Scum: A Manifesto at Fringe

Scantily Glad Theatre from Saskatchewan Canada presented, Scum: A Manifesto which is a two woman show that takes a look inside the mind of Valerie Solanas, the mother of radical feminism and the woman who shot Andy Warhol. The premise is simple, Men are Scum who should be eliminated from the earth. Being male, I suppose I agree. Since these woman turned from men they needed to turn to each other for physical intimacy. They never quite pulled it off.

The Andy Warhol connection was visualized by a projection of Marylin Monroe‘s silkscreen print on the back wall of the theater. I imagine the corn Flakes boxes were synonymous with Warhol’s use of common day commercial items in his art. He was better known for soup cans one which did appear on a t-shirt. There were lots of on stage costume changes. One woman had street smarts and Valerie’s accent but she was sure any creative idea she had would be stolen. The other woman was a true radical wanting to kill all men. They were cut from the same bolt of cloth. Scenes revolved around everyday event like brushing their teeth and getting dressed. A bottle of booze was handed out to a woman in the audience and she ultimately finished it off by the end of the show.

I didn’t quite know what to make of the show since “my kind” being male and an artist, was under attack. There were a few funny moments and I laughed uncomfortably since I might be finished off at any moment.

Title and Deed at Fringe

Kangagirl Productions in association with Susan Turner presented Title and Deed written by Will Eno and performed by David Lee. The one man show is a dry witty meditation on life. The character questions everything. What is his roll in life, does he belong? He begins by stating that “I am not from here.” He addressed the audience intimately yet was clearly set apart perhaps a foreigner. As an artist , being apart is needed for perspective, an outsider looking in. Perhaps that is his role but he also seems mundane and everyday.

The set consisted of two empty book cases and a backpack with a stick in it. I thought the stick might be a divining rod, but he used it to strike his leg multiple times to prove to himself that he had feelings. His was an existential dilemma which he shared with reckless abandon. David’s delivery was dry and monotone, at times getting a laugh from the audience. We all question our place in the world and this show was an open forum for those concerns. He points out the things in our everyday life that are difficult for an outsider. What is most important? Family, Career? What do we miss? How do we truly feel at home? Our society which runs at a mad efficiency might be missing a few things when viewed from a different perspective.

Another Year Passes at the Orange County Regional History Center

I sketched the final day of the exhibit install for,
Another Year Passes: Orlando After the Pulse Nightclub Massacre
. The Exhibit will be on display from June 2, 2018 through October 14, 2018. Last year’s exhibit honoring the victims of the
Pulse Nightclub shooting was only up for one week because a
wedding was booked in the exhibit hall. This year the exhibit will be up
for four months in a different space.

I was on hand to sketch the install of a huge piece of art created by Jeff Sonksen of

Paint the Trail
fame. He paints
on wooden fencing and has created a long stretch of art along the biking
trail in Longwood, Florida. After the Pulse Nightclub massacre he
painted 49 portraits of the victims of the shooting.
The portraits surround a large fence panel that has the Orlando skyline
along with several tourist attractions in silhouette. The museum staff
had to remove the heavy and cumbersome wooden supports he used when he
left the panels freestanding at the Dr. Phillips
memorial in 2016. They devised a method of disassembling the panels so
it could be brought into the museum and installed for the exhibit that
is opening just two years after the fateful shooting on June 12, 2016.

Assembling and hanging the piece was a herculean task. The staff looked like the soldiers who raised the flag at

Iwo Jima
in the famous WWII
photo and sculpture. The sign, along with a set of 49 beautiful
hand-painted tiles, however will not be present for a few days to the
public and will have to be taken down intermittently throughout
the exhibition to allow for weddings happening in the same space. If
isn’t up when you come, I recommend you come back another time to see
them. 

I walked through the exhibit and it is incredible, with so much
information about how this community continues to try and heal after the
tragedy. It wraps around the second floor hall bringing the walls close
for an intimate view. Over 1,800 images of quilts
from the Orlando Modern Quilt Guild were miniaturized and then
exhibited en mass together on one wall. The shear volume of colorful
quilts is staggering. A few of my sketches from oral histories are
scattered throughout the exhibit.


The museum staff have to be commended for again crafting an incredible exhibition.
The Orange County Regional History Center has received five significant national awards from the
American Alliance of Museums,
the American Association for State and Local History, and
the Southeastern Museum Conference for their work on the One Orlando
Collection in the last two years related to the impact and legacy of the
mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016. It is hard to
see their hard work needing to be compromised
against a funding initiative. It would be a great day when the museum
was well enough funded by the community so it no longer needed
income from weddings.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for June 2 and 3, 2018

Saturday June 2, 2018

11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Beefy King 50th Anniversary. 424 N Bumby Ave, Orlando, FL 32803. I have heard there are some amazing deals at this Orlando iconic restaurant to celebrate 50 years in business.



5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Free. Virginia (Dr) is for Lovers of art, music, food & drink! Virginia Drive, Virginia Dr, Orlando, FL. Stroll Virginia Drive while enjoying local artists and vendors! Stop in
your favorite shops! Musicians Texas Outlaw – Jerry J and John Jude will
be located next to IBEW Local 606 along with SwedeDISH Food Truck,
Voodoo Kitchen Food Truck and Flapjacks Original. Frankie Messina will
be spinning your favorite songs at The Barefoot Spa Wine & Beer
garden! Come on out on Saturday, June 2 and support our small
businesses!

 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Free. Shuffleboard. Orlando’s Beardall Courts 800 Delaney Ave Orlando FL. 1st Saturday of each month. Free fun! https://www.facebook.com/OrlandoShuffle?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite

Sunday June 3, 2018

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. Lake Eola Farmers Market. South East Corner of Lake Eola Park.

Noon to 1 p.m. Donation based. Yoga. Lake Eola Park near Red Gazebo. Bring your own mat.

Noon to 3 p.m. Donation based. Music at the Casa. Guitarists Troy Gifford and Chris Belt. Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, 656 N Park Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. Members of the public are invited to visit our historic home museum on a
Sunday afternoon from 12 to 3 pm, listen to live music and take a tour
of our historic home museum and the James Gamble Rogers II Studio by
trained docents.

Wanzie’s Monorail Inferno at Fringe

Wanzie’s Monorail Inferno opened with a fabulous opening number. The theater was dark, and the actors on stage held flashlights that created a menacing effect. I was excited, it looked like we were in for an amazing ride. Unfortunately that high energy suddenly died when the first act got under way.

A bored transgender Disney hostess guided wide eyed tourists around the stage. On the monorail any impending doom was masked by the mundane. The monorail got stuck on it’s tracks leading to a forced purgatory for everyone on board and the audience. A teen wore a red bow worthy of Minnie Mouse and her boyfriend just seemed to be along for the ride. a thin rail of a woman was a choreographer who was stuck doing choreography for theme park shows. A southern bell sat next to a southern hick. A small girl got into a screaming fit and was bound and gagged by the passengers. Each person on the monorail seemed like a caricature, rather than someone with a personal history worth learning.

The southern hick had issues with the Disney Hostess but thankfully they were separated by the line of seated passengers. There was some resolution as they both told aspects of their past that showed that they both suffered and suffering is a game that needn’t be won. After a long wait, passengers were finally allowed to disembark and the hick was the first to leave. He left behind a package which I thought was a staging mistake, but it was the cause of the inferno to follow. The show is a musical but several numbers could clearly be cut without
slowing down the plot. The worst is when a passenger breaks into song
for no apparent reason. The final number had the entire cast dressed in white singing and dancing in heaven, finally finding the happiness they never found in life. I suppose the story was intended as a morality tale but I was confused.

Jack Kerouac: End of the Road at the Fringe

Southern Winds Theatre, from Orlando, Florida presented Jack Kerouac: End of the Road at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. In July of 1969, three months before he died, Jack Kerouac, the father of the “beat movement,” appeared on William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line.” In a tirade of booze inspired talk, he shared stories about his insane, yet creatively inspired travels on the road.

The play is staged in the waiting room before Jack goes on the air. There he drinks and reminisces about his life, family and friends. He is labeled as a “Beat” which is similar to many with “Hippies” as they became known in the 1960s. His views however are rather conservative and Republican. He himself viewed hippies as degenerates. As he sips alcohol his speech slurs and hiss views become blunt.

I have done many sketches of resident authors who write at
the Kerouac House here in Orlando. The Dharma Bums was written right
here in a tiny Orlando house which Jack shared with his mom. When On
The Road
became a best seller, Jack needed to borrow bus money to go up
to NYC to talk to his publisher.With such strong Orlando connections, how could I not want to learn more about his life?

He only wanted to go on the TV program to recite some of his poems, but Buckley wanted instead to get his views about the Beats. In the rare moments Kerouac does wax poetic, a sax player appears out of nowhere to perform an accompaniment to his angst. It would be nice if the history of his life flowed as if in a Benzedrine induced haze, but the writing seemed forced as if for a historic made for TV movie. Perhaps I was just put off by having to see a young vibrant man wasting away needlessly on stage. Jack died an alcoholic. We will never know what was left unwritten.

In Tandem at Fringe

What would you give for an escape, freedom, or for complete liberty? In Tandem is inspired by the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. The Explore Composite from Orlando Florida examines the complexities of humanity and how we came to develop the relationships we have today. What bonds us? What drives us apart? How far would we go to protect the ones we love?

These ideas were explored through modern dance. In he beginning of the show, as the audience filtered into the theater. A sheet of paper was scrolled open on the floor and dancers would lie down and have their outline traced on the sheet. Each dancer in turn had their outline added to the sheet and at the end of the show the sheet was taken out and taped to the back wall of the theater. The markers unfortunately weren’t very wide, so I couldn’t see the lines added to the sheet.

 For me it was a challenging hour of trying to catch changing gestures in the ever changing flow of dance. Being a small theater, the dancers had to work in a tight area. I like that the dance company has dancers off all shapes and sizes. It wasn’t just a company of very thin dancers, which makes it more believable to present concepts that explore big concepts that affect us all. Not everything rang true for me. But as an artist, I always appreciate a chance to sketch dance.

Ruminations at Fringe

Presented by the BAAD Project, Ruminations, like the name suggests, is inspired by the ruminations of Alan Wilson Watts. When was the last time you really took the time to stop? Stop thinking, stop doing, just listen. So often we are caught up in the whirlwind of life, always moving from one thing to the next we rarely take the time to settle in, quiet our mind, and observe. Utilizing explosive movement and captivating partnering, we delve into our relationships with each other and with nature; we explore what it means to really be present.

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best
known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a
Western audience. Interpreting this philosophy in dance offered some fluid modern dance. Dancers reached for the intangible as the philosopher expressed his views of the world. I cant claim to understand all of what was expressed but that might be the point.

I was pleased to see dancer Jesse Sander who has performed as Yellow at DRIP for years. DRIP just recently had its final performance after 10 years. So it was good to see the talent fostered there still influencing the arts scene here in Orlando. Orlando has a strong dance community and it always shines at Fringe.

Sh*t: An Unauthorized Musical Parody of It at Fringe

Sh*t hits the fan when a shape-shifting evil disguised as a maniacal dancing clown feeds on the youth of Dairy, Maine. When a group of kids discover its true identity, they must destroy it, before it devours them all. From the creators and creative team of last year’s award-winning musical “ThanksKilling The Musical,” this promises to be just as absurd and equally tasteless.

 The play added back in an orgy among the kids that was left out of the movies made from Stephen King’s book “It.” The results were hilarious as the young boys reach climax and squirt silly string into the audience in an endless stream. A prime directive of the show is that it stretches and alters the reality set up by the author. Carrie kept making cameo appearances although she is from another of Stephen King‘s books. She looked magnificent in her crown and bloody dress. Gushing oozing splashing blood is a subtle metaphor for a woman coming of age.

Irreverent and often unexpected the songs added a comical bent to the show. The clown Pennywise had a large penis painted red on his white washed face. The show was a fun romp with singing dancing and plenty of silly string.

Sh*t: An Unauthorized Musical Parody of It is in the Orange Venue in the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, 812 E Rollins St, Orlando, FL 32803. Tickets are $12 plus a $10 Fringe button needed to get into any Fringe Show. 18 and up – Strong Language, Mature Themes, Violence.

Pianos to the Death Game Show at Fringe

Pianos to the Death Game Show is the deadliest, rocking game show, where three musicians play their way to survival, and the best part – the judges are you, the live studio audience! Join our Host and his sexy assistants on stage, as you help choose the music, get in on the action, and even pick a demise or two! All in this blood pumping spectator game, where you decide who drops the beat, or just drops dead. Isn’t it time for you to be in control?

Producer, Sarah Hester Ross, from Orlando, FL was one of the contestants. She had fiery red hair, an amazing voice and some real talent behind the keyboard. When we entered the black box theater, two fit trim and silver clad performers worked the crowd up into a frenzy. Since we were a studio audience, we had to bring the energy up like in professional wrestling. There were two pianists competing and a drummer, who acted as judge. I didn’t fully understand the rules. Contestants kept changing seats, so I never did sketch the male drummer. 

The competition was  fierce and the energy high. Midway through the competition two people were pulled from the audience to dance suggestively. Bikini Katie was  one of the people pulled from the audience and she shocked us all with her stellar twerking abilities. Two guys were pulled from the audience to dance suggestively in front of a woman and their performances were lackluster in comparison. Regardless the results were hilarious and fun to watch.

The ending of the show in which performers were electrocuted for loosing was hard to swallow. Perhaps it is too soon after Pulse, but the thought of finding gratuitous violence funny or entertaining left me uncomfortable. Pam suggested that a pie in the face would be more satisfying. Despite this, the show was highly entertaining and there was some real powerhouse talent showcased. I give the show 4 out of 5 pianos.

Pianos to the Death Game Show is in the Green Venue at the Orlando Reertory Theater, 1001 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL. Tickets are $12 plus a $10 Fringe button needed to get into any Fringe show.

Remaining  show dates are:

5:00 PM