MORE FROM THE FRINGE - HEY! WE'RE WORKING HERE

I've mentioned before that I don't much get dance. I'm not putting it down, I'm just physically graceless. I could barely shuffle my feet across the floor at my and my daughter's weddings. So when I shoot a performance like this for the Fringe I'm thinking about images and F stops. Others decide on the meaning.

This performance was called Hey! We're Working Here. The ticketing website has this description: "How do a lifetime of memories, thoughts, and associations influence the choices we make each day? Watch dancers and musicians explore each other's choices as they work to create a piece in real time based on audience input." Okay, if you say so. Unfortunately, I have no information about the dance company.

I've been wanting to mix in some other material with these performances but have been thwarted. There is a major Japanese festival at our botanical garden over Labor Day weekend. We went over yesterday morning and found that the third most distant overflow parking lot was full. There was rain in the forecast for the afternoon so we bailed and went to brunch. Turned out we guessed right. A lot of people got very wet.             

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - HOW TO BE AN ETHICAL SLUT

A provocative title. The comedy/cabaret/confessional is best described in the words of the performer, Brooke McCarthy: Blake (the character) has a problem - she is wrestling with a desire for a loving monogamous relationship...and so much more. Will Blake's latest and more mature love interest Guy be the answer for her orgiastic fantasies of love and sexual gratification? Or is it impossible to be an Ethical Slut? This original one-woman cabaret show is a bold, sexy and vulnerable story that is sure to leave you laughing about sex and wondering about love. (Hint - lots of it is funny but it's not all happy.) www.howtobeanethicalslut.com      

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - THREE STAGES OF LOVE

It has been six years since Miki Byrne, Khnemu Menu-Ra and Terrie Carolan last performed their cabaret act at the St. Louis Fringe. I photographed parts of two of their performances this year. The show has evolved and this version was based on the poetry of William Shakespeare, blended with songs from Lady Gaga, Prince and Stephen Sondheim, among others. The trio has been working together a long time and blend perfectly.          

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - TOO MUCH LIGHT MAKES THE BABY GO BLIND

The name of the show is meaningless. It's just catchy, something that's hard to forget. Variations have been around for years. I saw a version of it in Chicago perhaps 15 years ago. The deal is that there are 24 scenarios for two minute improvs that have to be completer in 48 minutes. If the cast doesn't make it, the audience gets a treat. Here it was candy. In Chicago it was pizza. Way better.

The four actors were theater students from Indiana University. They were terrific, totally out full bore. The premises included "Masterpieces of the Lyric Form: Exploring Neitzschian Images of Superman in 'Crank Dat' By Soulja Boy" and "Three Year Old Interview: Pringles and an interview by a three year old, what could be better?" And each explained in two minutes.

I'm only half way through the Fringe shows I photographed. There is a lot going on in The Lou this weekend. I'll be featuring some of that with Fringe images mixed in. Who knows, I might have more than one post a day.            

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - MEDIUM ROAST

A charming village in Greece, an old tradition, some mystery and perhaps a security leak. There is a local tradition of foretelling the future from the stains left inside the cup after a serving of strong, coarse Greek coffee. Members of the audience were invited up for sip and seance, here my fellow Fringe board member Jose. But there is worry that the seer, played by Analicia Kocher, is being too loose with her tongue about the process, in effect spilling the beans. My Improv friend Panagiotis Papavlasopous, dressed in drag, shows up to screw the lid of the coffee can back on.             

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - SANDY BEACHES

This entertainer has an interesting back story. She performs as Sandy Beaches and was formerly employed as a cruise ship entertainer, essentially living at sea. We all know what happened to that industry over the last couple of years. So, out of work, she moved to St. Louis to live with her closest friend and is making the best of the situation. Her show at The Fringe didn't require any sea legs. She was very engaged with the audience and picks a mean 12 string guitar.             

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - AH SA TI NU

The singer who performs as Ah Sa Ti Nu does jazz, R&B, and American standards, backed up by a jazz quartet. Her website, www.ahsatinu.com, does not explain her professional name but her performance was stunning. It was emotionally subtle and powerful. And she's so photogenic.          

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - MESSES

Okay, yes, a lot of pix but this was my favorite show. Janoah Bailin is from Portland, Maine, where I will be setting down in a couple of weeks (more about which later). He is a juggler, comedian and unicyclist extraordinaire. His performance, MeSSes, is full of them, but all for a reason. 

He does things like teach audience members to juggle using scarves - they move slowly and hang in the air. He jumps rope while riding a unicycle (there's some air under the tire in the second photo), and stays stationary on the device while reading aloud a section of a book on the literary uses of metaphors. He has a popcorn maker attached to the ceiling that explodes kernels into his upturned hat. He makes a cup of tea by dangling a teabag from a cord for three minutes while on the unicycle. And on and on. It's a hoot.         

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - CONFESSIONS OF A NIGHTINGALE

Confessions Of A Nightingale is a one person show in which Tennessee Williams chats with the audience about his life, his work in the theater, his relationships and his vices. It is a fascinating look at a troubled genius reminiscing about his career. 

The show almost had to be canceled. The original actor was diagnosed with Covid. Dominic De Cicco stepped in on a  couple of days notice and did a fabulous job. He had just the right amount of Southern drawl and sneer on his lip. Although he kept the script with him he hardly seemed to glance at it.

Although Williams was born in Mississippi he grew up here and eventually attended the University of Missouri. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.                

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - 24 HOUR PLAYS, PARTS TWO AND THREE

The second and third of the 24 Hour Plays puzzled me a bit. The middle one started with a supervisor refusing to let an employee take time off from work to vote, then turned into a riff on Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The ghosts of elections past, present and future appeared (the person wearing what looks like a white hospital gown is a ballot) with warnings about what happens if we don't vote, aren't allowed to vote or have our votes ignored by politicians.

I had to ask the sound and light guy what the last one was about. The premise was based on Dungeons and Dragons, a game i know or care little about.  A group of friends is playing as the characters from the game appear on the other side of the stage. One player who thought she had overcome a serious challenge finds that the threat is back, in the game and in parallel in her personal life. I didn't quite get it but then I'm an old stick in the mud.               

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - 24 HOUR PLAYS

The set-up: a group of actors get together with some rough ideas, some props and maybe bits of costume. They have 24 hours to turn this into three 20 minute plays, write it, memorize it, rehearse it and go. The first, shown here, was called Waiting For Bingo(t), Horrible, horrible pun, as will become clear. 

Four bored characters sit at an achingly slow bingo game, while the one in the middle calls numbers at an irregular pace. It becomes apparent that this is purgatory, where the inhabitants have nothing to do but play bingo for years, centuries or even millennia. The only way out is to complete their card and win. It doesn't happen often. Near the end, we learn that the man second from left is Adam. 

Samples of the second two parts tomorrow.            

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - STOREYVILLE BURLESQUE

This town has a burlesque scene. There is a nightclub and bar dedicated to the genre. Two of the shows at the Fringe were burlesques. The festival has a no censorship policy but I couldn't help but wonder how a lot of women react to it - objectivization, male gaze and all that.  I shot both of these shows and the audience was about equally men and women. And the ladies were having just as good a time.

 

The woman who performs as Lola van Ella, in the green dress, had been putting on these shows and running a school in St. Louis for a long time. A couple of years ago she moved to New Orleans where the market for this sort of thing was better. Van Ella produced a two hour show with music and comedy, all pretty racy, and the usual gradual display of bodies. The conceit was that it was set many years ago in Storeyville, an area of New Orleans where any of your vices could be satisfied. The crowd loved it.

 

It should be no surprise that there were a lot of photos from this show that it would by unwise for me to post online.        

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - SCORPIO SEASON

Disclaimer: I know little about dance. I have a decent sense of rhythm but it's in my ears and brain, not in my body. I am physically graceless.

So a performance like Scorpio Season baffles me a little. I do better making images of it than appreciating the art itself. The group is called The Collected Few Project but I have no further information. If someone can give me more details I'll update this.          

MORE FROM THE FRINGE - THE OREO COMPLEX

An oreo is more than a cookie. Most Americans will recognize it as a racial term for someone who is black on the outside and white on the inside. Lillian Brown gave the most stunning performance I've seen so far, riffing on the pressures and pains of Black people in a White-dominated society. You can learn more about her and her work at www.lilliancbrown.com .