[Because I’m a completionist, or at least am often plagued with completionist tendencies, and because the shows don’t start for another five hours yet but my Fringe vacation has already begun - at least day job-wise - and I have some time, let’s knock out these last three artists who were on previous pre-Fringe Top 20 lists and have returned again for this year’s festival. Starting with the one I just saw a preview for last night…]
Foshay! You Know The Tower – Now Hear The Story
Description:
As of 1929 Wilbur Foshay was one of the richest men in the US, but the Great Depression had other plans for him. A well-loved 2023 musical that's the true story of a man who lost everything, but found himself.
Venue - Rarig Thrust
Content Warnings - None
Genre and Content - Drama, Musical Theater, Original Music, Historical Content
Ages 12 to 15 and Up
The press packet materials offer a bit more context to those of us who aren’t up on our Minneapolis/Foshay history:
“Wilbur B. Foshay was the poster child for the twenties and thirties. During the Roaring Twenties, he capitalized on a decade’s long bull-run stock market to catapult himself to lofty financial heights. At the opening of the Foshay Tower in 1929, he was at the apex of his career. Fate, however, and the Great Depression had other plans for him. When his company filed for bankruptcy, he learned his troubles were just beginning. At the lowest point in his life, Wilbur gained strength to turn his life around, and discovered by losing everything he thought was important, he was able to find himself.”
According to the Minnesota Historical Society, Foshay had a three-day grand opening celebration when his tower was completed, and then only two months later the stock market crashed. There’s not just one but two court trials, plus some jail time before Wilbur and his partner in business (crime?) are later freed by one president and later pardoned by another.
So it’s a rags to riches and back to rags story.
According to the More Information tab on their show page:
“For the 2026 season, we will be remounting Foshay! in a 60-minute Minnesota Fringe Festival format. The show will present 19 of the original 31 songs first featured in the 2023 World Premiere full-length production.”
If each of those songs is a minute long, that’s a third of the run time. If they’re each three minutes long, that IS the run time.
So expected a lot of music and singing and dancing.
They’ve told the story once before in its expanded version, so they’ve had some time to fine-tune it in front of audiences, and also they probably know best how to shave the whole thing down to fit in the Fringe.
The preview was pretty impressive. The two leads, or at least the central couple of Wilbur and Leota (Landon Hudson and Elisheva Scheuer), have big, professionally trained voices. Hudson in particular was belting his heart out, which is good, because the preview venue is also where they’re going to be performing and Rarig Thrust is a big space to fill with your voice. The song was clever and the lyrics were fun (not always true in a Fringe musical, so that was most welcome).
Your mileage may vary in terms of how much you relate to the protagonist being a guy who got rich buying up utility companies that other people still ran for him. But even in this one scene, it’s clear the musical is trying to get you to empathize with the guy, and he’s hardly the first problematic “hero” of a musical.
I do have to hand it to the folks of Trompe L’Oeil - they’re constantly pushing themselves to create new plays and musicals, often with a basis in historical fact, and get them up on their feet on stage for people to see whenever the Fringe lottery ping pong balls roll their way (with an uninterrupted streak between 2013 and 2019, and then again every year since 2024). They use the Fringe as the platform it was designed to be, an incubator for new works of theater.
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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