The First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival — well, now known as the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival — ended its record-setting fifth year on September 24, and our staff has just about recovered from the arts overload. The 10-day festival had around 67,000 attendees this year, and sold out 115 shows — from theater, dance, and […]
Fringe 2016
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David reviews ‘The Oboe Show’
If you like the luscious sound of the oboe, you’d like “The Oboe Show.” And if you can actually play this legendarily tricky woodwind instrument, you’d find a lot to identify with in this engagingly silly mix of comedy (handled mostly by three amusing performers) and music (played by two excellent oboists, one of whom […]
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Rebecca reviews ‘Central Library Sideshow,’ Dangerous Signs, and ROC Bottom Slam Team
Over a couple of hours on Saturday, Central Library hosted a variety of small acts. Members of ROC Bottom Slam Team (who performed later in the evening at TheatreROCS) took turns performing moving poetry about political and social issues in the Teen Center, while a pole dancer wowed a small audience with her strength in […]
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Adam reviews ‘Spooky Stories in the Stacks’ and ‘The Hatchet Man’
With a chill now in the air, fall has officially arrived, putting me in just the right mood for “Spooky Stories in the Stacks” at the Central Library. Starting in the Rundel Memorial Building, our audience was brought downstairs to take our seats in the secluded stacks, a section of the library the public doesn’t […]
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Frank reviews Champagne Brown, Castle Creek, and ‘White’
It was a cool, fresh Fringe that assailed my senses as I moved about downtown Saturday night. What a sensational vibe; what a sensational sense of community. I love this festival. With all the venues packed with intrigue, I stuck to the outdoor stage for the most part. First it was Champagne Brown proposing a […]
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Frank reviews EstroFest and You’ll Thank Me Later
EstroFest was a blast, I tell ya. You know, I go to these things hoping with all my might to laugh, to be taken out of the doldrums of my day, and allowed to view the world askew for a few. Well, the gals and one dude (as a guest) in EstroFest did not let […]
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Rebecca reviews ‘Savage Sanctuary’ and ‘Guerrilla Art’
In his artist statement, Denton Crawford says that his latest multimedia exhibition, “Savage Sanctuary,” “investigates the relationship between mysticism and the absurd and how personal experience informs our experience of each.” Through a remix of iconic imagery, Crawford pokes at the relationship between religious belief, political affiliation, and individual rights and freedoms. Several very rad […]
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Leah reviews ‘Careless Whispers’
Each year, there are many comedy offerings at Fringe — sketch, improv, stand-up (and yes, there’s a difference). Thank You Kiss, which presented its hour-long show, “Careless Whispers,” at Blackfriars Theatre, is a Rochester-based sketch comedy troupe. Whereas improv isn’t usually scripted and stand-up often addresses the audience directly, sketch relies primarily on scripted scenes […]
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Adam reviews ‘Grimms’ Mad Tales,’ ‘Ruts!,’ and Pandora Boxx
The rainy weather seemed to keep at least a few people from Friday evening’s performance of the clever “Grimms’ Mad Tales,” but hopefully they’ll catch the show’s second performance, since it’s well worth the time. Staged similarly to 2014’s “Spoon River Rochester” (and also directed by David Henderson), the show is immersive public theater, or […]
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Rebecca reviews ‘Scarred by the Somme’
The Eastman School’s gorgeous Kilbourn Hall was again the backdrop of Table Top Opera’s Fringe production. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest engagements in Europe’s Great War, “Scarred by the Somme” echoed the tragic, grim themes of the group’s 2015 program, "Kindertotenlieder" (songs on the death of children). The show’s organizer, Eastman […]
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David reviews ‘The Eulogy’ and Polite Ink
“The Eulogy” has received a string of awards and rave reviews from Fringe Festivals all over, and it’s about to receive another one. The word “monologue” is much too staid for Michael Burgos’s take on the idea of the funeral eulogy: he tips it on its head, ties it into knots, and sets it spinning […]
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Leah Stacy reviews ‘Dracula’
Producing one Rochester Fringe Festival show is ambitious — but just one show isn’t enough for Virginia Monte and WallByrd Theatre Co. In addition to “The Kiss,” which plays at SOTA for a last time on Saturday, September 24, at 9 p.m., WallByrd teamed up with Syracuse-based actor and playwright Alec Barbour to mount his […]
