Before heading upstairs to view ‘Planchette,’ each audience member was given a numbered sticker badge at the Writers & Books ticket desk. My hunch was proven correct — that these would function as a means of selecting audience participation during the show. The witty production is one part narrative theatre, one part magic show, though […]
Fringe 2016
Posted inSpecial Sections
Rebecca reviews “Seven Windows”
“Seven Windows” was not nearly as straightforwardly narrative as it was billed. But no matter — the brief, seven act dance production is a sweet, effective exploration that cradles the broken heart of our transient nature. Presented by SHARP Dance Company (at RAPA @ SOTA: Allen Main Stage Theatre) and choreographed by Diane Sharp-Nachsin, the […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Comedian Jamie Lissow brings it home
The cliché goes something like this: the aspiring comedian hits the road, crisscrossing the country, playing to tough crowds in dingy clubs for very little money. Then, after a particularly hot set in New York or Los Angeles, a network executive wants to discuss a sitcom. Greece-born comedian Jamie Lissow certainly lived the first part […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
David reviews ‘Hearing Ophelia’ and ‘Theater Lieder’
A popular trend nowadays is the vocal recital “plus”: adding a visual or theatrical element, or at the very least a theme, to the performance of a selection of songs or a song cycle. Tuesday night, the Lyric Theater presented a number of Eastman School voice students in two different approaches to lyric theater — […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Rebecca reviews ‘Next Fall,’ ‘Commotion Dance Theater,’ and ‘No More Words’
My Sunday at Fringe began with “Next Fall,” a Geoffrey Nauffts play directed by Thomas Markham and staged at TheatreROCS. The show is about a group of family and friends struggling to reconcile differences in faith and sexuality. It opens with the extremely jarring sounds of a car crash in the pitch black, after which […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Adam reviews ‘Muddy Track’ and Big Wigs
I started off day three of Fringe by catching a screening of the little-seen documentary, “Muddy Track” at the Dryden Theatre — the only Fringe event held at that venue this year. Scheduled as part of the Dryden’s series on the films of Bernard Shakey (the pseudonym used by musician Neil Young in his little-known […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
David reviews ‘Dangerous Theatre’ and ‘Marx in Soho’
Hallie Flanagan is not a well-known name today, but in the 1930’s she was vastly influential as the director of the Federal Theatre Project, a WPA initiative that sought to employ actors, writers, designers, and other out-of-work theater professionals by assigning them to “theater enterprises” throughout the United States, many in areas that had never […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Rebecca reviews ‘The A-is-for-Abortion Play,’ and ‘Underground Episodes’
It was sort of a bummer that only about a dozen people attended the first staging of “The A-is-for-Abortion Play” at the TheatreROCS venue, which can hold an audience of 700. The meager attendance might be explained by Fringe-goers wanting to spend their Saturday afternoon on more uplifting productions, but the show’s subject is an […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Frank reviews Left for Dead Improv and ‘Flatfoots, Floozies & Murder’
Left for Dead Improv split my guts with its astute deadpan and quick wit. In front of a packed house at Writers & Books, the group took shots at individual stories whose characters had maxed out on their quirk quotient. As they moved along, it got more complex as if trying to confound one another, […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Casey reviews PUSH Physical Theatre
PUSH Physical Theatre, the brainchild of artistic directors and founders Darren and Heather Stevenson, has a satisfying repertoire built from the local company’s 16 years in existence, but it’s always exciting to see a new piece. The Fringe audience Saturday night at the School of the Arts’ main stage was shown the world premiere of […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Adam review the RIT Student Honors Showcase and ‘Murder Night’
Every year at the Fringe, I look forward to attending the RIT Student Honors Showcase, the annual event held at The Little Theatre that highlights student work from RIT’s School of Film and Animation. It’s always fun to see what the talented group of up-and-coming filmmakers are up to, and this year’s program didn’t disappoint. […]
Posted inSpecial Sections
Frank reviews ‘Dance Macabre’ and checks out Friday on the Fringe
I started the second day of Fringe with a chamber quartet, The Chanson String Quartet to be exact, who played pieces focusing on death so gingerly and gently that the audience in the near-empty Xerox Auditorium (the TheatreROCS Main Stage) didn’t quite know where or when to applaud. The group played Camille Saint-Saens’ “Danse Macabre,” […]
