actually like to see the rest of that.”  Second night of Fringe previews had three of those for me.

What Takes Who - Sugar Throw Theatre

A dinosaur is born, and what happens next? Join us as we walk through time and space. Depictions of capitalism, what it means to exists in the body of woman, and wonder what it mean to make impactful change.

Again, because there was a tag for LGBTQ+ content on this show, it hadn’t completely escaped my notice.  I just wasn’t quite sure, based on what was on their Fringe show page, what type of show it was.  The preview cleared that up in a very engaging way.

In a sign of the times, their master puppeteer and one of the other actors both got sick at the last moment, right before preview night.  Yikes.  But the director pitched in, and I think they got another friend to help them out as well because there aren’t any guys listed in the cast and crew that I could see, and yet a fellow walked out and held up a sign that said,

“Everything the state says is a lie and everything it has stolen”

No lines, he just held up the sign and slowly rotated so the whole audience got a chance to see it, while other scenes went on behind him.  Two of 36 moments the director said would make up their show.  One actor had a monologue that began, “What kind of girl are you?”  And then a lesbian mother and her dinosaur marionette child had a conversation about cultural appreciation vs. appropriation.

Can’t quite put it into words, but I like the vibe.  I could sit with whatever these folks are cooking up for an hour.  Also a first-time Fringe producer.  As it says on their More Information tab for the show page on the Fringe site:  “Yeah, this may be one of those ‘weird Fringe shows’ and yeah, this show may not help you escape the feeling of inevitable doom. BUT we have music, laughs, tears, and a friendly puppet to show us the way!”

 

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, the Top 11-20 list, a list of returning favorites, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.) 

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

 

 

 

Fringe 2022 - Promising Preview (2 of 3) - The Witchy World of Luna Muse

The handy thing about Fringe previews is that sometimes, there’s a couple of shows that hadn’t really been on your radar yet, but seeing a little snippet of the performance makes you think, “Hmmm, I’d actually like to see the rest of that.”  Second night of Fringe previews had three of those for me.

The Witchy World of Luna Muse

Something wicked this way comes! Twin cities drag entertainer Luna Muse makes her one-woman show debut in this whimsical and kooky theatrical experience. Fantasy and reality collide as our host is tasked with sharing her favorite fairy tale of ‘Lady Luna of the Moon.’ This witch puts her storytelling chops to work, doing her best not to get too distracted with the musings (and hauntings) of her childhood. It’s a cauldron bubbling of equal parts drag show, stand-up, and drag-queen-story-hour. Embellished with glittery costumes, a bold red lip, and just a pinch or two of real-life, make-believe magic. Join Luna Muse in her imaginative witchy world!

This one wasn’t entirely foreign to me, since it had a tag for LGBTQ+ content and I always peruse the show listings for those Fringe productions first.

Honestly, just watch the preview:

 

Luna Muse (aka Cam Pederson) was first out of the gate for the previews that night and she just took the stage and worked the crowd and was generally delightful.  Not bad at all for a first-time Fringe producer.  If Mom were still alive, she’d probably consider story time with a drag queen to be her civic duty, as well as a good time.  So this one’s an easy one to add to the list for the schedule.
 

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, the Top 11-20 list, a list of returning favorites, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.) 

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

 

 

 

Fringe 2022 - Promising Preview (1 of 3) - She’s Already Gone

The handy thing about Fringe previews is that sometimes, there’s a couple of shows that hadn’t really been on your radar yet, but seeing a little snippet of the performance makes you think, “Hmmm, I’d actually like to see the rest of that.”  Second night of Fringe previews had three of those for me.

She’s Already Gone - Laura Dierke Productions

In 1940s Belgium, Maria is trapped somewhere she doesn't recognize. Unable to reach her boyfriend, she forms a tense alliance with her neighbor Dorothy as she slowly uncovers that things are not what they seem.

The song is what got my attention.  It’s hard to tell in the video of the preview, and was also a challenge in the room at the time because (previews being a scramble) the volume of the keyboard accompaniment in that big room overpowered the vocalist just a bit.  When they actually do the show itself, in the much smaller Augsburg MainStage space, they’ll have time to get the sound levels in balance, the space to fill will be smaller and the audience will be closer.  But even with all that, the thing that caught me was the lyrics of the song.

Sometimes with new musicals, the words and the music don’t exactly sync up.  They have to stretch a word, or pronounce it funny, or (as Mom would say) put emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle to make things fit properly.  You can see the seams of the thing straining to fit together.  Not the case here, they ably avoided that pitfall.  Here there were a lot of words as the character is writing/reciting a letter to her absent boyfriend, but it never gets out of control or off track, and the lyrics also aren’t just marking time between words that rhyme either.  There’s information conveyed in the song that helps set the situation and help our understanding.  And that’s only half-hearing the thing.

Digging into their show page after previews, I was surprised to see most of the people involved in the show are still in high school (wouldn’t have been my first guess - I did realize they were young, just not quite that young).  That includes the writer, the director, and most of the cast.  It’s also clearly a Dierke family endeavor, since that’s a last name common to a lot of the people listed on the cast and crew page.

The promo video on their show page is also intriguing - an old big band song from the WWII era, black and white photography, a girl in period dress writing and mailing a letter (though I have to admit, given the reference to camps in the Fringe preview, the shots of the girl walking along train tracks seem a bit more ominous now).

 

For a few years a while back, the Fringe specifically set aside spots for a special sub-lottery for what they called Teen Fringe - this show would definitely fall in that category.  And I was always fascinated by these shows because you could tell they were done by people who were new to theater mostly because they hadn’t had years of people telling them “You can’t do that on stage” yet.  So they would do the craziest stuff.  Just unexpected, swing for the fences, wild narrative and presentational strategies.  It was just fun seeing artists play around with (or beyond) the limits of what most theater normally does.  Just people seeing what new things theater might be capable of.

In this case, it looks like they’ve decided to do a supernatural musical set in World War II Europe?!  Nazis and camps are mentioned, though thankfully we’re spared gray prison garb with yellow stars, the costumes are all quite colorful.  Also, the show image shows a young woman dressed for the kitchen, but chained up (interestingly, my brain kept deciding not to see that last part).  The title "She’s Already Gone" would seem to imply that perhaps someone is already dead and just doesn’t know it yet?  Maybe you can’t get in touch with your boyfriend because you’re not living on the same plane of existence anymore.  That’s just a wild guess, I’m probably wrong, it was a three minute preview.  It’s tagged as a mystery and the synopsis includes the phrase “things are not what they seem,” so it could end up going literally anywhere by the time it’s done.  But singing concentration camp ghosts would definitely be a new one.

I actually made a point of walking up to them after the previews were over and getting one of their postcards.  They’re right in that West Bank hub of venues so it should be easy to make it part of the schedule.  Could be fantastic, could be a total trainwreck.  But I’m super curious about this one.

 

 

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, the Top 11-20 list, a list of returning favorites, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.) 

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

 

 

Fringe 2022 - Voices from Night 2 of Fringe Previews

Random snippets from Fringe 2022 Preview Night 2, with links to the respective show pages and/or previous blog posts about this year's shows, plus video clips posted by the Fringe.

In order of appearance... 

The Witchy World of Luna Muse

“It warms my gaping hole… (pause, long enough for the audience to go there)… where a heart should be.”

(Full preview here)

Happy Endings Church: A Haggardly Tale of Woe and Redemption

“Where will I find a godly blond man?”
“God just spoke to me… about a boy!”

(Full preview here)

The Hysterical Woman

“It’s my womb.  It’s gone missing.”

(Full preview here)

Shoe Night

“I didn’t stop existing just because you wanted me to.  I’m still here.”

(Full preview here)

Action Will Be Taken! - (an ACTION-PACKED play!!)

“Vigorous personalities who are just obsessed with telling you their life stories.”

(Full preview here)

The Brothers Dangus Vol. 1: The Liturgy of the Big Yellow Ghost

“The epidemic of pink eye that followed… It’s not our fault.”

(Full preview here)

Curtain Call: Letters to My Friend Louie Anderson!

“I can’t believe I just met Shaun White!”

(Full preview here)

Expiration Date

“Myrtle symbolizes love.”

(Full preview here)

The 3 Way

“How should I know?  I’m not an orthodontist.”

(Full preview here) 

Foreigner Frenzy - The MAST Diaries of 1978!

Misread this one completely.  I honestly thought the title referred somehow to the rock band Foreigner, because it was a woman reading from her very colorful college diaries from the late 1970s when she went from sheltered virgin to party girl in a matter of months.  But the preview makes it clear she was referring instead to her sexual awakening because of the attentions of foreign men, men from other countries, other cultures.  That kind of foreigner frenzy.  Which… uh… yikes.  Now, the men in the photo advertising the show don't seem to be from particularly non-European countries so perhaps she just hooked up with exchange students from Sweden or Australia.  Regardless... awkward branding.  However, she is a vivid journal writer.

(Full preview here)

WHOOSH! The Civil War Mythology of Michael Hickey and His Perilous Precipitation Over St. Anthony Falls

(I could probably watch this actor recite anything and not be bored.)
Rather than an excerpt from the show, he just chatted with the audience in character from the show, and did a meditation in part about what it must have been like to be on the Rarig Thrust stage when it first opened in the early 1970s because that would have meant that you made it into college rather than gotten shipped off to the war in Vietnam.  I can’t do it justice, it was fascinating.

(Full preview here)

Finger-Lickin’ Good

“Acting is the most heroic thing you can do as an American.”

“Have you ever thought of doing your job at Medtronic in New York?”

(Full preview here)

Erotica For Houseplants 

"Hello.  Consent is crucial.  Would you like to hear some erotica for houseplants?”

(Full preview here)

Gods In The Chrysalis

Ancient Greek gods in modern clothes speaking in rhyme to one another while meddling in the romantic interactions of humans - as you do.

(Full preview here)

The Conversation

“Who do you belong to?”
“I belong to you.”

(Full preview here)

He-Man Is The Devil and Other Satanic Panic Tales

“In my church, demons were real, and they’re out to get you.”

(Full preview here)

What Takes Who

“At the end of the day, you don’t get to decide who you are.”

(Full preview here)

She’s Already Gone

“Your drawer full of shit.  That’ll save us.”

(Full preview here)

Sunshine

“A week later, you look effortless.”

(Full preview here)

Who’s Afraid of Winnie the Pooh?

“You know, I’ve never hit a toy before.”

Hilariously catty voiceovers from offstage while a man in Pooh ears drags a liquor cart onstage and then devours a pot of honey in front of us for three minutes in a very intimate fashion.

(Full preview here)

Rewrites

“We get to the same point in our day every day and it just stops.  It all goes blank.”

(Full preview here)

Endometriosis, The Musical

(That’s it, can't top the title, and the fact that they had a genuinely enjoyable show-stopping musical number from a set of  women waiting in line at the Target pharmacy for birth control)

(Full preview here)

Desi Heart Crust

“We have a small, multicultural cast of 65 people.”

(Full preview here)

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, the Top 11-20 list, a list of returning favorites, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.) 

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

 

 

 

 

Fringe 2022 - Top Ten List

I'll post links here to all my posts about this year's Top 10 list, just so there's a handy place to find them all and you don't have to scroll through the whole blog to find them:

 

1 - The Marvelous Magpie Moon – DeerChild Puppets (Eva Adderly)

2 - Ancestors Rising – Goddard’s Gardens (Joseph Michael Davis)

3 - Finger Lickin’ Good - Special When Lit (Heather Meyer & Nissa Nordland)

4 - Changing The Narrative: Climate Stories for Justice – Change Narrative LLC

5 - swim team – The Aquatic Center (george mcconnell, Samantha Johns)

6 - Black Wall Street: Dreamland Theatre – Doc Woods & Friends

7 - Daybreak Diner – Lady Z Productions

8 - Desi Heart Crust – SAATH

9 - Gemini, A “Magic” Show – Noah Sonie

10 - Help Me Help You Help Yourself – Your Silent Partner (Danny Wightkin)

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the Top 11-20 list, a list of returning favorites this year, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.)

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

Fringe 2022 - Top 11-20 List

I'll post links here to all my posts about this year's Top 11-20 list, just so there's a handy place to find them all and you don't have to scroll through the whole blog to find them:

11 - Bearded Company – Swords & Sorcery: The Improvised Fantasy Campaign

12 - Wounded Healers – Timothy Berry

13 - My Empty Arms – Broken Wing Productions (Sheree Froelich)

14 - The Brothers Dangus Vol. 1: The Liturgy of the Big Yellow Ghost – The Yes Fly List

15 - Bellerophon’s Shadow: Voyage of the Pegasus – Phantom Chorus Theatre

16 - Sunshine – House Full of Frogs (Franklin Heller)

17 - Jon Bennett: Fire in the Meth Lab – 2Hoots Productions

18 - Have You Tried Cutting Dairy? – Ltd. Spoons Productions

19 - Stars of the Twin Cities – Sam and Bethany Walker

20 - Who’s Afraid of Winnie the Pooh? – Clevername Theatre

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, a list of returning favorites this year, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.)

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)

Fringe 2022 - Returning Favorites

I'll post links here to all my posts about this year's list of returning favorites of mine from past Fringes and past Top 10/Top 20 lists, just so there's a handy place to find them all and you don't have to scroll through the whole blog to find them:

alleged Theatre Company - 3 Guys on State Who Get Hit with Hot Dogs, Snow Cones, etc.

Avi Aharoni - A Play On Words

Denzel Belin - He-Man Is The Devil & Other Satanic Panic Tales

The Coldharts (Nick Ryan) - Silver Hammer

Comedy Suitcase (Joshua English Scrimshaw and Levi Weinhagen) - Bob and Reggie Go To Bed

The Drollery - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

EnCompass Theatre - Shoe Night

Fearless Comedy Productions - What's Your Day Job, or How Capitalism Destroys Us All!

Mahmoud Hakima - It's Going Down In Uptown AND Happy Endings Church: A Haggardly Tale of Woe & Redemption AND Slender Vale (an improvised terror)

Hey Rube! - Orzel Rising 

Les Kurkendaal-Barrett - The Real Black Swann, Confessions of America's First Black Drag Queen

Brad Lawrence - Life Underground

LCcreations (Lily Conforti & Co.) - I Think We Are Supposed To Be "Coming Of Age" By Now 

Gabriel Mata - Joteria: Our Untold Stories...

Maximum Verbosity - Stages: a Horror Play

Tim Mooney - Lot O' Shakespeare

Ariel Pinkerton/Fortune's Fool Theatre - The Hysterical Woman

RE|dance Group - The Biggest Wail From The Bottom Of My Heart

Tom Reed - Erotica for Houseplants

Michael Rogers - Developers

The Shrieking Harpies

Philip Simondet - The Local Music Scene

Snikt! Bamf! Thwip! - Michael Bay's Bridgerton VII: Revenge of the Forlorn

Penny Sterling - ShMILF Life

Mason Tyer and Andrew Rosdail - Peace Retreat, and Neil Gaiman's 'The Wedding Present'

Andrew Erskine Wheeler - Whoosh! The Civil War Mythology of Michael Hickey and His Perilous Precipitation Over St. Anthony Falls

The Winding Sheet Outfit (Amber Bjork) - Arsgang: What You Follow Follows You

(You can click on the following links to see a set of links to the full Top 10 list, the Top 11-20 list, and the full coverage of the 2022 Fringe on this blog.)

(Side note: Also during Fringe season, Minnesota has a primary election coming up on August 9th.  Early voting options are currently available.  You can also check out what's on your ballot ahead of time on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, as well as other voting services and information.  In Minneapolis, not only do we have the Governor and Lt. Governor on the ballot, but there's our U.S. Congressional Rep., our MN State Senator, the MN Secretary of State and MN Attorney General, as well as our County Sheriff and County Attorney, and two members of the Minneapolis School Board.  These are the people who decide what laws we live under and how they get enforced.  These are the people who decide whether or not we have voting rights.  These are the people who decide how our kids learn.  This is how we change things.  Personally, I'm alternately furious and despairing that my goddaughter and her little sister now have fewer rights over their own bodies than they did a month ago - there are things we can do, voting in the primary (and the general election) is one of them - here's a place you can go to do more.)