How to Eat a Bear at Fringe

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Crafty McVillan from Orlando Florida presented How to Eat a Bear which was about two moronic friends that got  a craving to eat a bear. You can think of Dumb and Dumber the movie but make it a musical. As crazy as the concept sounds I was enjoying the silliness for much of the show. A bear wearing a red tie (Paul Ebert) acted as the narrator in he beginning of the show masking himself as a human. He tried to convince the audience that it would be a good idea to send him some humans since clearly he would not eat them since he was Hu-man himself.

Mark (Luke Balagia) and Dave (Mack Stine), a pair of college-dropout decided after playing an Oregon trail computer game, that it would be cool to catch and eat a bear. Their attempts always resulted in them getting hurt. An attempt to order bear meat at Publix failed resulting in a hunting expedition to the local zoo.

At one point the bear cornered one of the boys behind a rock and red streamers flew up as he attacked to represent blood. The simple low cost set pieces added to the comic feel of the show. In a hospital the boys tried to hit on the nurses (Danielle Burch, Brianna Barrett) but they missed the mark with every moronic attempt at trying to prove their manliness.

Some of the songs were quite clever and the singing performances were on key.  I had low expectations going in, but had some fun watching these guys fail at every turn. Perverseness laced with pain can be quite entertaining.

Wonders in Motion at Fringe

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2nd Sight Dance from Orlando presented Wonders in Motion which delivered new and innovative ways to combine dance with the art of Magic and illusion to entertain audiences. The company had one male dancer who seemed to be the lead choreographer along with 4 other female dancers. The show began with a red balloon which was on a string. When the string was cut the balloon magically did not rise.

In another routine the female dancers all dances and as they moved red lights turned on at the tips of their fingers. It wasn’t magic but it was magical to watch the red lights arch with the movement and then turn off when the dancers were still. Metal rings were held bu several dancers and they interlocked and broke free of one another as the dancers spiraled around each other.

A fun high energy number had the dancers dressed in hazmat suits as they performed an act of  clairvoyance as they guessed the number an audience member had picked. The music was Pure Energy by Information Society. It was a much needed fun interlude.

Another dance seemed to be a tribute to Pulse. A refrigerator sized box was rolled out that had gauzy curtains on all sides. It was lit from inside by a single bare bulb. As the female dancers danced the male dancer emerged from the box with the bare bulb casting giant shadows as he did so. Pam explained that it might have symbolized him coming out of the closet. The routine ended with large rainbow colored streamers and a dancer collapsing in grief.

Black Cow Jumps at Fringe

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Banks Helfrich founded Black Cow Jumps which uses theater as an exploration of reality through life. Banks was alone walking around the stage area after the Fringe recorded announcements were finished. The rest of the cast must have been sitting in the audience. For instance Banks started talking to a woman behind me and it sounded like they had recently been in a relationship. He brought her on stage and they started to talk. They had clearly not been destined to be together for long. Banks wasn’t ready to settle into a long term relationship. he was all over the map. She had met someone new and things were working out. It was hard to tell if this was fact or fiction the line was blurred.

Another woman described her pregnancy with twins and the pain in loosing one child at birth. She didn’t abandon that life which had never stepped foot on earth but she honored how much the child had meant to her. She honored the life that might have been. The other twin lived and she raised him with the memory of his lost sister. It was an incredibly heart wrenching story. Later her son asked her what traits would make for a good president. In describing those traits to him, she realized that she was describing her ability to negotiate and reason with people. She decided that her voice was needed and she decided to run for president. With so many Democratic candidates running right now she may well be in the running. She has my vote.

Another woman talked about how she grew up wanting to have children. That was her childhood dream and she met the man of her dreams and made that dream a reality. She raised her son but soon realized she wanted to feel the rush of new life inside her again. Her family was large enough so she decided to be a surrogate mother for another couple who could not have children themselves. What she didn’t plan on was a miscarriage which left her and the couple devastated.

One volunteer from the audience was brought on stage and Banks sat across from her and developed a friendship, and rules for their relationship. I had the deepest respect for the volunteer since she had no idea what the boundaries were for this new relationship as it developed. Reality and theater were closely entwined. Banks defined Black Cow Jumps simply as “Life Soup.”

Upcoming performances are:

June 22, 2019 @ 7pm Jack Kerouac House (free event, bring something edible to share.

September 14, 2019 @ 7:15 Winter Park Public Library (free event, wine and cheese – must RSVP)

November 9, 2019 @ 7:15 Winter Park Public Library (free event, wine and cheese – must RSVP)
December 7, 2019 @ 7:15 Winter Park Public Library (free event, wine and cheese – must RSVP)

The Origins of my Magic at Fringe

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Cody Clark who is from Louisville Kentucky had his second appearance at the Orlando International Fringe Festival this year. In this show he answered the question  of where his magic comes from. It consisted of traditional slight of hand tricks like knotting a rope and having the knot slip off of the rope.

Cody’s show isn’t all about the tricks. he is on the Autism spectrum and he described how his love on magic helps him in his very social choice of a career as a magician. This was a unique biographical magic show that showed how he saw things as a person with autism. Autism affects fine motor skills, so card tricks and
other sleight of hand can be hard for Clark. But having autism benefits his craft as well. He said his tendency to fixate on things,
whether it’s rehearsing or marketing, makes him very disciplined. He was loud and direct in his delivery and under that lies an undeniable enthusiasm and charm. Part of his earnings from the Fringe would go to an autism awareness organization. The rest he joked would go to his beer tent fund.

On his first trip to  the Orlando Fringe he stayed with Gail and Al Pergande‘s home. On that occasion the transmission on his car died out which could be an emergency for any performer on the road. It set him back $3500. He set up a Go Fund Me and bravely set that problem to the back  of his mind as he drew in crowds to his show. Gail and Al were in this audience and happy to be hosting him again.

One of his tricks consisted of making lemonade from a single lemon, a cup and a lemonade canister. I included those props in my sketch. Just like his lemon of a transmission, Cody accepted that when you get a lemon you make lemon aid. One lucky audience volunteer got to taste the results. We were all lucky to get to watch Cody’s enthusiasm. He knows how to find mentors and continues to grow as a magician and performer. He recently got to perform with one of his idols in Las Vegas. Sometimes dreams do come true if you acknowledge the difficulties but keep performing with plenty of faith.

Pack Animals at Fringe

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Scantily Glad Theatre from Victoria, BC, presented Pack Animals at this year’s Orlando Fringe. The premise it pretty straight forward. Two girl scouts get lost in the woods. One is a scout with plenty of merit badges (Holly Brinkman) who was confident she could navigate their way out with her trusty compass, while the other with just a few scattered badges had never camped in her life. The huge stage seemed cavernous for this intimate production.

When the inexperienced camper (S.E. Grummett) had to go to the bathroom she asked her fried for her guide book. She didn’t need the book to learn something new, but instead ripped out several pages to wipe. When done, she handed off the book and a trowel to a lucky audience member. The songs in the show were light-hearted, lyrical, and quite funny.

One guy in the front row of the audience kept interrupting the girls to let them know that they weren’t doing things right. After a few of these interruptions, it became clear that he was a plant. I think that during the run of the show they recruited various male Fringe artists to take on the role of the heckler. He became a focus for their searing and funny feminist sarcasm.

Puppetry was used to define the attributes of various forest creatures. The creatures all seemed to have the habits and attitudes of annoying guys. A much bigger forest creature, the bear, caused some chaos, but the campers survived. Overall this was a fun hour of wacky gay theater with just a dash of nudity.

The Flute on its Feet

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The Flute on its Feet was one of the more classically refined shows at this year’s Fringe Festival. Zara Lawler, a classically trained flutist, made her concerto debut with the Houston Symphony. Dancer C. Neil Parsons is a veteran of dozens of Fringe Productions, most recently Fruit Flies Like a Banana. Together they performed eight pieces. What was unique was that Zara on flute would often join Neil in the dance moves as she played.

The most unique performance came when Zara interacted with an orange steel square rack similar to a clothes rack in size and shape. She circled the rack and walked through it. Then she stood inside and maneuvered herself until she was standing on her head while still playing flute. Later, she lay on the floor and let the rack roll over her like a railroad car.

Neil’s dances were at times mechanical and at time graceful. It was modern dance with a quirky edge. There was audience interaction as the attendees were divided in half and one side began a round, followed by the other side repeating the lyrics. Think row row row your boat, only with more refined lyrics, “Music Alone Shall Live.“

Weekend Top 6 Picks for June 1 and 2, 2019

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Saturday June 1, 2019

8am to 1pm Free. Parramore Farmers Market. The east side of the Orlando City Stadium, across from City View. Purchase
quality, fresh and healthy food grown in your own neighborhood by local
farmers, including Fleet Farming, Growing Orlando, and other community
growers.

10am to 4pm Free. Sanford Farmers Market. First and Magnolia Sanford Fl.  

8pm to 10pm Free. Shuffleboard. Orlando’s Beardall Courts 800 Delaney Ave Orlando FL.

1st Saturday of each month. Free fun! 

  

Sunday June 2, 2019

10am to 4pm Free. Lake Eola Farmers Market. Lake Eola Park, Orlando, FL 32801.

Noon to 1pm Free. Yoga. Lake Eola near red gazibo.  


Noon to 3pm Donation based. Music at the Casa. Violinist Lisa Ferrigno. Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, 656 N Park Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789.

Hombre at Fringe

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Hombre was a contemporary dance show choreographed by Ana Cuellar. The show poster featured an anatomical drawing of a man’s musculature as he clutches his heart with beam of red light emanating outwards. The theater went dark and the first dance number had the entire cast on stage as they used their cell phones to light their way. Titled Monotony, the dance seemed to showcase the ways people are isolating themselves thanks to the distractions of the digital world. At times, the dancers literally could not  be seen. It was thrilling, but impossible to catch in a sketch.

Ana doesn’t usually dance in the shows she choreographs, but she did appear in the middle of this Fringe show. She danced with Brett DeBeaulieu in a daring routine that featured plenty of strength and acrobatics. I have a renewed respect for Ana’s abilities as a dancer after seeing her leap through the air and tumble over Brett’s shoulders.

Original music in the show was by Alejandro Padilla and sung by Bruno Sanger. There was a dance that acted as a tribute to Pulse. The common theme running through this show was love and finding one’s self. The final routine was set to music based on a poem by Lori Aach called Essence. The back scrim turned a bright red. Twice, a dancer in a bright red dress danced with vestiges of flamenco passion. The goal was poetry in motion, and the combination of the arts’ forms suspended the audience for a rare moment between a sense of wonder and hope.

Florida Man at Fringe

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I sketched a tech rehearsal for Florida Man. We all know about the Florida Man twitter feed where you can read the insane headlines that make Florida appear like a Looney Toons version of the Wild West. Such headlines include, “Florida man takes a bubble bath in Wendy’s kitchen sink and gets fired,” or “Florida man arrested and charged with assault with a deadly
weapon after throwing alligator
through a fast-food chain’s drive-thru window.”

This Fringe show allowed the  audience to pick one of three headlines that would affect the plot of the show. J. Scott Browning directed the cast. Florida Man’s (Adam Murray) abode was simply a small couch with milk crates functioning as side tables and a coffee table. Pizza boxes were littered everywhere. The basic premise of the show was that Florida Man lived with a curse, but he wanted to live a life separate from the headlines.

Florida hick standards abounded, like shopping at Walmart or dealing with an apathetic drive-thru hostess.  Of course being a tech rehearsal the show was disjointed with many pauses for blocking. It was clear however that the cast was having fun and the show was light-hearted fun. Two smarmy newscasters (Andy Gion, Trenell Mooring ) would announce the headlines with false saccharine sweet humor. It became clear that Florida Man had more heart than the headlines that defined his existence to the rest of the world. Florida man deserved to find Florida woman (Sharon Yost), and together they might carve out some form of a life beyond comical headlines.

My Left Tit at Fringe

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My Left Tit, written by Gwen Edward, is about two years in the lives of a cancer patient and her faithful mutt, Omie, from initial diagnosis, through experimental treatments, up until the final hours. Brandon Roberts played all the parts in this play about facing a horrible diagnosis and a pup’s faithful love and devotion given with boundless energy. Roberts shifted quickly back and forth between the heart felt monologue of the female owner and the endearing antics of her energetic pup. Lighting cues helped separate these quick mercurial jumps back and forth.

The pup dreamed of chasing fireworks that exploded in the sky. Like Wile E. Coyote in  the roadrunner cartoons, he ordered packages that would arrive at the doorstep. Any time the doorbell rang he would bark wildly and bound down the aisles of the theater. He constantly bragged that his front paws were like lion’s paws. His energy and enthusiasm were a stark contrast to the female owner’s heartfelt reflections on life and her gallow’s humor in the face of death.

Only days before seeing the show, my pup had cornered a baby possum, which she then chomped on and dragged to the center of the back yard. She dropped it on a dead patch of lawn and the possum lay still as death. I grabbed her leash before she bit it again and dragged the pup inside. I returned to the baby possum to see it lying lifeless, but breathing. I ran inside to call animal services and as I did, I saw the possum get up and walk calmly away into the bushes. I  forgot that possums play dead as a survival mechanism. For this reason, I identified with the stuffed possum that was strewn on the stage.

For any dog owner who understands the endless support and devotion of an energetic pup, this was a heartfelt show with humor to balance out the harsh reality we all must face someday.