“Excess” - Thy Name Be Billi Pod

Yep, I plead guilty. When I went down to Fringe Festival Headquarters yesterday I had a list of 14 shows I wanted to see. The selection process is kinda difficult for a variety of reasons. First is the number of shows (200), followed closely by the limited number of performances (usually 5) and the location of the performance venues, which pretty much run across all of lower Manhattan from The East River to The Hudson River.

As a further example, for this Saturday there are 81 shows available, beginning at noon and ending with the last performance time of 10:15pm. The running times range from 45 minutes to 2 hours, 15 minutes. There are plays, musicals, one-person shows, dance performances, multi-media, and combinations of all of the above. Very rarely do the shows get reviewed and when they are the shows have usually completed their 5 performance run.

You pretty much have to rely on the blurbs contained in the 64 page Festival Guide. So, this is my Festival and entertainment program for Saturday, Sunday and Monday:

Saturday - noon - “Untitled Masterpiece” - Comedy/Performance Art. 1:00 - “Untitled Masterpiece is a fresh take on the life after college graduation. Everyman Joe Meursault struggles to find himself through a barrage of changing scenes and rotating characters that try to reduce his life to a series of TV shows.”

3:15 - KABOOM! - Comedy. 1:55 - “After his drug factory explodes, San Francisco's slyest swindler has one day to recoups his losses. Nothing can stop him ... except, maybe a neurotic New Yorker, a misplaced kazoo, and a 37-minute orgasm. Hipster satire meets old-school farce.”

7:30 - “The Grecian Formula” - Comedy. 1:45 - “How far would you go to win the phallus? Commanded to write the world's first drama, Homeric celebubard Thespiotis orders his servant, Alidocioous, to ghostwrite. And so the witty slave does write on cue, though mayhem, masks, and choral odes ensue.”

Sunday - 2:30 - “Gargoyle Garden” - Musical. 1:00 - “Jeff LaGreca Edgar Allen Densmore is a weird, lonely little boy who has trouble fitting in at the Piedmont Private School. Spending his time alone up in the decaying rooftop garden, he one day receives a mysterious invitation to a strange and raucous moon-lit party.”

4:30 - “The Redheaded Man” - Drama. 1:30 - “A gifted young architect is plagued by visions that inspire his designs, yet render him a walking social disaster. He calls it "insight," others call it “insanity.” A darkly funny multimedia experience about navigating the secrets our minds keep.”

7:30 - {title of show} - Broadway. I had booked a Fringe show called “The Johnny” for 9:00. When I got back to the apartment and went online to check my ticket services [title of show] was up so the choice was - see a Broadway show for free or see an unknown Fringe Festival show, and, of course, Broadway won even though I had seen the show in early previews. This is the blurb for [title of show] - “This new Broadway musical portrays two nobodies named Hunter and Jeff who decide to write a completely original musical starring themselves and their attractive and talented friends, Susan and Heidi. Their musical, [title of show], gets into the New York Musical Theatre Festival and becomes a hit. Then it gets an off-Broadway production at the Vineyard Theatre and wins three Obie Awards. Then its announced that their musical is going to Broadway. With direction by Tony Award nominee Michael Berresse, [title of show] explores inside the creative minds and hearts of these young theatre artists as they face all the challenges, triumphs, setbacks, joys and heartbreaks of creating a new and hopefully great American musical. PLEASE NOTE: This musical deals with adult themes and contains strong language.”

Now, on to Monday - 5:00 - “The Chronicles of Steve: the bossy bottom.” Comedy/solo show. 1:15 - “With his new one-man comedy show, David LeBarron weaves a sex-quest that fully inflates the biggest sexual organ, the heart.”

7:30 - “For Reasons Unknown.” Comedy. 1:30 - “Nathan Halvorson Bradley comes home and finds a present on his sofa. The gift? A big poo. What does he do? Or perhaps, what did he do? Inspired by a true story, this new whodunit comedy explores what happens when shit happens.”

I have also scheduled Fringe shows for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. Details will be posted later.

Yes, I plead guilty to "EXCESS."

Have a great weekend everyone.

Billi Pod
wanjr@aol.com