Fringe Festival

So I'm new to performance, at least on a large scale. I did the Stevie Ray's thing, but everyone that came to those shows I pay rent to or used to claim me as a dependent on their tax returns. Not a lot of unbiased praise. I have no doubt that my friends and family truly enjoyed what they saw, but you take their pride with a grain of salt.

Well snap to Sunday at the Fringe festival. I'm walking out of the show Flops, a musical revue of songs from failed Broadway plays. Good Stuff. One song had a verse about a sperm defeating a diaphragm, I kid you not. As I was enjoying the rice crispy treat the cast just handed out, a kid, maybe 11-15 years old (I have no age-dar, so yeah, that's a wide range of ages) stares at me and says “Whooooaaaaaaaa.” So, confused, I stare back.

“You were the chef from last night!”

Finally it clicks, he went to see my show The Quest where I had, in fact, played a dancing pizza chef with a love of romance languages. I say romance languages because quite frankly, my accent could have been French, Italian, or Irish dependent on the sentence.

“Oh, yeah, ah, thanks...” I say as I shuffle away like a four year dragging my feet. My mood lies in a purgatory between cool, ecstatic, embarrassed, and awkward. First legit Fringe experience. Unless you count the overwhelming waif of b.o. at an otherwise very cool (and soon to be extinct) Bedlam Theater aka Fringe Headquarters.

Also see Speech if you can, totally worth it for Tim Hellendrung’s closing speech about rolling rocks alone.

Gone Fringin’.