How Do you Fringe? Chicago Fringe starts this weekend!

The Chicago Fringe starts its 8th annual festival this weekend!

If you don't know about the Fringe movement, you should!  Fringe is an international movement that started close to 50 years ago in Edinburgh, and has since spread across Canada and the United States.

Fringe festivals are great ways for independent artists to tour their shows across the world.  The festival takes care of all the pesky details (having a tech person, renting a theatre, etc) and the artists typically get 100% of the door (artists pay a producing fee up front)  In Chicago, audiences also pay for  a one time $5 membership button that helps support the festival, and then all box office revenues go to the artists.

During the 10 days of its operation, the festival will present over 50 artists from around the country (and right here in Chicago also!) in over 200 performances using 5 venues in the Jefferson Park area.  That's a lot of shows!


The shows in Chicago are chosen by lottery, so it's a little bit of mixed bag of what will be performing.  With 50 shows though, there's usually something for everyone, and this year is no different.

Tickets are $8-10 each, depending on if you buy a multipack.  You can also buy an all access pass for $175.  Please remember you also need to purchase a membership button for $5 to gain admission to all the shows.  You buy the membership button once, and it's good for the entire festival.

The best way to Fringe 

• Devote a couple of days to the festival.  Buy a multi-pack of shows, which will bring your price down.  
• Go with friends or family.  It's great to experience 4 or 5 shows together.  It will give you a shared vocabulary like nothing else.  
• Go to as many different shows as you can.  Some will be great, some will be less than great.  All of them will be supporting individual artists doing their work, and that's a good thing. 
• Don't be discouraged.  Some of the shows will be (to be polite) not your cup of tea. Do your best to select stuff you will like, but be adventurous.  That's where the reward lies.
• Hang out at Fringe Central.  My best memories of Fringe festivals have been meeting potential audience members, other artists, and having a drink or a meal with a bunch of strangers brought together by their love of theatre.

I'm profiling a few shows from this year's festival that strike me as great for families and kids, and I'll also preview a couple of shows that are more for adults.  I haven't seen these shows (yet) but I've performed in a number of Fringe festivals, and seen hundreds of Fringe shows, so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect.  But I also like to be surprised!

GREAT FOR FAMILIES

KIDS FRINGE The Chicago Fringe is for all ages, but is doing a pretty good job of trying to aim for the family set as well.  For kids under 12, they are producing a series of Kid Fringes, with workshops, arts and crafts, games and small performances.  Expect a lot of storytelling and some fun workshops for kids. There are 5 different afternoons of activities: Click here to find out more and purchase tickets.

MELODY Is an original superhero ballet with live music.  Presented by Tiffany Lawson Dance (from right here in Chicago), the show features a superhero who fights crime through the sound waves of her dancing  shoes. But watch out when her evil twin enters the arena and threatens a family reunion. Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

MURMURATIONS Five friends in a support group gather together to talk about their quirks, and use circus, puppetry, dance, and physical theatre to work and bond together.  Produced by Semi-Circus, a Chicago company of interdisciplinary circus artists. Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

EAST OF THE SUN WEST OF THE MOON This Scandinavian folk tale uses layered vocals to weave story, song, and poetry to bathe the audience in the winds and magic of ancient Norway.  Produced by the Hnossa Project of Brooklyn NY, it has had sold out runs and great reviews in New York City and Rochester NY. Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

EDNA THE STOMPER Edna The Stomper is an all ages musical about a  7 year old kid who stomps everywhere she goes and drives her family crazy! Features songs, stomps, and some puny monster puppets.  This is the world premiere, written by Chicago local Laura Toffenetti and directed and produced by Sarah Sutliff of New York's Rebel Playhouse. Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

GREAT FOR ADULTS

DANDY DARKLY MYTH MOUTH I'm friends with Dandy Darkly on facebook, and he's a legend in New York City as kind of an alt-cabaret R-Rated clown/storyteller. This will be his first show at the Chicago fringe, and it will explore religion, addiction and social media obsession via satiric tales concerning a heroin-chic Persephone, Cosmopup Laika, virtual reality revelations and humanity’s premiere popinjay, Cha-Cha the Caveman, all set to an original musical score. Don't miss this (and don't bring the kids!) Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

MISTERO BUFFO This show from New York won the 2016 Best Physical Theater Show at the United Solo Theater Festival and the Encore Producer's Award 2017 at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. Based on stories of the Bible re-told by Nobel Prize winning clown Dario Fo, this looks like another definite don't miss!  It says it is good for all ages, but the ideas in the show are pretty radical, if they are staying true to Dario Fo. Click here to find out more and purchase tickets

There are many other shows, that I'd like to feature, including Mark Toland's mind-reading show (back for the third time to the Fringe!), Underneath the Lintel by television actor Pat O'Brien, and With the Weight of the World on her Shoulders, a mythological play by the Chicago Iowa Theatre Collective.  

But I've run out of space and time.  Go check out the Fringe site for yourself, and Fringe Fringe Fringe!

REVIEW: Spymonkey's The Complete Deaths

I had the chance to see a great production recently at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre.  It's only there through December 11, so if you want to see it, you need to hustle!

Photo by Ludovic des Cognets
provided by Spymonkey

The show is by Spymonkey, a British troupe of clowns/physical comedians.  If you've been to Las Vegas, you may have seen their work, as they created all of the comedy numbers in the Cirque du Soleil show Zumanity.  They are known for their wacky physical theatre, their crazy costumes, and their off-kilter situations and characters.

 The show is directed by Tim Crouch, who performed earlier in the year the remarkable show I, Malvolio. I reviewed that show a couple of years ago when I saw it in NY for my other blog Clownlink.  In that review  I suggested that Crouch was great, but he could take the show from an 8 to a 10 by taking a clown workshop.  Apparently, he took my advice, as he is now working with Spymonkey.  I would very much like to know if it affected his own show.

This show has as its concept the idea that the company Spymonkey (composed of four members Toby, Aitor, Petra, and Stephan) will move away from comedy to create a Great Piece of Theatre by taking all  75 of Shakespeare's onstage deaths and putting them into one show.

Photo by Ludovic des Cognets
provided by Spymonkey

It's a fantastic concept, even though one of the other performers wanted to do a bubble show instead. Toby, the rather bossy auteur, sets the tone, telling people that if they were there to see some slapstick buffoonery, they were going to be disappointed.  (Shortly after that he thanks a latecomer for bringing some new energy into the room)

As part of the set, there's a giant count-down timer, counting down each death, and every time somebody dies a buzzer goes off.  They actually have a judge/clock keeper on stage that does the honors, and as far as I know she never watches the show.  (This is part of Tim Crouch's influence-- in some of his other plays, there are random people cast in the show each night.)  There's also a number of set pieces, including a fantastic sausage making/machine that would look right at home at a production of Ubu Roi.






The death's continue apace, and luckily for us there is a fair amount of buffoonery in accomplishing them.  I don't want to spoil the show, but by the end of the first act over 50 people are dead, and there's a hilarious and quite bloody version of the classic clown gag The WasherWoman.

There's also some really powerful and moving moments, such as the death of Cinna the poet, who is murdered by a blood-thirsty mob for having the same name as one of the conspirators against Caesar.

The fly, as drawn by Chris Riddell for a very funny card game
that they sell as merchandise at the show.

Another great stage device was using a video camera to film a puppet show and they show the burning of the puppet.

In case you were wondering, those deaths include (according to the program) 23 stabbings, 12 sword fights, 5 poisonings, 2 throats cut, 1 smothering, 3 by natural causes, 4 by wounds, 2 explosions, 2 heartbreaks, 3 mob killings, 2 beatings, and 3 others through miscellaneous causes.

And one of them (and as it turns out a central one) is the death of a black, ill-humoured fly.  I was particularly amused by the Fly-Cam that appears throughout the show.

All in all the show is very funny, and I don't think you need to be so familiar with Shakespeare to enjoy it. There are moments of great absurdity, and there are moments of great importance, and sometimes they are at the same time!  I guarantee it is nothing that you have seen before.  I think it would make a great date night show.

Photo by Ludovic des Cognets
provided by Spymonkey

On a completely side note, the views from the theatre of the city and of the water and of Navy Pier are astonishing.  Don't miss going to the restroom, which has a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline.

Tickets are available online at https://www.chicagoshakes.com/plays_and_events/deaths  or by calling the theatre box office at 312.595.5600 Tickets start at $42.


If you miss the show, Spymonkey's shows are available to stream at Vimeo On Demand, along with their other productions, including Stiff, Cooped, Moby Dick, and Oedipussy.

Audience Notice: Recommended for audience members ages 16 and up. Death is messy. This show features adult content, including brief nudity, profanity and (of course!) depictions of violence, from decapitation to death by lack of sleep.

Gale LaJoye's Snowflake in Chicago- last 4 performances.

This weekend is the last weekend for Gale LaJoye's magical and wonderful show Snowflake, which is performing at the Chicago Children's Theatre through February 14.

I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to run out and buy tickets to this show immediately. It's been in town for 2 weeks and this is the last weekend.

I saw this show about 15 years ago and it was amazing then, I'm sure that it's only gotten better. This is the 25th anniversary of Snowflake being performed by LaJoye (I featured Gale on my clown blog here: Gale Lajoye )

Gale has performed this show thousands of times: In Japan, he performed it in over 280 cities alone. He recently brought it to the acclaimed Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company where it was a rousing success.

As Snowflake, Lajoye stages a tale of a kindhearted soul who, with little more than imagination and hope, breathes life into what others regard as useless, transforming the simplest of objects into comedic treasures. Without uttering a single word, this incredibly versatile actor amazes an all-ages audience while speaking volumes about humanity, innocence and our need for compassion, understanding and joy.

Snowflake entertains himself by recycling discarded objects into comic treasures, and turns sorrow into joy, He breathes life into toys, floats in mid-air, makes music out of a bedframe, and dances the Nutcracker on skis.

Here's a great video of Gale performing, as well as some in-the-know commentary on his work.

Snowflake is an All Ages show.

The last week of performances, shows are Saturday February 13 and Sunday February 14 at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. The Saturday 2 pm show is a sensory-friendly performance.

GET A DISCOUNT

Tickets are $10 to $39. However, you can use the special code DADA20 to get 20% off. For tickets and information or to redeem your discount, visit chicagochildrenstheatre.org or call (877) 222-9555.

You can find out more about Gale's work at http://www.lajoye.com