Sub-Total
2024 Audience Reviews
Member Reviews
The following reviews were submitted by Fringe Member: Samantha King
Company: Kari Heistad
Show: Playing Dead
Venue: Mixed Blood Theatre
A Good Time!
“Playing Dead” has a clever concept that makes space to explore some complicated and difficult family dynamics. I do think it would be better served without Fringe time constraints, to allow the discomforts to linger, but all things considered well done! It still landed on beats that will hit you in the heart strings, allowed each character to have a full arc, and certainly gave plenty of laughs as well. I in particular want to shout out Laura Carlson as Katja for the high energy she brought to each “role” she took on.
Company: Transatlantic Love Affair
Show: 5 x 5
Venue: Open Eye Theatre
It get a a 5x5 Kitties from Me!
Forget the Olympics, this team deserves a gold medal. The use of physicality and clowning is absolutely immaculate. Though primarily comical abridged retellings of well known stories, this production also showed a more profound softness that can be accomplished through physical theatre as well. This is the type of experience you *only* get through theatre. They deserved to sell out. Also, I have no idea how they had the energy to be dinosaurs at 9pm, let alone do that well, but they did and I am incredibly impressed by just stamina alone.
Company: Funk Haus Theater
Show: Interstella 5555: A Daft Punk Discovery
Venue: Barbara Barker Center for Dance
Daft Punk for Life
I will open by saying you do not need any connection or knowledge of the source material to have a good time. It’s a fun dance show telling a story to some bopping music. However, I had an extra good time as someone who was completely fixated on this movie for a time in high school (and thusly Daft Punk’s Discovery as well). It is certainly niche and not something I’d ever remotely expect to see a fringe show of, but once I saw it advertised I thought “well, where else could I see this BUT a fringe festival”. The way it translated to a full dance show was excellent and from an adaptation perspective smartly done. Additionally, the choreography created some really great visual story telling with some strong physical acting from several performers. Definitely worth your time. Thank you Shayla Courteau for making this happen and making my little Daft Punk heart happy.
Company: WonderJ Studio
Show: Janelle Did You Know You Talk Really Fast?
Venue: Barbara Barker Center for Dance
Pop Culture with Pride
The whole time I was enamored with Janelle’s unabashed confidence and energy sharing the things she loves. As someone whose life has also been inextricably tied to and shaped by pop culture, I could connect to a lot of this. Unlike Janelle, my anxiety has led to a lot of diluting and hiding of my interests over time so it was genuinely inspiring to see someone so openly love pop culture and motivate the audience to do so without shame. It’s hard to speak how someone with less ties to pop culture might experience this, but I at the very least think one would leave with a greater sense of appreciation for those who do. An extra push for anyone to see that also fell through the High School Musical to Kpop Stan pipeline. I had a great time!
Company: Theatre On The Rocks
Show: A Horse Walks Out Onto the Stage and Dies
Venue: Phoenix Theater
True Fringe Spirit (Y’know, like the horse)
Balancing cheeky humor with existentialism and poignant life observation is not an easy task, but Sam Sweere pulls it off. Even moreso he pulls it off while wearing a cheesy horse costume. This sort of raw honesty, meta humor and audience interactivity are the special kinds of experiences that remind me why we have fringe and make me so grateful it exists. The house was almost if not completely full and this team fully deserved it!
Company: Pretend Productions
Show: Daddy Issues
Venue: Phoenix Theater
This is Why We Have Fringe
One woman shows are hard to pull off. One woman shows about your personal life are really hard to pull off. You have to be engaging enough for the audience of strangers to be invested, be inventive enough to craft and condense your life into a cohesive narrative, and talented enough to be believable within the confines of a theatrical space. Luckily here Allison Vincent excels in all three of those things. The balance between humor , insight, and raw emotion is the perfect blend. The structure shifts enough to keep your attention and never lingers too long on any one thing. I was truly moved as it had me facing my own complicated feelings towards love and loss of family. GO! SEE! THIS! Also, the set being primarily made of cardboard boxes and she literally unpacks her feelings- brilliant.