Juice Box Heroes at Fringe

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Kevin Burke presented Juice Box Heroes at Orlando Fringe. This straight forward show was about stay at home dads. He shared photos of his daughter and then baby photos of his son. He shared a photo of his son on a trip to the Grand Canyon and it was a shot of his son set against the grandeur of the view yet with his eyes averted to look at his cell phone. This photo sparked an Internet meme sensation and people photo shopped his son and various outlandish situations all the while lost in the digital haze of his phone.

When Kevin took his children to the playground the mothers on the sidelines wondered why this stay at home dad was spending time with his kids instead of mom. Kevin had a long history of working as a comedian and this show proved that he has the chops to keep an audience engaged and laughing while he laces his stories with sincere parenting stories.

His story of teaching his baby girl to ride a bike was heart wrenching when he was then years later teaching her to drive a car. He was basically teaching her to have independence and a life of her own. Kevin knows how to read a room and his interactions with audience members felt like the jovial exchanges one might have with relatives. This was a solid show with plenty of heart.

The Great and Powerful Tim: Who Dunnit? at Fringe

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The Great and Powerful Tim from Los Angeles presented Who Dunnit, a hilarious magic show gone wrong. I sketched a press preview and Tim Hoffman made it seem that there had been no rehearsals for this 1926 magic show in any form. At every turn the magic tricks went wrong. Tim had just flown in to Orlando and unloaded his bag of tricks moments before his press preview. On trick involved a locked box shown in the foreground of my sketch. The problem was that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at the airport decided they had to cut the lock on his lock box for security reasons. This was just one funny mistake among the many that followed. It was the random mistakes that caused the greatest laughs.

One lucky audience member was called on to the stage to act as a world famous magician who rivaled Tim’s scatter shot attempts at magic. The volunteer was coached to die on stage and Tim as a bumbling butler was tasked with saving the show. All the technical mishaps could not have been  rehearsed. I laughed out loud the entire show because Tim and the audience knew that if anything could go wrong it would. It was an absolutely side splitting hysterical performance. It had to be the funniest show I saw this year.

90 Lies a Minute at Fringe

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Paul Strickland an Orlando Fringe veteran brought 90 lies a Minute to this year’s Fringe Festival. From the title I thought this might be a one man play about the political lies of our POTUS. Instead this hilarious comedy featured stories from relatives in the deep south.

He presented in quick witted succession three stories inherited from Uncle False, plus a song. The first story was about a cranky old family car that seemed best fueled by an endless stream of cursing. Another story had the family home straddling two time zones which allowed for family to step back in time an hour when aunt Ima passed away. Another story was about a sunken city and a politician making false promises that citizens were easily duped into believing.  It was at this point that I felt he might be making an allegory about the sad state of affairs in politics today.

Paul the pulled the strings of the story together with a solo song with his acoustic guitar to back him up. All the laughter was followed by poignant reflections in song. The tall tails seemed like family stories that might be told after a large holiday meal. Ain’t True and Uncle False could be any one of our own relatives.

The War: an Immersive Radio Drama at Fringe

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Phoenix Tears Productions presentted The War: an Immersive Radio Drama. I witnesses The War from afar. The Fringe audience sat on the steps of the Rep Theater as a researcher from S.C.R.O.L.L. asked them questions and sent them on a mission to seek the truth about a group of rebels and terrorists who threatened the state. Since I was sketching, Pam Schwartz joined the researches to immerse herself in the drama. Audience members were each given head phones and they wandered behind the theater to learn more about the rebels. Mallory Sabetodos Vance was the lead researcher.

With my sketch done, I joined the audience when they returned to share their discoveries. What the audience discovered defied every premise and theory that the researches had considered basic truths. The rebels were not the angry and reckless terrorists that they had thought. The rebels wanted peace as much as anyone. We traveled back in time to witness the beginnings of the war.

A strange aspect of the show is that actors interacted with the audience but they were acting without talking, instead relying on pre-recorded audio. Everything that had triggered the war was a misunderstanding. People had died for no reason. Peace was still in reach if people could put aside their political bias and band together for the common good. The choice of this audience at the end resulted in a log war that resulted in many deaths but ultimately ended the war.

Fury and Sound: The Séance at Fringe

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Scott Browning and Nathan Felix presented Fury and Sound. The premise of  the show was that a group of friends (Esteban Vilchez, McKenzie Jo Frazer, Christopher Baker, Amanda Lane Decker) wandered to the edge of the Orlando Fringe Festival to communicate with the dead. The actors and audience met near the Rocket Thrower statue which is at the entrance of Loch Haven Park off of Princeton Avenue. I decided to sketch the musicians and vocalists who were n a grassy knoll near the Orlando Science Center. The technician at a folding picnic table was responsible to broadcast the live performance to headphones worn by each member of the audience. I was also given head phones so I heard the show while Pam joined the crowd to experience the seance first hand. I know a Ouija board came into play.

Actors and the audience moved from location to location. They ended up at an area with a circle of rocks which acted as benches. I saw them performing with small lights or the flash light feature of their phone, off in the distance. I heard the voices of the deaf whispering in my ears. The spirits were restless.

I however remained focused on a live performance of the chamber orchestra (Symphonic Underground, led by Daniel Cortes) and choir performing the score live on an adjacent lawn. The cello, several violins and a flute added a classical mysteriousness to the proceedings in which a young murdered woman’s soul is brought back from the dead. This was the first performance of the piece at Fringe and they director gave his tech a high five being relieved that the technology had actually worked.

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.