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By: Ben Kharakh »
August 8, 2006
NY Fringe Festival Highlights
The New York International Fringe Festival is quickly approaching. It starts Friday, August 11th and runs through the 27th. Tickets to individual shows are $15, but ticket packages can bring down the cost. We've skimmed through the sprawling program and picked out the comedic best bets.
Free to Be Friends
Betty & Joan are back and freer than ever! "In the tradition of progressive 1970’s children’s classics like Free To Be You And Me and The Magic Garden, friendly feminists Betty and Joan are here to teach some lessons and sing some songs about pancakes, owls, Vietnam, and lesbianism." Starring Betty Maddox (Sue Galloway); Joan Stein (Julie Klausner) FreetoBeFriends.com
58! A Comedy About Bike Messengeressering
"Direct from Second City’s Unhinged Series and Chicago's Annoyance Theatre, we follow [a guy named] Tony’s real-life bike messengering experiences as he dodges security guards, street weirdos and the normal life." ALSO: The beatboxer known as Shockwave has put together a show featuring an improv set by performers from the play. Tickets to that are here.
Sax & Dixon: This Plane is Definitely Crashing
Bonus points for incorporating a Modest Mouse lyric into their title. "Two actors give life to over twenty colorful passengers of a doomed trans-atlantic flight. In a structure heavily influenced by long-form improv, wildly different relationships and plot-lines interweave and collide in this complex and ultimetely uplifting show."
Piggy 1.5
Sketch and experimental theater from Philadelphia. "Obsessive-Compulsive Star Wars puppets, balding men on a rampage, scantily clad burn victims and a big fuzzy pink mascot for misogyny take the stage for PIGGY 1.5, Philadelphia’s darkest multimedia sketch comedy" Piggy on MySpace
Puppet Government
This show might be a bit more for the NPR set, but the puppets look amusing. "See appliance puppets sing, dance, start wars, and behave very badly."
Puppet of Condaleeza Rice
Vote McOwsky!
Starring Jeremiah Murphy, featuring others in the Manhattan Comedy Collective. "Are you tired of the same old New Jersey. The 2009 governor's race is mere fleeting moments away. Come out and support the future Governor of New Jersey. He's like Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and George Pataki rolled into mean governor machine. Eddie McOwskey, "The Other Governator."
The Goods Are Odd
Directed by UCBT's Mo Fathelbab. "Love is hard to find in Alaska, where bears outnumber people and men outnumber women. In this comedy meet local Alaskan inhabitants, played by two ebullient New Yorkers, as they search for love in the land of the midnight sun." Official website.
Don't Spit the Water
"DSTW is Chicago’s crazy live game show, hosted by international comedy sensations Sasha and The Noob. Contestants pulled from the audience take on our comedians in three rounds of explosive competition." The Bastion talked to DSTW
Meanwhile, At that OTHER Fringe Festival...
Stone & Stone Soothe Anti-American Sentiments
Andrew J. Lederer Misses His Train to Edinburgh But Lives to Blog About It
Posted by The Apiary at August 8, 2006 3:13 PM
Comments
I'm disappointed that you didn't include Neon Mirage in your Fringe reviews. I saw it twice when this same troupe performed it at Actors Theatre of Louisville's festival in March. It's intense, funny, thought-provoking, and not to be missed.
jc
Posted by: John Carpenter at August 13, 2006 10:35 AM