So many shows, and SO LITTLE TIME! Already, I’m wishing I’d been organized enough to write about all the amazing shows I’ve seen this festival so far, but the least I can do is highlight five more standouts today. You can reference my first post here for an explanation of my emoji ratings, and I’m hoping to weigh in again tomorrow with thoughts on a few more!
P. Sparkles Pajama Party
Fringe favorite P. Sparkles, who you might remember as the host of this year’s Local/International Teaser show, is in residence at the Ren this year, and he’s ready to PARTY! For the most part, this show actually does feel more like a party than a play— which was a refreshing vibe when I caught the show 20 or so plays into previews. With help from a cast of fellow improvisers from SAK Comedy lab, Sparkles regales the audience with light-hearted banter as he leads us in party games like I never and truth or dare, using our experiences as fuel for witty wisecracks and raunchy jokes.
More adventurous party guests might also have the chance to jump on stage and participate in bits like an impromptu fashion show. These interactive segments were all a ton of fun, and more engaging than the smaller portion of the show featuring more presentational improv games.
If you needed an additional incentive to check out this show, audience members over 21 can come in their pajamas and receive a free shot, an offer I took advantage of when I attended. In doing so, I discovered an additional perk in the excuse to stroll around the lawn in pajamas for the rest of the night, something that absolutely nobody even batted an eye at. That’s Fringe for you, I guess!
Playing tonight @ 11 pm at the Renaisance Theatre Company
Future showtimes and tickets here!
Emojis earned: 🎈😄
Dreamwalker
Here we have another show that offers a fascinating break from the Fringe status quo, to the extent that there could even be said to be such a thing. Audience members can sit in their usual seats, or they can accept the show’s invitation to sit onstage and participate in a show-long drum circle as the cast sings and dances against a backdrop of projected trippy technicolor fantastical visuals.
There’s not a particularly cohesive storyline to be perceived in the music and visuals, but themes of peace, love, and unity do come through. Geared to be accessible to audience members of all ages, this show is stunning at first but eventually gets a bit tedious as the gimmick of its premise wears off. I imagine this might have been even more true for audience members sitting offstage, but I had a lot of fun drumming about in one of the side-stage xylophone seats!
Playing tonight @ 9:30 pm in the Green Venue
Future showtimes and tickets here!
Emojis earned: 🎈🤩🍃 (or, tbh…. maybe 🍃 🍃 🍃 🍃 )
Far Too Heavy
In this one woman show, Fringe veteran Melanie Bailey has a lot to unpack, both literally and figuratively. As she begins the show, she’s picking up the pieces after an unfortunate set of circumstances forced her to move five times in only a few years. Her chaotic life story is quite compelling and her storytelling style immediately engaging. But audience members should also be prepared for some a little mood whiplash as Bailey moves from jovially bantering with us during inventive participatory segments into some very heavy stuff. If you think you can handle hearing about sexual abuse, shattering loss, and a shitload of other trauma, you’ll be rewarded with some unexpectedly hilarious gallows humor and the chance to share in Bailey’s hard-won triumphs. Are there places where her material could be tightened? Probably, but the show mostly succeeds as a creative experiment and definitely shines on a human level as a testament to her strength.
Playing tonight @ 7:10 pm in the Brown venue
Tickets and future showtimes here!
Emojis earned: 💞💙
Four Dinners
This is a show I wanted to make a point of writing about because I fear it might be overshadowed by flashier Fringe offerings, but its one of the ones I enjoyed watching most during the first few days of previews. This slice-of-life comedy tells the story of a love quadrangle the develops between four young queer women, and it does so in a way that’s charming, earnest, and consistently entertaining. The script is quite well-written in an understated way in the fact that the characters’ dynamics naturally evolve in a way that feels believable and surprising rather than forced or melodramatic, and there are a few absolute zingers of jokes peppered throughout the dialogue. A great choice if you want to relax into a relatively undemanding watch that still has real stakes and real payoff!
Playing tonight @ 10:30 pm in the Scarlet venue
Tickets and future showtimes here!
Emojis earned: 💙💫🎭
My Life As An “Inspirational” Porn Star
This is one of the shows that affected me the most deeply so far and probably the one that I’m going to be the least objective about. That’s because the subject matter of this show, solo performer Gabrielle Leonore’s experiences struggles to define herself and assimilate as an autistic woman in a neurotypical world, is something I’m personally familiar with, as anyone who happened to catch my overambitious wreck of a fringe show last year might recall.
Leonore draws in her audience right away by framing her story as a literalization of the concept of “inspiration porn” – the idea that people with disabilities are often objectified as “inspirational” by people without in a way that minimizes their actual lived experience for the sake of a convenient soundbyte.
In her one-hour show, Leonore covers a lot of the same conceptual ground as I tried to with a lot more polish, poise and precision – for example, the constant pressure to “pretend” to be normal and the humiliating heartbreaks that ensue when these efforts to earn acceptance fail as the mask inevitably drops. Then there’s the resorting to substances as a crutch for dealing with anxiety and exclusion, and the pain of being condescendingly recognized for how much you’ve achieved only in “spite” of autism rather than being allowed to define yourself on your own terms.
Over the course of her show, we eventually see that her self-presentation as “sexy” or “hot-tistic”, a term Leonore playfully coins, is less attention-seeking than survival strategy. But even if you just come to the show for its steamy title, you’ll still have plenty to appreciate in Leonore’s skintight outfit and steamier anecdotes as she describes her awakening as a bisexual woman.
I’d definitely recommend this show to any other “hot-tistic” neurodivergent fringers who Leonore’s story is likely to resonate with. But I’d actually recommend it even more to neurotypical ones, who have much to learn from this intimate window into the autistic experience – unfiltered, uncensored, and often as darkly funny as it is vulnerable. Overall, in crafting a piece as watchable and conceptually innovative as it is illuminating, Leonore’s achievement here is something that deserves accolades without an asterisk.
Playing tonight @ 9 pm in the Scarlet venue
Tickets and future showtimes here!
Emojis earned: 💞💙🎉🏆