Fringe Festival 2016: "Lewis/Clark"

Day: 3

Show: 10

Title: Lewis/Clark

Category: Something Different

By: Rhymes with Montana

Created by: Debra Berger, Emily King, and Tyler Mills (narrative playwright)

Location: Phoenix Theater

Summary: An original story of discovery, adventure, and friendship, inspired by the real-life adventures of Lewis and Clark but taking it into the territory of imagination.

Highlights: Everything that this group does (performer/creators Debra Berger and Emily King, collaborators Tyler Mills and Tyler Michaels) is indescribably lovely, funny and whimsical yet strangely moving and somehow profound. In this story, the fictional female adventurers Lewis and Clark reunite after many years apart for one more grand adventure. Lewis has found something new, and wants Clark to go with her so they can discover it together, as they have so many places before. Past hurts are revisited but their friendship endures. The story is fantastical, but incorporates actual writings as varied as "How to Skin a Rabbit"and transcripts from the moon landing. Musician Derek Trost provides a soundtrack for the story using various percussion instruments, and Debra sings an original song (with lyrics by Tyler Mills and composition by the company) about a female explorer that sounds like it was written 100 years ago. The two women also sing Stan Rogers' "Northwest Passage," with harmonies so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. Lewis/Clark combines movement, music, historical writings, storytelling, and LaCroix sparkling water in a completely unique and innovative way. (Watch for more from the Tylers when they launch their new theater company next spring with The Gest of Robin Hood, which was part of Illusion Theater's "Fresh Ink" new works festival this year.)

Fringe Festival 2015: "To The Moon"

Day: 2

Show: 5

Title: To The Moon

Category: Something Different

By: Sunday Night Fold

Written by: Tyler Mills

Location: Illusion Theater

Summary: A lovely and inventive telling of a fairy tale about a childless mother and father who go to the moon in search of a child, or whatever adventure they might find.

Highlights: So much loveliness it's hard to describe. Let's start with Tyler Mill's lyrical and poignant and funny words (see also Jonah and the Whale). Then add in Derek Trost's evocative musical soundtrack to the story. All of it creating a picture in the mind's eye, made real by the cast which includes the playwright (as the father), Debra Berger (as the mother), Emily King (as the narrator), and Tyler Michaels (as everyone else - children, women, men). It's a sweet and simple story, but the joy is in the telling. Tyler Michaels is a master at creating a character from the inside out, and it's a pleasure to watch him do it multiple times in the space of an hour. The other Tyler and Debra are so warm and sweet and funny as this comfortably loving couple (they've had practice - they're married in real life.). Last but not least, Emily presides over the story like Alanis Morisette in that movie where she played God. The only props onstage are two stools, which are used almost as inventively as the props of movement and physicality. To the Moon is my favorite kind of Fringe show - genuine and beautiful and whimsical and dreamy.

"Killer Inside" by Sandbox Theatre at Red Eye Theater

The "murder ballad" is a genre of music in which a deliciously tragic tale of murder is told through a sad and lovely song, often associated with Appalachian or traditional Scottish or Irish music. Sandbox Theatre, a company that performs new works created by the ensemble, has taken the idea of the murder ballad and turned it into a 90-minute musical called Killer Inside. Basically it's a series of new murder ballads acted out and sung by the ensemble, tied together in a prison setting. It's dark and disturbing, but really creative and inventive, and well-performed by the seven-person ensemble (Derek Lee Miller, Derek Meyer, Evie Digirolama, Kristina Fjellman, Megan Campbell Lagas, Sam Landman, and Theo Langason) and two-person band (Charlie Henrikson and Derek Trost).

The ensemble members, who collaborated to write all of the music and the story, play various characters on both sides of the law - prisoners and officers at Pittsville Penitentiary. There's not so much a throughline plot, but rather a series of vignettes in which we hear the various stories of these characters in the prison. The officers tell and sing about what it means to them to work with murderers. The prisoners also share their stories of murder. Some of the murderers are sympathetic - wronged people standing up for themselves or protecting their family, others are after revenge, still others are cold-blooded psychopaths. They all have a different reason for killing, but they all ended up in the same place.

Songs range in style from the Appalachian/bluegrass sound (my favorite) to a wild rock song, with a crazy tap dance thrown in. Some of the songs are funny, some poignant, some frightening, all pretty great. (You can hear some of the creators talk about the process of writing in an episode of Twin City Song Cycle.) The band accompanies the ensemble, some of whom also join in with the band, on fiddle, guitar, drums, and piano. All are dressed in matching gray and yellow color-blocked prison uniforms, on a starkly bare stage.

Killer Inside continues for one more weekend at Red Eye Theater. Check it out for some original, inventive, creative music-theater.