Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "The Camp Out"

Day: 3/9

Show: 9/27

Title: The Camp Out

Category: Comedy / Drama / Improv / Physical Theater

By: Mike Fotis Productions

Created by: Mike Fotis, Rita Boersma, Tim Hellendrung, Nels Lennes, Heather Meyer, Danna Sheridan

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: An improvised story of six friends who go on a campout to remember a deceased friend.

Highlights: Long-form is my favorite kind of improv, and this show is an example of why. Over the course of about an hour we watch these relationships develop in front of our eyes (although I'm not sure if characters and plots points are improvised and different every time, or just the conversation around them). And these six improvisors (Mike Fotis, Rita Boersma, Tim Hellendrung, Nels Lennes, Heather Meyer, and Danna Sheridan) are some of the best. The show starts with a couple actually setting up a tent on stage, which is a drama in and of itself! Friends start arriving, and we start to gather what everyone's relationships are. In the show I saw, the friends are there to honor their friend who died a year or so ago, and secrets (relationships, pregnancies) are revealed. It's so much fun to watch this group just be these people, talking and joking and snacking. It feels so real, like eavesdropping. When real life thunder was heard from outside the theater, they incorporated it into the show, starting to prepare for the rain. It's a well-done, smooth, and very funny improvised dramedy.

Update: I had an open slot in my schedule so I saw this one again, and it was completely different! Same performers, same concept of saying goodbye to a deceased friend (reading a letter from a family member and spreading their ashes in the park), but the characters and relationships were completely different. No surprise revelations, just being together and grieving. I cried from laughter, and a little bit at the real emotions.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2023: "The Windblown Cheeks Of Lovers"

Day: 3

Show: 11

Title: The Windblown Cheeks Of Lovers

Category: COMEDY / DRAMA

By: Mike Fotis Productions

Created by: Mike Fotis, Rita Boersma, and Tim Hellendrung

Location: Strike Theater

Summary: A mocumentary about the making of a fictional miniseries from the '80s.

Highlights: The 1980s were prime season for melodramatic TV miniseries, some based on books that few people read. This show spoofs them gloriously. It begins with a family settling down to watch their favorite show - The Windblown Cheeks of Lovers, which we later find out was loosely based on the book The Wind Blows on the Cheeks of the Dead by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. When the TV turns on, these three brilliantly funny actors (Rita Boersma, Tim Hellendrung, and Mike Fotis, who also wrote and directed) step in front of a camera with a cheesy painted backdrop of a tree, and the footage is displayed live on the TV screen. Then we jump to the other side of the stage, where we watch a modern-day documentary about the making of the series, complete with backstage drama, a tragic death, and a sentient killer tornado. The three actors play all of the roles, changing character by adding one simple accessory attached to their waist by one of those pullout ID badge thingies, and donning an outrageous accent. The documentary reveals recently discovered backstage footage, achieved with another camera off to the side that displays on the TV screen in black and white. It's a fun and unique experience to watch both the live scene and the footage on the TV. There are a lot of moving pieces, a lot of characters, and a lot of accents, that combine for a ridiculous multi-media ride of a show. 

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Mad as Nell, or How to Lose a Bly in Ten Days"

Day: 4

Show: 12

Title: Mad as Nell, or How to Lose a Bly in Ten Days

Category: COMEDY / HISTORICAL CONTENT

By: Rinky Dink Productions

Created by: Rinky Dink Productions

Location: Rarig Center Thrust

Summary: A modern, comic, feminist retelling of 19th Century investigative journalist Nellie Bly who went undercover in a mental institution.

Highlights: Written by cast members Josh Carson, Shanan Custer, Allison Witham, and Kelsey Cramer as Nellie Bly, this show is the fun mash-up of history and pop culture that I've come to expect from this group (freshly minted as Rinky Dink Operations, with a quarterly variety show at BLB). They tell the loosely historical story of aspiring "lady reporter" Nellie Bly, who tries to impress editor Joseph Pulitzer by writing a series of articles exposing the horrible conditions at the mental hospital she gets herself committed to (possibly mashed up with the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, or maybe that's just for the clever title). The cast (also including Adelin Phelps, Aisha Ragheb, Tim Hellendrung, and equity members James Detmar and the deliciously evil Sue Scott!) is hilarious and playful, they sing a few fun original songs, there are just the right amount of 4th wall breaking moments, and the inspiring feminist story is succinctly, cleverly, charmingly, and irreverently told. Simply put, this is Fringe at its best.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Off Book" and "The Mess" at HUGE Improv Theater

"Life is better when you're laughing." Or at least that was the sidewalk chalk wisdom I saw on my morning run today. But there definitely is truth to it, and if you're in need of more laughter in your life, there's no better place to go for consistent laughs any night of the week than HUGE Improv Theater, a home for improv in Uptown Minneapolis. HUGE hosts a variety of improv troupes, with shows almost every night. Most shows are about $10 per ticket, and if you go on a Friday or Saturday night, you can see multiple shows at a discounted price. A small price to play for a lot of laughter.

Fringe Festival: "Four Humors Does Every Show in the Fringe"

Day: 8

Show: 31

Title: Four Humors Does Every Show in the Fringe

Category: Comedy

By: Four Humors

Created by: Four Humors

Location: New Century Theatre

Summary: Rather than creating an original piece as Fringe faves Four Humors usually do, they're improving a different show every night based on the title and description of another Fringe show chosen at random.

Highlights: I'd watch these guys do anything (these guys being Ryan Lear, Brant Miller, Nick Ryan, and Matt Spring). And when you go see this show, that's pretty much what you can expect - anything. A big show was made of the random drawing of the numbered ping pong balls (numbered shows listed in the program - no cheating), and the lucky winner was Fish Stories. Somehow guest performer Tim Hellendrung heard "the one that got away" and immediately thought - Katie Holmes. So these fish stories included a grocery store meet-cute, a wish-granting time-traveling poorly mimed fish, a fight scene between said fish and Tom Cruise, and an escape to post-apocalyptic Canada. In between shows Tim read some "audience reviews" of the show, which was a hilarious spoof on what these reviews sometimes are. This show is silly and fun and inventive, and it's a joy to watch these guys work. And I'm not alone in that opinion - this show is the best-selling show at New Century, with an encore performance tonight at 8:30.

Fringe Festival: "Minnesota Middle Finger" by Ben San Del Presents at Theatre in the Round

As you can see in the picture to the right, if you flip someone off while wearing mittens, the effect is lost on the recipient.  They just think you're waving and don't recognize the rage behind the gesture.  Such is the premise of Minnesota Middle Finger, in which three virtual strangers are trapped together at the end of the world, which of course in Minnesota takes the form of a 100+ inch snowstorm. Florence and Adam are neighbors who attend a neighborhood party together, mostly because Florence can't think of a good excuse to turn down Adam's proposal.  They wake up the next morning hungover to discover that they're alone in the house with a stranger named Thomas.  The three of them get to know each other quickly whether they want to or not, and must figure out how to survive.  It's a bleak situation, but this play is anything but bleak.  Filled with Minnesota humor, it's sharp and funny and ends with a cliffhanger!

Florence (Leigha Horton) is the good girl who never swears and has her life planned out, but finds something somehow missing.  Adam (Tim Hellendrung) is the nice but slightly nerdy guy (he played trombone in the high school marching band) whom pretty women always overlook.  And Thomas (John Middleton) is argumentative and slightly crazy - he carries a gun around, which fortunately is only a BB gun.  Flo and Adam don't recognize him from the neighborhood, so he eventually admits that he used to live in that house until he fell on hard times, and came to the party with thoughts of hanging himself in the bedroom.  But since the end of the world appears to have arrived, he decides to stick it out.  The three entertain themselves by playing board games, eating pop tarts and pancakes, and arguing with each other.  The truth comes out when the world is ending, and it's not always pretty.  They eventually decide to do something about their situation.  The ceiling is threatening to cave in, so they yell and make noise in attempt to get it to collapse, and then hope to find a pocket of air somewhere on the edges.  That's where the play ends, and we never know if they were successful.

This three-person cast is great, very natural and funny and with great chemistry.  It was also a popular show; it won the encore award, meaning it had the most ticket sales at the venue.  Which I don't disagree with; personally I loved the beautiful opera Twisted Apples, but Minnesota Middle Finger is more accessible and audience-friendly.  A fun exploration of the Minnesota psyche, relationships, and something we Minnesotans are familiar with - being snowed in.

See all of my Fringe reviews.