AUDITIONS

 

St. Louis theater veteran Joe Hanrahan is a Fringe regular. This year, he presented three short comedies called Auditions!, about the humiliations, absurdities and indignities of casting a show. The burdens apply equally to the actors and producers. I think this was the funniest: a Martian performer with an unpronounceable name shows up expecting a part. Theater is a big deal on Mars. Everyone goes all the time. Casting is not an issue. The right person is always in the right place. It’s pretty hard for the human directors to grok.   

Lots of new stuff to shoot this weekend. We’re into Paint Louis, when top graffiti artists from all over re-decorate a miles-long stretch of the Mississippi River flood wall. And Labor Day weekend brings the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, always a great photo op.                

FRINGE KICKOFF

The 10th St. Lou Fringe Festival got started Thursday with a couple of productions. There are ten shows spread over four days, much fewer than normal, non-Covid years. Everyone is cautious and the performances have well-spaced seats in open-sided tents.

Things got started with violinist Amy Greenhaigh and St. Louis theater veteran Joe Hanrahan in My Violin My Voice. Hanrahan narrates a history of the instrument, describing how they are made, famous performers and stories involving the instrument. Greenhaigh's playing was exquisite. The show is repeated today, Saturday, at 4:30 and I strongly recommend it.                 

A Couple More

I have to double up on some of the smaller scale productions or I'll never get through all of them. The first of these is titled Now Playing Third Base For The St. Louis Cardinals...Bond, James Bond. It features veteran St. Louis actor Joe Hanrahan telling stories and musing. The program description summarizes it well:

*A Fringe Award Winner - Lifetime Achievement* It's a play about theatre. And baseball. In St. Louis. So it's about race. And the weather. And it's about James Bond. And The Beatles. And WWII. And killing a President. But mostly, it's about theatre. A new play by and starring Joe Hanrahan, directed by Shane Signorino with video projections by Michael Perkins.

Scroll down for another show.         

Next we have The Countdown. I didn't get the name of the actor. The program describes it like this:

After losing his family in a tragic car accident, a man wakes up to see timers hovering over peoples heads that count down to their death. After coming to terms with the fact that he can’t beat death, he finds his own timer over his head. Locking himself in a hotel room, the man recounts his cursed tale while trying to figure out how to survive the dreaded countdown. In this production, we find Cameron Cooper sitting on a bed in his hotel room as he recounts losing his family and the curse that followed. Through the 45 minute play, Cameron goes through every possible stage of death while he comes to terms with his own impending death. The audience will bear witness to the raw emotions of a man that’s completely broken from the pains of his past and the possible absence of a future. 

I found this a bit odd (not that the whole Fringe isn't). The premise was a bit of a stretch for me. In the end, the narrator's countdown clock reaches zero. Cut lights to black. Maybe I was paying too much attention to my viewfinder.