"A Very Die Hard Christmas" at Bryant Lake Bowl

I've never seen the popular 1988 action movie Die Hard, so for years I resisted seeing what has become an insanely popular holiday* tradition - A Very Die Hard Christmas at Bryant Lake Bowl (the 10pm showtime also kept me away). But this year, I finally had to see what everyone was raving about, especially since they added a few 8pm shows for us morning people. I'm still not sure I understand why it's so popular (this year they sold out the entire run before they even opened), but it is a super fun show chock full of pop culture references (of the '80s and Christmas varieties), with very funny performances by the cast. I've never seen such a packed and enthusiastic BLB audience. People love the show, and the team loves doing it, and I guess that's what makes it such a popular and long-standing tradition.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018: "A Justice League of Their Own"

Day: 5

Show: 20

Title: A Justice League of Their Own

Category: Comedy / Sci-Fi / Political Content

By: Mainly Me Productions

Directed by: Josh Carson

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A mash-up of A League of Their Own and superhero movies, in which female superheroes are recruited to fight evil and the patriarchy.

Highlights: Let me start by saying that I have very vague memories of watching A League of Their Own many years ago, and I don't watch superhero movies. At all. Because of this I probably missed about a third of the jokes (also because the 60 minutes are packed with as many jokes as Lin-Manuel Miranda musicals are packed with words, and because my brain moves considerably slower after 10 pm), but I still found this show brilliant and hilarious. Kudos to director Josh Carson for writing (with ample help from his mostly female cast) a play that skewers the misogyny of the superhero universe and the world in general, and making it so funny and geeky too. Five awesome women (Allison Witham, Emily Jabas, Kelsey Cramer, Lauren Omernik, and Sulia Altenberg) play five awesome superheroes who, despite being strong and capable, have to deal with society's expectations of how they should behave. Heather Meyer is a superhero as well with her multiple characters and lighting fast dialogue, while Josh fills the Tom Hanks role as the past his prime alcoholic Batman hired to coach the women (with Andy Rocco Kraft and Brad Erickson playing many ridiculous roles). The entire cast is fun and playful and all around top notch. If you're more familiar with A League of Their Own than I am (I really need to watch that movie again), you might recognize some familiar scenes and themes, as well as some superhero archetypes. Like Not Fair, My Lady!, this show comes at just the right time and refreshingly shows us female characters just being (super) human. How revolutionary.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"The Extraordinary Terms of Ordinary Life" by Four Humors Theater at the Loring Theater

The Extraordinary Terms of Ordinary Life is a wacky, off-beat comedy, which seems fairly typical of Four Humors Theater.  The other Four Humors show I've seen is the new original rock musical The Age of Wordsworth - the life and words of William Wordsworth set to rock music.  This show really is nothing like that, but they are similar in that both are pieces created from unique and original ideas that really evoke a sense of time and place.

The time and place of The Extraordinary Terms of Ordinary Life is a life insurance company in Manhattan in 1929, just before the crash.  The play was written by Ryan Lear (who also directs), inspired by some old life insurance training manuals he found at a garage sale.  A band playing jazz standards of the time helps set the mood, and the Loring Theater is a perfect venue - it's an old vaudeville theater built in the 1920s.  The set pieces are cartoonish skyscrapers, with a nifty backdrop of the skyline of NYC.  The whole thing put together almost feels like watching a silent film from the era, with exaggerated facial expressions and gestures and broad physical comedy.

John Davidson (the adorable Andy Rocco Kraft who's adept at the physical comedy) moves from a small town to the big city in response to an ad from the "Good Old Life Insurance Company."  Naive and enthusiastic, he believes he could be "the man."  He's immediately hired by the head of the company (Alisa Mattson, who also plays his wife, who it turns out is really the one in charge).  The experienced salesman Frank Engles (the fast talking Ryan Nelson) takes Johnny under his wing and teaches him how to sell to anyone.  Johnny soon becomes a big success, and falls in love with the sweet girl in Accounts Receivable, Mary Southworth (Rachel Petri), who has dreams of becoming a salesman like her father.  Rounding out the cast are Kat Wodtke as a creepy old man who eats paper, and the clowns Garret Vollmer, Mark Rehani, and Jon Mac Cole playing multiple roles (and harmonizing on the company theme song).

The Extraordinary Terms of Ordinary Life is a wacky, fun, at times inexplicable look at a time when the economy was booming, until it all fell apart.  Sound familiar?  Only in this world we learn that the reason the economy tanks is because the bankers are storing up gold to feed to angry demons to keep them from eating the entire human race.  Huh?  Oh well, it's about as good of a reason as any others I've heard!

Things aren't always what they seem.