Great Play, Petunia and Chicken, at the Know Sunday and Monday

"Petunia and Chicken" trailer from Animal Engine on Vimeo.

CincyFringe – The Prodigal Fringer Returns

I have returned from my California Respite and shared that fact with the Fringing Public.

Yes, I jest. Yes, I like the Irony of using a Republican War Hero's speech from the ancient past as satire. He would have likely not been a big Fringe supporter, so I smirk a bit more each time I read it.

Now I just need to write a few more reviews!

CincyFringe Day Number Two!

Opening Night was an amazing success for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.  Two shows sold out on their opening opening. That is a record for the first night of shows at the CincyFringe Festival.  Normally shows take a little bit of buzz to sell out.  Not this year. Grim and Fischer: a deathly comedy in full-face mask and The Sweet, Burning Yonder sold out last night.

Tonight's line-up:
Grim and Fischer at Know Theatre Time: 07:00 PM
Cecily and Gwendolyn at 1425 Main Time: 07:15 PM
Latitude at Hanke 1 Time: 07:15 PM
Storms Beneath Her Skin at Hanke 2 Time: 07:30 PM
Methtacular! at Art Academy Time: 08:30 PM
Where Is My Mind? at 1317 Main Time: 08:45 PM
Don't Cross the Streams at Know Theatre Time: 09:00 PM
Screw You Revue at 1425 Main Time: 09:15 PM
Trapped in a Box at Hanke 2 Time: 09:15 PM

To buy tickets go online to www.cincyfringe.com. Grim and Fischer will sell out, so get your tickets Now!

At the bar series tonight it is Game Night, so bring your Candyland, Monopoly, Risk, or just a plain old deck of cards. If you being a role playing game, be prepared to share and be prepared to be mocked, slightly.

I saw two shows last night that were both good. I will doing reviews on www.theconveyor.com, but have not yet completed any. They'll be up as soon as possible.

CincyFringe Day One

What shows are you going to see tonight?  Here's a list of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival day one schedule.  For the full 11 days of shows, please check out www.cincyfringe.com.

Breaking Rank! at 1317 Main Time: 07:15 PM
Rodney Rumple at Know Theatre Time: 07:15 PM
Blown Up at SCPA Time: 07:30 PM
Methtacular! at Art Academy Time: 08:45 PM
Sweet, Burning Yonder at 1317 Main Time: 08:45 PM
Grim and Fischer at Know Theatre Time: 09:00 PM
Twenty-Five Minutes at SCPA Time: 09:00 PM
Quake at Hanke 1 Time: 09:15 PM


Be sure to stay around for Fringe Previews at the Underground at 10:30 PM, where all of the productions get the chance to give a taste of their performance in front of the Bar Series crowd.

CincyFringe Kickoff Party Tonight!!!!!!!!

Head out TONIGHT to the 2012 CityBeat Fringe Kick-Off Party! Doors open at 7PM at the Know Theatre (Fringe HQ) located at 1120 Jackson Street in OTR.  Fun will include a show by The Dukes Are Dead as well as the premier of Channel Fringe Hard Hitting Action News Update.

My Goal for this year's CincyFringe is to gain a mention on Channel Fringe Hard Hitting Action News.  As I will be missing several days of the festival, I would think this fact by itself would be news worthy.  I am going to need a press agent to get this mention.  The crack staff of the Fringe News Division is a hard team to understand. Here's hoping a few bribes or constant annoyance wears them down.

If you can't make it to the opening party, don't make me drive to your house to give you a postcard that highlights the 11 days of theatre that can't be missed!  Go to www.cincyfringe.com to find the full schedule and to buy tickets.  Buying tickets online ahead of time, is the best way to reserve your tickets to the hottest shows.

Stay tuned to this blog to find out the hottest shows.  As of now, you can assume they are all hot and a buy a ticket to all of them, just be sure.

CincyFringe Buzz: Four Humors Returns With Bombus and Berrylinne

The gang from Minneapolis are returning to the Cincinnati Fringe Festival this year with Bombus and Berrylinne, or the Bumblebee and the Hummingbird. This will, if nothing else, compete for one of the longest titles of a CincyFringe performance ever. The show is the brain child of Rachel Petrie and Ryan Lear (The Finkles), who are newer to the Four Humors, but have brought a fresh energy to the group which was evident in last year's performance of You Only Live Forever Once:

The Show takes place at the Know Theatre and the performance schedule is:
Monday, June 4: 7:00 pm
Wednesday, June 6: 9:15 pm
Thursday, June 7: 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 9: 2:00 pm

CincyFringe Buzz: Must See Radio Star

We are just over a week away from the start of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, so it is time to start planning your schedule. I'll be giving some must-see shows I am recommending throughout the week. Please note that I haven't seen any of the shows in the festival. I've completed a vast three year research project that combined buzz, reputation of the producers/actors, and coffee to come upw with a short list of shows I am not going to miss. This means my knowledge should not be questioned and all theatre goers should head my advice.  Or they could just see every show.

Today's show is Radio Star by Tanya O'Debra of NYC. Radio Star was voted Best of Fringe at the 2011 San Francisco Fringe Festival.
The Schedule:
Friday June 1 @ 7:15 pm
Saturday June 2 @ 8:45 pm
Tuesday June 5 @ 9:15 pm
Wednesday June 6 @ 7:15 pm
Friday June 8 @ 7:15 pm
at Hanke 2.

CincyFringe Shows Get Noticed Across the Country

CityBeat's Rick Pender reports on the good review the Performance Gallery's IndyFringe performance of Fricative received.  The show is a provocative Dadaesque use of vocalisation that played CincyFringe in 2008. Here was my Review on TheConveyor.com.

Also getting some attention for the upcoming Chicago Fringe is Pones Inc whose production The Four Food Groups was the featured photo for this UpChicago Fringe article.

Chicago Fringe also features the amazing Artemis Exchange show Aberrant Reflections on the Barbarism of You & I.

If you happen to be in Chicago over the next week and a half, see both shows, they both were Conveyor.com award winners and are rousing fun.

Local News at Risk

Jim Hopkins at the Gannettblog had an interesting post recently discussing a study that states that America is facing a "shortage of local, professional accountability reporting."

We don't have enough reporters covering local and state level government. Cincinnati audiences have a handful of reporters covering nearly all of the local governments on a regular basis. Some reporters from TV sometimes will add some coverage of local governments, but nothing consistent.

The cause of this shortage is obviously the debatable issue. People will blame corporations, exclusively, or blame one political party over the other. The group that deserves most of the blame, as I have said often, is the audience.

At this year's Cincinnati Fringe Festival an edgy production called Music for Newspapers and Radios illustrated this issue quite well. At one point in the show, four actors read out loud different portions of that day's Cincinnati Enquirer. One person read the sports section out loud. Another read the TV listings, while still another read out the crossword puzzle. The fourth was reading the front page story on the State budget deal.  She was passionate about it and felt the importance of the story and read it louder to the others so they might pay attention.  They were oblivious and stuck to the entertainment they had before them.  As if almost in a trance, they focused on sports, TV, or the crossword and ignored her rising voice issuing a news story that would affect them.  It was important for them to know what it said, but being entertained was more important.  After while the front page news reader tired and just fell asleep with the others.  She gave up.

News outlets have given up trying.  They are giving people what they want and they want to be amused.  They don't care about consuming news that actually will have an impact on their community and would be needed to make choices on who should run the government.  The idea of not having to think and just buying a pre-made idea is so much easier for our mindless consumer and image based society.

Our local news is at risk and when it dies,  neither American Idol or ESPN will carry the story.

Pick of Fringe Awards Announced

The 2011 Cincinnati Fringe Festival came to close last night with the Pick of Fringe Awards. Here were the Winners:

FringeNext Audience Pick
The First Book of: The Bible

Audience Pick
Opal Opus: Journey to Alakazoo

Critic's Pick
Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown

Producer's Pick
Memoir of a Mythomaniac: The True Story of a Compulsive Liar (or Tallulah Dies)


Other awards for Fringe were also announced last night: Theconveyor.com Awards of Excellence and the Acclaim awards singled out performances and individual elements of the event.

2011 TheConveyor Awards of Excellence at CincyFringe Announced

TheConveyor.com has posted their Awards of Excellencefor the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. Congratulations to all winners. It was a wonderful festival. Start the clock for 2012!

CincyFringe Day One Reviews Are Up at TheConveyor.com

Over at the TheConveyor.com you can follow along my coverage of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and I've got two reviews posted from shows I saw last night on day one.

Headscarf and the Angry Bitch
White Girl

Two more shows are on tap for tonight:

The Vindle Voss Family Circus
Peyote Business Lunch

Cincy Fringe 2011 Video Chapter II

This is CincyFringe

CincyFringe 2011 Nine Don't Miss Shows

Until I see a play, I can't really tell you if it is good or not. For the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, there are 33 performances, including FringeNext, and several other special events. Based on show descriptions, prior experiences with the performers and producers, I've come up with nine shows that would advise that are don't miss shows. If you have a particular preference for a type of show, you may want to do a little more research yourself. This takes my tastes in play and my tastes are not going to be compatible with everyone. In something akin to alphabetical order, here they are:



101 Rules for Dating, of Which You Will Hear 20 or So...
Curriculum Vitae
Darker
Headscarf and the Angry Bitch
I Love You (We're Fucked)
Peyote Business Lunch
The VindleVoss Family Circus Spectacular!
Tooth and 'Nuckle
You Only Live Forever Once

Don't shy away from any of the other performances.  There are always some surprise hits, so pay attention to the buzz every night at the Fringe Bar Series.  The back-room gossip from audience members can be very interesting and very contradictory.  If you don't like any of these shows, please let me know why.  I learn nearly as much from seeing a show as discussing the show with someone else who say it and comparing our opinions.  That's the part of all forms of art that we don't do often enough.  Art is both an emotional and intellectual experience.  We need to exercise the latter more often than we do.

Ladies & Gentleman: The VindleVoss Family Circus Spectacular!

See The VindleVoss Family Circus Spectacular! at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. This show opens on June 2nd. Go to www.cincyfringe.com for tickets and a listing of over 30 other productions.

Chapter 1 of Sir Derek of Snow vs. The Blue Suite #CincyFringe

Somewhere in this dazzling serial there rests a mystery that can only be solved by seeking out a web browser, going to www.cincyfringe.com, and buying as many tickets to Fringes shows as your credit card allows.

If you don't buy them, don't hold anyone but yourself responsible for what might happen...

Cincinnati Band Walk the Moon Featured on Carson Daily Show

Cincinnati Band Walk the Moon was at SXSW the year and got the notice of the Carson Daily Show, here's the segment:

Lead singer Nicholas Petricca appeared in a Cincinnati Fringe Festival show last year and made many connections. The music video highlighted in the Carson Daily show you can see Pones Inc., Cincinnati Fringe veterans, who helped out Walk the Moon in making the video.

The Finkles' Theater Show Opens at the Know on December 6th

The 2010 Cincinnati Fringe Festival Robert J. Theirauf Producers' Pick of the Fringe, The Finkles' Theatre Show returns for a special encore performance in December.

Carl & Wanda (and Tinkles Sprinkles Finkles) are going to put on a show for you! It's their first ever theater show, and they will dance, sing, and act just for you! This story of two professional amateur actors, and their very exciting world of secret handshakes, crimped hair, long dance numbers, and big-budget action sequences. They will have you laughing so hard, you may forget to breathe, but don't.




Upcoming Performances

Monday December 6 @ 7:30pm
Tuesday December 7 @ 7:30pm
Wednesday December 8 @ 7:30pm
All tickets are $12
Click here for more information or to purchase tickets

Final CincyFringe Weekend Recommendations

Tonight and tomorrow are the last days of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival, if you want to Catch a few shows here are some recommendations:

Friday
The Finkle's Theater Show
Harold
Tantric Acting at the Holiday Inn
A Short Lecture of a Different Time
Queer in the U.S.A.
Medea
A Night of Well Adjusted Ladies
Just Say Know
That One Show
Soul Juice
Cyrano

Saturday
Aberrant Reflections on the Barbarism of You & I
The Finkle's Theater Show
Harold
A Short Lecture of a Different Time
The Council
Ain't That Good News
Sophie's Dream
Money Back Guaranteed
Blue Collar Diaries
True Body Project III
Queer in the U.S.A.


Best advice: Get your tickets on line NOW! Many of these shows are going to sell out well before the show starts.