Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Unproblematic Faves: Best of Ladybrain"

Day: 8

Show: 25

Title: Unproblematic Faves: Best of Ladybrain

Category: COMEDY

By: Ladybrain

Created by: Ladybrain Sketch Comedy

Location: Strike Theater

Summary: A series of sketches by an all-female sketch comedy troupe called Ladybrain.

Highlights: Ladybrain (aka Emily Townswick, Gabby Vandenavond, Lauren Chesnut, Meredith Jacobs, and Nancy Linden) present a half dozen or so funny, silly, topical, smart, and sometimes stupid (in a good way) sketches. My favorites were the "brewpocalypse" - all of Minneapolis has been overtaken by breweries and men with beards and flannel shirts, and the "cat collar" - a new product for men to wear to prevent cat-calling, because it's so hard to be a man in today's environment (sarcasm). I'm happy to support women in the traditionally male-dominated field of comedy, and Ladybrain makes that easy. Their Fringe show is over, but you can catch them throughout the year at Strike Theater, your Northeast home for sketch comedy, storytelling, and spoken word.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Cat Confidential: The Secret Lives of the Mothers of Lions"

Day: 5

Show: 16

Title: Cat Confidential: The Secret Lives of the Mothers of Lions

Category: COMEDY / DANCE / MUSICAL THEATER / SPOKEN WORD / STORYTELLING

By: Weggel Productions

Created by: Anna Weggel, Lauren Anderson and the cast

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: Sketches, songs, and stories about the most magnificent of creatures - cats - and the women who love them.

Highlights: This show about cats made me cry more than the show about grief! Which probably tells you all you need to know about me. As the mother of three lions (currently, seven total in my life), I found these stories to be so relatable and human. Because it's not just about cats, really, but about how having animals in our lives enriches our lives. They provide emotional support, love, a purpose, comfort, entertainment. Each cast member (Anna Weggel, Danna Sheridan, Emily Townswick, Heather Meyer, Liz Coucil, Mandi Verstegen, Maria Bartholdi, Meghan Wolff, Pam Mazzone, and Siri Hellerman) tells a sweet or funny or sad story about her cat, and how the cat helped them through grief, divorce, anxiety, or just the complications of living life. With a couple of funny sketches about the life of cats. The show is very well constructed, with each sketch or story followed by a charming song (by Anna and Mandi) that directly relates to the previous story (and often comes from the musical theater canon), while the women, all dressed in black, move around the space like cats. This show is a must-see for cat-lovers (I'm certain it's way better than the upcoming Cats movie!). And if you don't love cats, well, I don't even know what to say to you.

my babies Moritz Stiefel, Claude Hooper Bukowski, and George Berger

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Family Dinner" and "The Mess" at HUGE Improv Theater

It's been too long since I've enjoyed some improv at HUGE Theater in Uptown. But thanks to the appeal of the annual hit Family Dinner, I made a visit last weekend. And since I was there, I also stayed for the 9:30 show (I'm afraid a 10:30 show is more than this morning person can do, sorry improv-ers). Family Dinner has Friday and Saturday performances for the next two weekends but is virtually sold out. But the other show I caught, The Mess, performs Saturday nights and is also a great option. In fact, just about every night there is something funny going on at HUGE, so check it out sometime to experience something outside of the usual #TCTheater world.

Fringe Festival 2015: "Manners and Misconduct: Improvised Jane Austen"

Day: 2

Show: 6

Title: Manners and Misconduct: Improvised Jane Austen

Category: Comedy

By: Burnt Nightingale Productions

Created by: Burnt Nightingale Productions

Location: Illusion Theater

Summary: A nine-woman cast improvises a Jane Austen-esque story based on a title suggested on Facebook or Twitter and names suggested by the audience.

Highlights: The play I saw was titled Vanity and Virtue - it sounds like a book Jane Austen would have written, doesn't it? The story of the Pembletons and the Sethwaites (there was some confusion about this suggested name) includes all of the requirements of a Jane Austen novel - cousins, a flighty sister, a bookish sister, visits to the country, a scandal, an eccentric aunt, a hidden fortune, sudden proposals, walks in the garden, and witty dialogue. All of the women in the cast (half of whom play men) are fantastic improvisors and play off of each other well. And they speak in (slightly modernized) 19th Century language. What else is there to say - it's fresh, funny, and very Jane Austen.