We have a title that includes both the words “confluence” and “arseholes” - do I really need to lay out further reasons why I’m on board to go see this show?
(By the way, I love that spellcheck knows that I was inverting a couple of letters and typing “arseholes” incorrectly at first. It wants me to get that word right.)
Further reasons? It’s Amber Bjork’s group The Winding Sheet Outfit, which regularly produces theater that reminds me I need to read more history because history is littered with the strangest stories and the oddest people, and the more you dig into them, the more fascinating they often become. (They’ve been accidentally making me feel poorly educated and under-read since they landed on my pre-Fringe Top 10 List back in 2012, but that’s my problem :) The Winding Sheet Outfit each year fixates on some figure in the past, often an artist or group of artists, and put them in the context of the larger sprawl of the world’s story, while also making them fully human and relatable in their own smaller personal story. This can also apply to legends (ancient or urban) as well. This year, it’s…
A Confluence of Magical Arseholes
Description:
The feckin' story and singy-song of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. There be the famous supper club for some bored c*nts and dilettantes, and this be that time W. B. Yeats kicked Aleister Crowley's arse.
Venue - Rarig Thrust
Content Warnings - Adult language
Genre and Content - Comedy, Musical Theater, Original Music, Historical Content
Ages 16 and Up
The press packet adds this bit of amusing further context for the piece:
“A rowdy musical revue about that time W. B. Yeats kicked Aleister Crowley's ass.
The award-winning company behind memorial-based theater pieces like "Blood Nocturne," "You Are Cordially Invited to the Life and Death of Edward Lear," and "The Spirit Moves You to Color the Unseen" takes on the challenge of a full-scale musical about people you've heard of but may not know very much about--W. B. Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Their goal is to make it rowdy and irreverent and real stupid fun.”
The More Information tab on their show page offers this sheepish content warning:
“More info coming soon.
Promise.
Also, a warning, be prepared: Aleister Crowley used the C word in his poetry.
A lot.
It's been a problem during rehearsals.
I can't get these arseholes to focus on anything but stupid giggles.
Did I mention this show is gonna be really stupid?
And pretty? And fun?
But mostly stupid.
With a lot of "c---."
*polite curtsey*
Also, I'll ask the Crowley fans and devotees not to curse us please.
Thank you.
*politer curtsey*”
So it’s a foul-mouthed Fringe musical. Extra points for all that, obviously.
The cast list as usual is an embarrassment of riches. It’s almost not fair to have all these people in one show :)
The previously name-checked Sam Landman is the playwright George Bernard Shaw
The previously name-checked Derek Lee Miller is the horror novelist Bram Stoker
The previously name-checked Mark Benzel is the poet W. B. (Willie) Yeats
Michael Rogers is playing the guy about to get his ass kicked, Alister Crowley
Amber Bjork in addition to directing the project is also playing a character named Lady Gregory.
And a quartet of great actresses I’ve seen in so very many Fringe and non-Fringe theatrical productions that I can’t enumerate them all right now - Heather Bunch, Megan Campbell Lagas, Kristina Fjellman, and Boo Segersin. They are, of course, playing women whose names I should probably know, but I was educated far too long ago in a public school with a patriarchal lens on history so I will be encountering them here properly for the first time (Florence Farr, Annie Horniman, Moina Mathers, and Maud Gonne, respectively) - though, two of them have names that if you put them together create the phrase Far Gone and another's last name looks like Horny Man so… maybe I’m being punked? We’ll see.
And that’s just the collaborators whose names I recognize off the top of my head without doing any digging. There are more.
In general, this group has a wicked sense of humor, with a bit of whimsy and melancholy mixed in as necessary, which I always appreciate. They take their subjects seriously, but not too seriously.
The Winding Sheet Outfit's Fringe shows (and Twin Cities Horror Festival shows) regularly pack in the audiences, so they certainly don’t need a boost from me, but I’m mentioning them anyway. I’m looking forward to seeing what flavor of weird they’re offering up this year.
Interested in hearing about other artists I recommend based on past outings in the Fringe? Here's a link to a list of all the coverage of returning favorite artists from past pre-Fringe Top 20 lists of mine that are part of this year's Minnesota Fringe Festival. And here's links to the 2026 versions of my pre-Fringe Top 10 list and Top 11 through 20 for the 2026 festival as we ramp up toward the start of the Fringe on August 6th.
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