Fringe 2024 - Top 11 to 20 List

Here's a post with a handy list of links to all the entries in my pre-Fringe Top 11 to 20 list for the 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival: 

11 - TransMasculine Cabaret, Starring Vulva Va-Voom

Hardships, meet hilarity. "TragiComic transgender-identifying true confessional" & "obscene, maniacal burlesque star" sound incompatible...but this gritty nightclub headliner combines stranger things onstage.

Serious topics identity… presented by an absurd comedian

12 - Take The “T” Out
Silly Miss Tilly

Lily a girl who loves to sing, but fear and excitement are the same feeling. Watch and join as her friends encourage her to go to Silly Miss Tilly's Karaoke show that will change their lifes. "YOU CAN DO THIS"

 

13 - old growth
Loom Lab

old growth draws from shapeshifting mythology and the language of the forest to present a physically virtuosic exploration of transformation, community, and self-acceptance. Dance, puppets, fights, circus!

 

 

14 - Mae West's The Drag
The Feral Theatre Company

Originally written by Mae West in 1927; The Drag follows Rolly, a closeted gay man, juggling the facades he must keep up. With drag balls, his ex-lover, and his wife, he tries to stay afloat and live his truth.

 

 

15 - every.single.one
Cherie Sampson

A one-woman multimedia performance portraying intimate personal, familial and community stories about hereditary cancer, integrative oncology and survival from a patient's perspective of modern medicine.

 

16 - Heart Ripped Out Twice And So Can You!
Linnea Bond

A sales rep clown pitches you on Existing in this (mostly) comedy about pain. Part timeshare presentation, part pity party, part existential howl. Cincy Fringe Critics’ Pick, Encore. ATL Fringe Producer's Pick.

 

17 - Juliet & Juliet: Improvised Shakespeare
Juliet & Juliet (aka, Meghan Wolff & Sami Haeli)

Juliet & Juliet improvise eloquent, oddball, feminist Shakespeare. They love language. They love murdering one another. They love traveling all over the US improvising Shakespeare.

 

 

18 - Love Lies a Bleeding
Vee Signorelli and Logan Signorelli Verdoorn

This raunchy, heartfelt Jacobean-era tragicomedy is rife with unresolved sexual tension, secret love, crossdressing, erotic stabbings, civil unrest, and an overly-involved narrator.

 

 

19 - Defibrillator
Justice Theatre Consortium (Jennie Ward)

On Jan 17, 2021, Jenny's heart tried to kill her. Defibrillator is a new comedy about the mystery of life: the true(ish) story of one community's dance with death and a stockpile of lasagna.

 

 

20 - A Horse Walks Out Onto the Stage and Dies
Theatre on the Rocks - Sam Sweere

Taken from the perspective of a life not worth living, but not worth losing, a dying horse climbs through his lack of value to find purpose in the world around him before it's too late.

 

 

Here's some handy links to this year's Top 10 list, plus the full list of all returning favorites at this year's Fringe, plus a link to all the 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival coverage.

While I have your attention, please VOTE :) 

Minnesota is currently in the early voting period for our Congressional and local primaries (I had the U.S. Senate, Congress, and the Minneapolis school board on my ballot) - final day to vote in the primary is Tuesday, August 13th, but you don't have to wait until Fringe is over, go vote right now :)

Early voting for the Presidential Election itself in Minnesota starts on Friday, September 20th. We're lucky to have a lot of time to get our voices heard, so cast your vote, and then make sure everyone you know and love is registered and gets to the polls to vote. Election Day, your final date to vote, is Tuesday, November 5th.

As a queer playwright and theater maker, I want a government that's compassionate and competent enough to keep us all safe and healthy, keep theaters open and running, and personally, I'd just like to be legal myself and keep the weirdos out of government and out of my personal business (and the things I post on this blog, for instance). We all have our reasons, so let's make sure we get the leaders we need and deserve, and get our friends, family and co-workers to raise their voices, too.

Find where to vote and what's on your ballot (with links to candidate websites) and other resources at the Minnesota Secretary of State's website.

For other resources on how to register, volunteer or donate, locally or nationally, check out Vote Save America.

Vote.  Raise your voice. We're not going back.