Sunday, August 13, 2017

Fringe Festival 2017: "Repertoire Dogs"

Day: 10

Show: 41

Title: Repertoire Dogs

Category: Comedy

By: Ideal Productions

Created by: Dana's Boys

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: Impressions of celebrities in unlikely situations, performed by a cast of seven.

Highlights: This show is just plain fun. Who doesn't love impressions? If they're good it's fun to appreciate the skill, if they're bad it's fun to laugh at how bad they are (and there's a bit of both in this show). Josh Carson hosts a panel which, when I saw the show, included Allison Witham, Ben Tallen, Brad Erickson, Kelsey Cramer, Ryan Nelson, and Thomas Matthes. The first segment is celebrities or fictional characters in movies they weren't in, like Tim Gunn reading the rules from Fight Club, Gollum in The Goonies, and George Bush doing the Independance Day speech. There's a bit of audience participation when someone picks a card of a stock impression every impressionist should have (Jerry Seinfeld) and a competition ensues to see who does it best, while reading from Fifty Shades of Grey. And one (un)lucky audience member gets to go onstage and try to guess the impression. After a lot of laughter (including from the stage, it's also fun to watch the panelists crack each other and Josh up) and Simpsons characters, the show wraps up with a motley crew singing "Piano Man."

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.