#mnfringe

[tomsteafor2]

Took Baphomet to see his first #mnfringe shows! They both happen to feature Reverend Matt's Monster Science

[twincitiesgeek]

Just published on TwinCitiesGeek.com: The Minnesota Fringe Festival Kicks Off 2024 with Beautiful Grief, Sinister Sci-Fi, and Masterful Improv Every August in Minneapolis, a wonderful thing happens as hundreds of artists and thousands of arts patrons converge to bring the Minnesota Fringe Festival to life. This performing arts festival, one of the largest in the upper Midwest, has been running for 30 years. Artists are selected at random… Continue Reading at TwinCitiesGeek.com Photo courtesy of Juliet & Juliet #mnfringe #mnfringe2024 #minnesotafringefestival

[wonderdave]

A bunch of hilarious nerds are coming to the Minnesota Fringe Festival Aug 9th 5:30pm and Aug 10th 2:30pm at the Crane Theater in Minneapolis!  Hope to see you there. Event page here. 

[rndyounghowze]

The Champagne Drops Take Us Back To The In-Between Years

Who knew that time travel was possible through the power of nostalgia and ukulele? Only on #mnfringe

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Minnesota Fringe

In their homes and front porches two singers decided to step into a musical time machine of their own making and go back to their teen years. Reading old journals, singing songs, and answering questions out of a hat Leslie Vincent and Emily Dussault bring us back to The In-Between Years.

We had just been coming off the high that was TV Tunes with Leslie Vincent so it was very cool to see one of her other partners in crime. Both are passionate and witty performers and not afraid to look a little silly. It was very interesting to see what their pasts would inspire them to create. It was endearing to see them be so generous and open with their pasts. All of this came together as the perfect cocktail of a night’s entertainment.

At first I thought it would be weird to deep dive into nostalgia right now but it was actually quite refreshing. Emily and Leslie were in middle school about the same time that I was (Dana was a bit older) and it was refreshing to hear them play the songs of my childhood. (Okay now that’s a phrase I never thought I would say). I’m also a big fan of ukulele covers being a huge advocate for the accessibility and versatility of the little instrument.

The digital venue seems perfect for an online cabaret or digital night. It’s a platform where things don’t have to always be linear and narrative and you can take advantage of pre recorded segments to do acts that would have been difficult to segue into in a physical environment. Dana and I come from two different ends when it comes to pre recorded segments. Dana is a movie person first theatre second so she tends to think there’s a fine line between pre recorded segments and a movie masquerading as a digital play. I’m of the mindset that as long as people performing live are controlling the clips we’ll never really get there. While I’ve seen several shows that illustrate their point I think this performance was a perfect example of my point. Leslie and Emily somewhat seamlessly shifted between videos and their own performances to better curate our experience. To me this was a perfect balance.

Emily and Leslie’s original music evoked a musical that I hope to see one day. There was wit and charm and angst but also hopes and dreams and youthful innocence. They each made me want to dig into old journals of my own or write a letter to my past self and hope someday he reads it. It made me wish that anything was possible again. Thanks so much to the Champagne drops for giving me that.

To learn more about the Champagne Drops go here. To go to the digital hub go here. To save the Fringe and buy a button then stab these words!

[tlhinganhom]

Seeing Waiting for Gygax like a good nerd at #MNFringe. (at Rarig Center)

[thepiercedone20]

Stopped by the Mn Fringe Festival office on my way back from breakfast and picked up this lovely little number!! Woo-hoo!! Now it feels even more official! @melodymendis as Barbra, @cranetheater @mnfringe opens on Friday at 10pm! Come support or first show, then late night drinks at @norseman_distillery #youbuyyourowndrinks #stillpoor #love #mnfringe #mnfringefestival #mnfringe2017 #mntheater #cabaret

[ti-en-t]

Fun shoot today with the cast of FUNKiN' Good Time! Watch for us in the 2017 MN Fringe Festival! More details coming soon! #ALLDAY #MNFUNKSTYLES #IamTienT #dancelife #MNDance #mnartists #MNFringe #Funkstyles4Life #FunkstylesNation

[tristanjmiller]

NEW SHOWS!

[21stcenturymen]

Bringing it to the REAL WORLD

Thank you all for your patience. A Man’s Guide has been on hiatus for some time as I get my ducks in a row. As I live in Minnesota, they’re technically grey ducks, and I have no idea how to handle that, so it’s been a bit of a quandary.

BUT! We’re jumping out into the real world. And by “we,” I mean me. In one of my other lives, I’m a theatre writer, performer, and producer, so live theatre is my most cultivated language.

As such, I’ve secured a slot in the Minnesota Fringe Festival that runs from August 1 - 11 of this year. Instead of writing a play, however, I’m going to host a discussion series. I know we talk about toxic masculinity a lot around here, and I want to give the men who read this blog a chance to hear how toxic masculinity manifests from experts in the gender zeitgeist.

There will be more to come (including new artwork!), but put these dates and topics on your calendars:

August 1 - 10:00: Street & workplace harassment August 3 - 5:30: Dating August 4 - 8:30: Gender, sexuality, & intersectionality August 10 - 7:00: Violence, incels, & managing expectations August 11 - 1:00: Producing theatre

I’ll ask the participants questions and have them speak from their expertise. At the end, there’ll be a brief period for questions, but the real focus here is on the guests, who will bring volumes of valuable knowledge right to your fingertips. I’ll then post reference materials and info based on those discussions.

Hope to see you there!

SIDE NOTE: I got married and took my wife’s name, so I’m now Scot Froelich if you’re a little confused. More info on my projects at scotfroelich.com.

[briancolumbus]

#mnfringe (at Northeast, Minneapolis)

[comedysuitcase]

A tweet

Amidst this uncertainty- we just got off the waitlist & into the 2020 @mnfringe https://t.co/YwBpHGQxtk pic.twitter.com/3iU0FTI6S0

— Comedy Suitcase (@comedysuitcase) March 19, 2020

[rndyounghowze]

The Universe Preserves: A Critical Analysis of Killjoy, Ohio

A show filmed in two separate houses illustrates a key principle of how our brain creates story at #mnfringe

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Minnesota Fringe

Queen City Flash is trying to show us the dramatic magic that can be created in your mind with just poetic language and minimal theatre techniques. Using narration and special tricks ingeniously created for the socially distanced stage they remind us that the real play is the one that happens on the backs of our eyelids. The true theatre isn’t the building or the lights or the sets it’s the artist creating an experience just for you even if you’re one in a hundred watching.

There are two ways that you can look at the zoom window. It can be said that whatever happens in the frame is the literal world. But that’s very limiting. I choose to see it as everything outside the frame is where the real magic is happening.

Imagine a magician doing a cups and balls act. Even though we “know” that the magician has really palmed the ball and put it in his pocket the minute it goes out of our sight our imagination says that ball is in the cup. Our brains sense the pattern and follow along with the story whether we like it or not. So when he picks up the cup and shows that the ball has disappeared we are a hundred percent amazed. Our brains worked with the magician to tell us that story.

Likewise our brains work with Trey and Jordan to tell this story. Somehow when Jordan takes a postcard and extends her hand out of frame and Trey brings his hand into the frame holding an identical postcard our brain “knows” that there are really just two identical postcards and that the two actors are really miles away in separate rooms. Trey even shows you this by filming himself walking into the closet and showing us what’s inside. But our imaginations write a different story. It writes a narrative for us that the two actors must only be a few feet from each other passing things back and forth. Your brain is a third collaborator with these two actors in their work making the play for them.

It’s technically what’s been going in our heads whenever we see good theatre. Our brain “knows” we’re in a theatre building but our imagination tells us when an actor walks out that door that he’s really going outside. Our brain tells us that there is an invisible fourth wall in between us and the actor. It’s always been working with our artists to make art with them. To tell you the truth great digital theatre is theatre that would work in just about any stage. However the digital platform shrinks the stage so that more and more of that magical “backstage” exists. So the most satisfying digital theatre is theatre that is twenty percent what we physically see and eighty percent what our imagination fills in for us. Our brains make the magic the platform just heightens it.

People have gotten a little bit testy about digital theatre and what it means going forward in the future. I can sympathize with them. Imagine making your living in the arts and now that space, that part of your life is now off limits. Imagine having whole seasons and plans that have been Bermuda Triangled away and a certain sect of people are now applauding a new form of theatre that you can’t take place in. It’s like you woke up asMarty McFly and Biff is in charge. You want to jump in your Delorean, go backwards in time, and fix it. But we can’t. We’re all going to be like the lost class of ‘96 for a long while. But there is a little bit of a path forward.

I would tell anyone mourning their disappeared seasons to watch this show. It’s practical stage craft applied to a new medium which relies on the power of the mind. This show exists both in this world and the one left behind. Just like a tree with a house inside you just have to squint your eyes to see it.

To see this show on the digital hub go here. To see more about Queen City Flash go here. To see the curse word laden version of this post then go to our Young-Howze Unfiltered Blog. To save the Fringe and buy a button then go here.

[matildazq]

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018

This always falls around the time of my BFF’s birthday, and we’ve been attending for at least 9 years. We think this might be the 10th anniversary of ever attending? We are old and have bad memories. Also we are old and blindsided by Beyoncé/Jay-Z concerts. Plus there is a lot of day drinking, but I am pretty sure it’s the “old” part that is playing with our timeline.  In many ways, the festival itself has gotten better and better each year we’ve been going. The move from button and punchcard to day passes and tokens has made queueing up a lot more efficient, and it COULD promote taking more chances on more things, except that the website has gotten steadily more terrible since the halcyon days of the Kitty rating system.  

In years past, we could look up our old reviews to refresh our memories about companies, writers, and performers we’d enjoyed. That went by the wayside a couple of years ago. This year, in addition to the site being INCREDIBLY slow and having a bad interface (the slider rating system, which defaults to “5,” which translates into 2.5 stars out of 5 is just . . . Inner Stage Manager will never be over how terrible that is), the ability to click on an actor/writer/performer’s name to see what else they were in disappeared and we had to recreate accounts from scratch. As a result, we stuck almost entirely to our known quantities and didn’t do a lot of exploring, which is a bit of a bummer. The slider rating system

We’re also mourning the loss of the encore performances in favor of the confusing new “Golden Lanyard “ awards. I assume there’s some kind of reasoning behind the elimination of the last-night encores (maybe all shows get an extra scheduled performance?), but on the surface, it seems like a loss. 

Anyway, here are the 10 plays we ere able to hit this year. 

We were shut out of one we really wanted to see, Not Fair, My Lady, which was not only sad because it meant we didn’t see something Shanan Custer was involved with (and we ALWAYS see ALL the things Shanan Custer is involved with), but they were also selling buttons to benefit the League of Professional Theatre Women, so I just tossed a donation their way. 

Our first play was one of my choices. I have unholy love for Winnie the Pooh: 

Company: Fearless Comedy Productions

Show: Deep in The 100 Acre Woods: A "Pooh"-dunnit?

Venue: Minnsky Theatre

Reviewed Aug 05, 2018

I gave this three stars

Side note: This was a new (to us, anyway) venue. Beautiful lobby. The space is a brick-walled, very deep black box theater. Quite flexible for performance, probably, but the acoustics are a challenge. 

Loving, twisted homage There’s a lot of obvious love here from the creators, and much of the cast is quite good. The play itself has a lot of lag in places, and not everyone has a feel for the rapid-fire noir dialogue. But the But the costumes are great, and the genre mash-up works surprisingly well.

Second up was this year’s iteration of something we always see, and it’s always a highlight. This year, I think, was the best we’ve seen. 

Company: Weggel-Reed Productions

Show: Couple Fight: The Musical!

Venue: Rarig Center Thrust

Reviewed Aug 05, 2018

This was, no brainer, 5 stars, though I had my first panic attack that I’d accidentally given it 2.5 stars. 

Although one should love all one’s theater bebes equally, we first saw Allison Witham in this, and OMG, Michael Rogers and Alex Van Loh.  I SO wish we’d had a chance to catch their other show https://www.minnesotafringe.org/2018-show-information/now-we-see-it

The Battle Over The Bulge. Couple fight is always a Fringe Highlight, but they’ve outdone themselves this year. The diversity of styles, fights, and couples keeps the show fresh and interesting from start to finish. ‘Rinth 4-Evah.

Third (I think) was a Shanan Custer show that was supposed to be a two-woman show. 

Company: Custer & Schmidt 

Show: Our Best Life

Venue: Rarig Center Thrust

Reviewed Aug 05, 2018

Four and a half stars for this one. 

Shanan’s partner in crime had to bow out very shortly before Fringe. Although I’m sure she had no desire to test the theory, this demonstrates that an hour of Shanan flies by. I also wonder if she even remembers her turn on @josephscrimshaw‘s Obsessed Podcast as Special Agent Nancy Anderson, or if our occasional references to it make her worry about stalkers. (Don’t NextDoor us, Shanan.) 

Special Agent Nancy Anderson’s one-woman show. I am always carrying a watermelon to any Shanan Custer show, so although a surprise solo show was surely a nightmare for her, it was a decided delight for me. Thanks for not making it weird when the four of us in the back row gasped with fannish glee at the big finish. I’d only heard about it from friends and never dreamed I’d live it!

Fourth (or maybe third), was a Special Request from the Menfolk. 

Company: Grand Island Theatre Show: Hamlet, but Hamlet's a Chicken Venue: Minnsky Theatre

Reviewed Aug 05, 2018

Four and a half stars for this. 

I can’t stress how good this was. It obviously could have been a one-joke Fringe nightmare that never advanced its original, absurd concept, but far from it, this is one of the smartest versions of Hamlet itself that I’ve ever seen. 

No fowl puns here. This is wonderfully done on a number of levels. The handful of experimental misses are more than made up for by excellent “straight” performances that let the absurdity speak for itself.

Fifth was another from our “must-see” stable, coming as it does from Ghoulish Delights. 

Company: Ghoulish Delights, LLC

Show: The Screaming Skull

Venue: Rarig Center Thrust

Reviewed Aug 06, 2018

Four stars for this. 

Very interesting to see Eric Webster crush it in a spooky dramatic role! 

Good spookening. The staging (sound effects and lighting) are great (though a downstage cover on the “fireplace” would have minimized its tendency to distract). Webster’s performance is excellent, though as others have commented, it might’ve needed a bit of trimming.

Sixth, another must-see for us. (I have these out of order now, but I’m too lazy to change—this one came AFTER Blood Nocturne and A Justice League of Their Own)

Company: Comedy Suitcase

Show: Slapdash Panic: Comedy Suitcase ended up in the Fringe Festival with 3 weeks notice and no show!

Venue: Strike Theater

Reviewed Aug 07, 2018

Four stars for this. 

What would Fringe be without Joshua English Scrimshaw giving Inner Stage Manager a heart attack? NOTHING, that’s what. 

Why do they hate inner stage manager? Patchwork, as promised, but they, of course, do a lot with a little. Enjoyed the creative recycling (that sounds Minnesota nice, but I mean it), and the peek behind the curtain of their process. The radio play was especially good (sorry/not sorry, Levi). Inner Stage Manager remains deeply skeptical of these two and their dangerous antics. 

Seventh—This was, I think, a rare “cold pick,” but boy howdy are we lucky we did pick it! 

Company: The Winding Sheet Outfit

Show: Blood Nocturne

Venue: Southern Theater

Reviewed Aug 07, 2018

Five stars. I needed more stars for this one. So. many. more. stars. 

The staging of this was just incredible, on top of the content being superb. I would see anything else from this company in a heartbeat. 

Masterfully done. This is a show that’s fantastic in the short format, yet still makes one wish to see it in long form. The performers were amazing, the writing was excellent (and beautifully paced), the mix of narrative, playing with narrative devices, and music was just perfect. A definite must see.

Eighth—again from the stable! Gotta see the Josh Carson stuff. 

Company: Mainly Me Productions

Show: A Justice League of Their Own

Venue: Theatre in the Round

Reviewed Aug 07, 2018

Four and a half stars. 

This show needed many Amens in addition to stars. AMEN. A treat to see Allison Witham here, too! 

Persist! The expected laugh riot from Josh Carson, though this one is a standout, with a concept that holds up well all the way through the end. The cast is great here, too. The only issue is the vocal challenges of Theater in the Round, especially with a joke-packed script and an enthusiastic audience.

Ninth—Old Timey Radio Drama with our favorites? Yes, please. 

Company: Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society

Show: The Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society Versus the Nazis

Venue: Rarig Center Thrust

Reviewed Aug 08, 2018

Four and a half stars. 

Nazi punching: Necessary and cathartic. 

My Bad Guy Has a First Name . . .Two deep-dive gems, executed deftly by an accomplished cast. I love these shows, as a rule, and I particularly liked these two Nazi-smashing pieces for our times. I especially appreciate the inclusion of contextualizing material, even in the short Fringe format.

Tenth—A content-based gamble. 

Company: FredPictures

Show: The Breakfast Club: The Musical!

Venue: Southern Theater

Reviewed Aug 08, 2018

Three stars here. 

This was an endeavor that just kind of flopped for us. I think I probably liked it best out of our group, but that was mostly based on its ambition, rather than its execution. 

Homage bleeding into imitation. There’s obviously a lot of love poured into this, and the cast does a great job of encapsulating their characters. However, this is rather stylistically off-putting. The piped in music just barely supports the singing (and again, the cast deserves a lot of credit for executing as well as they did); the highly repetitive lyrics get into almost baroque opera territory, making for a very odd combination. Although this advertises itself in the program and pre-show as “parody,” it��s more of an abridged version of the screenplay set to some questionable music. What’s enjoyable about it stems from the affection from both the adaptor and the cast.

[thepiercedone20]

From the Norseman Distillery from last night. Playing with lights, shadows, and reflection. Very cool space, and very good drinks! Love the chalk work from @impulse_creative - so cool. #mnfringe #fringe2017 #postshowdrinks (at Norseman Distillery)

[twincitiesgeek]

10 Shows to See at Minnesota Fringe 2017

#MNFringe 2017 is about halfway done, but you still have time to catch these great shows!

The three most important things I’ve learned (so far) in my first-ever year of attending the Minnesota Fringe Festival are: Schedule in time for food or bring snacks along with you. There is no way you will see all the shows you want to see. Most importantly, there is a tremendous amount of talent in the Twin Cities. I have had the pleasure, and in some cases the displeasure, to attend over a…

[ti-en-t]

ALL DAY is in this year's MN Fringe Festival! We are excited to bring Funkstyles to the MN performing arts stage! Mark your calendars and stay tuned for show details! 🙌👌❤ @alldaymn #ALLDAY #MNFunkstyles #MNDance #mnartists #MNFringe #fringe #MPLS #dancelife #streetdance #Funkstyles4Life #performingarts #dance