Act Your Pants Off

The St. Louis Fringe's annual warm up and fund raiser, Act Your Pants Off, took place last night. The premise is that local actors/comedians are given a dramatic speech to memorize in a half hour. They also performed a monologue of their own choosing. Whenever they forgot a line they called out "line!" and the judges would fill them in. But each time they had to remove an article of clothing. The judges would also give the actors a style to imitate. If I remember correctly, someone had to recite a Shakespeare speech as Fozzy Bear. The audience rewarded each performer with "Fringe bucks." The winner was the performer who brought in the most loot.

Nobody took all their clothes. Well, almost nobody, but that's not a subject for this blog. Presiding was Fringe impresario Matthew Kerns. The judges were St. Louis' incomparable Desiree Declyne and Lola van Ella. Lots more to come.  

They Just Keep Doing it

Taking off articles of clothing, that is, and making people laugh at it. There are all kinds of ways to play that combination. It's the premise of Act Your Pants Off.

By the way, the 2017 Fringe main festival season is just around the corner! Be there or be square. Find info on some of the top shows here (the photo on the upper left for the Snow White show is mine) and complete schedule details with ticket ordering here.        

Why They Call It That

The Act Your Pants Off show has a couple of premises. There are a certain number of professional actors and comedians, seven this time around, and two rounds of performance. If I got it straight, in the first half each actor is given a (usually silly) monologue to perform. In the second round they choose their own, which can be serious material. However, co-MC Desere' Declyne calls out directions from the balcony, ostensibly to test a range of acting skills, telling the actors to do, say, a Home Shopping Network pitch as Mickey Mouse or Euripides as a revival preacher. 

The audience buys "Fringe Bucks" for a dollar each and "tips" their preferred performers. This is totaled. In the second round the audience is encouraged to throw real cash at the actors, which they get to keep. When mistakes are made in the second round, the performers are in theory required to remove articles of clothing, hence Act Your Pants Off. Some bogus scoring occurs and an overall winner is declared. I might not have all the details correct but that's the general idea.

Above, Fringe executive director Matt Kerns feigns surprise over all this. Some performers really do have something to show off, like Alex Carnes, and Lola van Ella shows the right way to take off a glove.   

Act Your Pants Off 2017

Tuesday night brought us the annual fund raiser and warm-up for the St. Louis Fringe's festival season, Act Your Pants Off. It has been featured in these pages before. The festival runs from August 17 to 26 and if you are in the STL area and you don't go you are Not A Friend Of This Blog.

The top photo features the Fringe's executive director, Matthew Kerns, and our mistresses of ceremonies, The Lou's favorite ecdysiast, Lola van Ella, and our premier drag queen, Desire' Declyne. Below, Lola belts out a very hot version of Love For Sale. (Reminds me a bit of Evita Peron singing Don't Cry For Me Argentina. The pose, not the song.) She wasn't wearing this much later in the evening. It was a great time. Plenty more to come.