Our last day at Fringe.  This year, we really enjoyed the festival and hit our highest number of shows, 19, seen per a given season.  We were batting a 100% success rate for likeability of shows this year.  Unfortunately there were a couple of plays on our last day, that we just didn’t love.   One of the realizations that I have every year at Fringe, is the importance of an outlet of this nature in an entertainment town like Orlando.   So many of the artists we witnessed work at Disney or one of the many other vacation spots around Central Florida.   Bio after bio, you can read about the extensive experience of some of these performers, having appeared in one or many of the hundreds of acts around town.   It’s nice to watch them break away from the canned family oriented musicals, to something with real substance.

Edges

Excellent Adventure Productions, Orlando fl

This show was filled with Disney performers and the level of singing was certainly proof of that fact.  Edges is a musical about 20 somethings making their way through life’s challenges in the 21^st century.  Written at U. Michigan and brought to Orlando by director Doug White, the show explores “who I am and who do I want to become.”   There is no spoken dialog, instead every musical piece is chock full of expression, emotion and quite frankly, pure brilliance.    Mark, who is not partial to musicals, even loved it.     Winner of this year’s patron’s pick for the green venue.

Every one of the four performers brought an unbelievable level of talent and professionalism to this play.  We especially loved Ame for her dance numbers, voice and facial expressions as she delivered some of the more humorous moments.  The crowd roared with laughter at the “Be My Friend” number which was poking fun at Facebook, fake friends and the importance of your online persona.    Another great moment was the number, “Better” where Ame and Mike reflect how they turned out better than their school friends.   The song “In Short” cleverly tells Ame’s ex “I hope you die” in a bunch of really creative and hysterical ways.  The overall theme of the play is not missed, however as the songs all hint of the uncertainty and inadequacy one feels when transitioning from school life to work life in that difficult decade- the 20’s.

Luerne Herrera

Ame Livingston

Miachel Rodgers

Scott Sadler

Musical Numbers:

Become

Monticello

Be My Friend

Lying There

I Hmm You

Transition

Perfect

Better

Coasting

In Short

Transition

Dispensable

Transition

Ready to Be Loved

Like Breathing

The Mayor of Orange Ave.

Arfnotz Productions, Orlando Fl.

Presented by a team of artists from one of our favorite staples of Orlando, Theatre downtown.   Long missing from Fringe was a show sponsored by the this company.   Unfortunately, this play didn’t hit the mark.   It was a clever theme, the trials and tribulations of running a business on the famous Orange Ave. in Orlando.  Faced with unsavory land developers, an expanding healthcare industry and politicians clamoring to give the street a makeover, the days are numbered for the real Theatre Downtown.  This show can be seen as an homage to the artists and the people that call this street their home.

The play had a simple plot, Monika a local store owner is behind on rent, and landlord George is all too keen to continue to raise it hoping to cash out from the local hospital needing land for an expanding business. George systematically closes several shops on the street, only to find out the hospital can’t snap up the land due to untimely intervention from the local historical society.   Monika manages to eek her way on to the society board and has the last laugh. 

Michael Walters did an admirable job as Monika the store owner.  We loved seeing Jenn Gannon as Zephyr the shop worker.   We loved her performance in Theatre Downton’s Sylvia.  Another favorite was Daniel Cooksley whom just this year I wrote a rave review of his performance at Theatre Downtown’s Death of a Salesman.   We loved seeing some favorite O-town actors, however the play itself was very light and lacked lacked depth and impact.

Hooray for Speech Therapy

Written & Performed by Kurt Fitzpatrick

Learn about “The Flow”, “The Flutter”, “Amplitude Contouring” and “Stretch Syllables” and contemplate a life of pain as a stutterer.

Stand up act,  much like a speech, about the trials and tribulations of being a stutterer.  Per his bio, Kurt performs this stand-up act in Manhattan with improve and sketch groups.   Hilariously funny and very well performed.  Kurt has all of the sounds and body expressions that really kick this over the top.  I was laughing the entire time.  I also learned much about the many, often bogus, remedies for speech impediments.  Interestingly, stuttering, is suffered mostly by males.

Kurt’s advise, if you have something that you are ashamed or embarrassed about, write and perform a one-person show about it.  It will help.

Moliere Than Thou

Timothy Mooney

No need to be a lover of 17^th century verse to appreciate the brilliance that is Moliere.  Nor must you be schooled in classic comedy to laugh when Timothy Mooney epitomizes the very spirit of the funniest playwright in history.  The sheer and utter accomplishment of this work is indescribable.

According to his bio, Tim Mooney is a scholar of the bard Moliere.  He has adapted sixteen of his plays and expanded on  some of the rhyming verse to breathe life into some of the finest words in poetry.   Tim takes us on a ride of 5 Moliere characters, portraying each one as it was meant to be seen.  Full of life, drama, foolishness, foppery and frankly a lot of hot air.  What a way to experience the opuses, second only to actually seeing Mr. Mooney in an actual full length play by, oh I don’t know , let’s say hmmmm….The Orlando Shakes company???   Wouldn’t that be amazing, directed by and starring Mr. Mooney alongside some of our Orlando favorites.

Hodgepodge and Tidbits

Shot in the Dark, Orlando, Fl

Written by the Cast

Typical sketch comedy but not on par with it’s rival and venue competitor The Executives: Free Kittens.   Hodgepodge, had 5 young, talented performers with some cute skits, but all of them were light and for the most part silly.  The funniest skits were when the muscle man from La Nouba resorts to delivering pizza.  We also really liked the Bollywood finale where they imitated the credits dance from Slumdog.  Some other highlights: The Force, done in slow-time with objects flying across the stage, and 3D movie where the TV fish comes alive.   I also have to take a moment to recognize that the cast wrote all of their own material and many of them work at Disney as well, kudos to them on their efforts.

Cast: Travis Finlayson, Sarah Hanchar, Lisa Sleeper, Amanda Warren, Joel Warren.