2023 Audience Reviews

Company: Marie Cooney Stories
Show: JONAH & JOANNA... And the Great Big Fish
Venue: Mixed Blood Theatre

Marie Cooney's use of formats helpful

The flexibility in the formats that Marie uses have had as much of an influence on my own productions as any other work I've seen at the Fringe Festival. Marie's show at the 2023 Fest was relatively constant from one performance to another, but she's taken chances in the past in which the content changes significantly from one performance to another, which I find to be liberating. After learning that Marie used such a format, I made use of that more flexible approach in my own Fringe productions. Look forward to seeing how Marie adapts her storytelling from one project to another and what I can learn from her approach.

Company: John Orenstein
Show: Extreme Roadshow
Venue: Phoenix Theater

This is a fully formed musical.

This is a fully formed musical, which I mention because it's not clear until you see the production that it has all the elements of a larger work. Because of the rapid turnover required for Fringe shows, it's often tricky to get all the working parts of a musical to fit together, but this has choreography, ensemble singing as well as solo pieces. There's even projection art, which is necessitated by the reasonable requirement that no Fringe show can have actual fires on stage. Since fire plays a crucial role in the plot, a virtual depiction of it is critical. The "Cast and Crew" section doesn't give you the full scale of the musical backing, but there is actually a three piece ensemble for this production, including a banjo, which is needed for one tune. Audience was at about 80% capacity on Wednesday's show so if you're interested in seeing it, I'd recommend getting a ticket soon. One show remaining.