Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "5 Episodes of Minnesota Tonight; 4 Minnesota Fring3, it’s Minnesota 2Night’s 1st Time at Minnesota Fringe."

Day: 8

Show: 24

Title: 5 Episodes of Minnesota Tonight; 4 Minnesota Fring3, it’s Minnesota 2Night’s 1st Time at Minnesota Fringe.

Category: Comedy / Improv / Audience participation / LGBTQIA+ Content

By: Denzel Belin Presents

Created by: Minnesota Tonight

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: A late night style show featuring stand up, sketch comedy, music, and interviews.

Highlights: This is a great idea for a show, and host Denzel Belin does periodically it throughout the year, but this was my first time seeing it. Unfortunately Denzel wasn't there the night I saw it, but fortunately guest hose Bailey Murphy was a delight, as was musical guest James Rone singing and playing guitar (who knew this great improviser was also a musician?!). Before the show started we had a warm up comedian, as you actually do at such shows. I didn't catch (or retain) her name, but she was fun and easy going and returned for a few bits throughout the show. The real show began with comedian Emily Bradley, also very funny, and then proceeded to Bailey's desk monologue. All the typical elements of a late night show are there - guest interview (esteemed Fringe artist Ariel Pinkerton), sketch comedy (by the funny and feminist troupe Smartmouth Comedy), banter, and bits. There's one final performance of this fun show on Sunday, and it'll be different from any of the previous shows. Follow Minnesota Tonight for news of shows post-Fringe.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

"Holiday Office Party" at Strike Theater

There's a new long-form holiday* improv show in town, and much like Family Dinner (playing at HUGE Theater in Uptown through December 30), Holiday Office Party at Strike Theater in Northeast Minneapolis spoofs a familiar event in many people's lives - the office party. That semi-mandatory party with people who are sort of your friends but not really. I'm going into the office this week (for the first time in six months) to experience the real thing (planned funtivities: trivia and a cookie exchange), but I'm certain that it won't be nearly as fun as the Strike Office Party. A large cast pulled from a troupe of talented improvisers makes awkward small talk, drinks too much, and sings inappropriate karaoke. What's not to love?! There are three more shows this weekend, for the very reasonable price of $12, so check out the fun at your Northeast home for sketch comedy, improv, and storytelling.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Director's Cut: Survivor"

Day: 9

Show: 28

Title: Director's Cut: Survivor

Category: COMEDY / IMPROV

By: Smartmouth Comedy

Written by: Kendra Yarke, Bailey Murphy, Christine Pietz, and Kelliann Kary,

Location: Rarig Center Arena

Summary: A partially scripted and partially improvised spoof of Survivor.

Highlights: This was my first time seeing a "Director's Cut" by Smartmouth Comedy, a female-driven comedy troupe. They do these shows throughout the year at the Phoenix, in which they act out a classic TV script, but with the director (Kelliann Kary) calling pause and asking for an improved scene. For Fringe, they wrote not one but five original scripts of Survivor: Boundary Waters, that began with eight contestants in the first show and ended with one winner in the last (which I attended). There are really two elements here - the Survivor spoof, which was great fun for fans of the show (as I am) - and the improvised scenes, well played by the cast (Jacob Fate as host Jeff with Adam Boutz, Bailey Murphy, Drue Knutson, Edd Jones, Kendra Yarke, Kerri O'Halloran, Mickaylee Shaughnessy, and Mitchell Tilges as the survivors). They have a lot of fun paying homage to and gently mocking a venerable TV franchise, which is fun for the audience too. I enjoyed the show so much I wish I could have seen the build-up over all five episodes, I mean performances. And I hope to catch a "Director's Cut" sometime (if they do any that aren't past my bedtime). Follow their Facebook page for info on future performances.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Proof" at Bloomington Civic Theatre

I've attended a half dozen or so musicals at Bloomington Civic Theater and have always enjoyed what I've seen, but I've never been to their Black Box Theater to see a play. Bloomington is a bit of a drive from my home in the Northeast suburbs, so it took a special play to get me there for a non-musical. That play is Proof, my second favorite math play (the first being Tom Stoppard's Arcadia). Of course it's not really about math; math is the backdrop against which a very real and powerful story about family, identity, and metal illness is told. It's a beautifully written play (by David Auburn), and director Alan Sorenson and his able cast do a good job of bringing it to life. I was wiping away tears at several points during the play, which speaks to the emotions in the written words as well as in the performances.

Proof premiered on Broadway in 2000 and won the Tony for Best Play. I saw it on tour in 2002, which is proof (sorry) of it's popularity since Broadway plays don't go on tour as often as musicals. It tells the story of a young woman named Catherine whose father, a renowned mathematician, has just died. She took care of him in the final years of his life as his mental health deteriorated. In that time he filled 100 notebooks with gibberish, or is it mathematical genius? Similar to the movie A Beautiful Mind (based on the biography of mathematician Jon Nash), he sees patterns and codes everywhere, and it's difficult to decipher the difference between madness and genius. One of his former students, Hal, comes over to the house to go through the journals to see if there's anything of value. At the same time, Catherine's sister arrives from New York and tells her she's sold the house, and wants Catherine to move to New York with her. When Hal discovers one beautiful, complicated, ground-breaking proof, Catherine says that she wrote it. No one believes her since she's had little schooling; she dropped out of college to take care of her father. It's obvious she has inherited her father's mathematical skill, but has she also inherited his mental illness? That's the question that Catherine struggles with as she tries to figure out who she is without her crazy genius father to take care of and define her life.

This is Catherine's story, and Erin Mae Johnson is up to the task of conveying her varying emotions, from devastation at the loss of her father, to excitement at the possibility of new love, to betrayal when those closest to her don't believe in her. Scott Keely is excellent as her father, seen in flashbacks and hallucinations, becoming more and more unraveled as he descends further into his illness. Also good are Bailey Murphy as the businesslike sister who wants to wrap everything up neatly and move on with her life, and Zach Garcia as the enthusiastic math scholar Hal who befriends Catherine as he tries to glean something from what her father left behind.

Proof is a fantastic play, emotional and powerful and funny at times, presented nicely by BCT. You don't have to be a math nerd like me to enjoy it, but if you are, you'll learn some interesting facts about prime numbers and mathematician Sophie Germain, and enjoy a few inside jokes, like the one about a song called i. Proof is playing now through October 6 in BCT's Black Box Theater (discount tickets available at Goldstar.com).