Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "That Which Is Green"

Day: 6

Show: 20

Title: That Which Is Green

Category: Comedy / Drama / LGBTQIA+ Content / Political content / Religious content

By: Michael Rogers

Created by: Michael Rogers

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: Two friends named Kevin walk into the woods to visit their favorite tree, only to find it has changed, or maybe it wasn't so great to begin with.

Highlights: This is a show about a tree that isn't really about a tree at all. Kevin (Michael Rogers) has a love/hate relationship with this "tree," but just can't quit it. Kevin (Alex Van Loh) supports his friend but is tired of the push and pull. The tree is dying, and Kevin #1 is devastated, but also wants to burn it down. They decide to spend the night by the tree to see if it's better in the morning, and we flash back to a couple of scenes from each of the Kevins' early experience with the "tree" accompanied by a parent, and meeting each other while singing a hymn in the "tree" service. They've been friends through everything, and though the "tree" is no longer serving them, it's hard to let go of the past and the traditions you were raised in. The show makes good use of the gorgeous Southern, as the Kevins walk up and down the aisles, the hymn harmonies ringing out beautiful and clear in the space, the stage empty except for the trunk of a tree with a neon green light in the center of it. This is a sweet and lovely little show about friendship, and faith, and questioning, and finding your way in the world.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2025: "OPERA PUNKS"

Day: 3

Show: 9

Title: OPERA PUNKS

Category: Comedy / Improv / Musical Theater / Opera / Physical Theater

By: Kelly Shuda

Directed by: Kelly Shuda

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: Non-narrative musical improv.

Highlights: Non-narrative meaning instead of creating one cohesive story (like, say, the Shrieking Harpies), they create a bunch of short individual songs that may have some relation to the others but not clearly. In other words, it's just like a regular improv show, except that every word is sung, which makes it so much more impressive! Music director Kelly Shuda plays a wide variety of music, from opera to metal and everything in between, and this talented cast (Alsa Bruno, Isabella Dunsieth, Julia Weiss, Michael Rogers, and Nora Nelson) just goes with it, making up a new song that suits the musical style. They take a few suggestions from the audience, but it mostly just comes out of their weird and creative minds. They harmonize together very well both musically and improvisationally. I'm not even going to tell you about the songs I heard because they're so brilliantly bizarre, and you'll hear something totally different but just as bizarre! This show is pure entertainment, and this troupe (including Kelly who plays keyboard, guitar, and other instruments so enthusiastically) is so much fun to watch.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

"Berlin to Rügen" by Michael Rogers at Phoenix Theater

Traveling by train through Europe, specifically Germany (or even better - Switzerland), is one of life's greatest pleasures. I highly recommend it if you haven't done it yet. Firstly, it's so easy and convenient and accessible; you can get anywhere, and America has a lot to learn from Europe about public transit. But it's also a fun and relaxing way to travel. You can get up and walk around, get a snack, or just stay in your seat and nap or read or stare out the window. Watching the world pass by is an ideal environment for rumination, about the big and the little things in life. Such is the beginning of Michael Rogers' new solo show Berlin to Rügen. It starts off with a person on a train staring out the window and ruminating about their life, and then those ruminations go places I wasn't expecting. Places that are funny or heart-wrenching, and often both. See this new work by the artist who gave the best performance I saw a Minnesota Fringe last year, through Saturday only at the Phoenix Theater in Uptown.

Improv at the Jungle: "Off-Book"

With the recent closure of HUGE Theater, your Uptown home for improv for 15 years, local improv troupes and shows are needing to find new venues at which to perform. Jungle Theater, just blocks away from HUGE, has stepped up to be one of those venues. They have a new series called "Improv at the Jungle," with a group called The Neighborhood performing regularly, as well as a show called Off-Book, hosted and co-directed by Sean Dillon and Isabella Dunsieth. I saw the latter this week and I just may have a new favorite improv show! Keep reading for why, and make plans to see their next performance on March 3. Visit the Jungle website for info and tickets to all of their improv shows. You can also see improv at Strike Theater in Northeast Minneapolis, The Hive Collaborative in St. Paul, Brave New Workshop (which hosted the long-running show Family Dinner in December), and other locations around town. Visit this website for a list of improv events in the Twin Cities.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "As Above, So Below"

Day: 9

Show: 30

Title: As Above, So Below

Category: Drama / Physical Theater / Solo Show / Storytelling

By: Michael Rogers

Created by: Michael Rogers

Location: Barker Center for Dance

Summary: A solo storytelling piece dealing with traumatic family issues that is visceral and mesmerizing.

Highlights: Michael Rogers gives the best performance I saw at Fringe this year. He performs the piece in a stream of consciousness style, almost like a long form poem. It's beautifully written, with lyrical and descriptive language that makes you see and feel what he's describing. He talks about the recent falling apart of his family, that showed cracks long ago. As he says, his mother was diagnosed with cancer, his father was diagnosed with Q-Anon, and only one recovered. He talks about his dad's childhood, his own childhood, and into the recent past when a bad breakup sent him on a downward spiral in which all of these things simmering below the surface finally boiled over. Michael performs in a small circle spotlight in the middle of the stage, with an easy chair, end tables, candles, and wine. The show starts off lighter and a little funny, and then begins to loop around and around and back again, until the audience is completely riveted to the point where you could hear a pin drop. It's the kind of raw, vulnerable, brutally honest performance that requires him to assure us at the end that he's OK. It feels that real. He just completely goes there in his performance, letting us in to the worst moments of his life, and it's incredibly moving. Truly an astounding and unforgettable show.

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Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2023: "OPERA PUNKS"

Day: 7

Show: 25

Title: OPERA PUNKS

Category: COMEDY / IMPROV / MUSICAL THEATER / ORIGINAL MUSIC / OPERA / PHYSICAL THEATER / KID FRIENDLY / LGBTQIA+ CONTENT

By: SECRET CULT

Created by: Kelly Shuda

Location: Rarig Xperimental 

Summary: Short form musical improv.

Highlights: Like most improv, this is a wild ride covering many weird topics. But unlike most improv, it's entirely sung! Five talented musical improvisors (Isabella Dunsieth, Ruben Gomez, Nora Nelson, Michael Rogers, Julia Weiss) perform short scenes based on audience prompts. They're accompanied by Director Kelly Shuda on keyboard and guitar, who sets the style of the song, and also fiercely watches the performers to pick up and pass cues. The show I saw had songs about aliens, amusement park accidents, siblings reuniting and resurrecting their dad, and a really weird story that ended with people (or aliens, or blood cells?) traveling around inside a body. Entertaining and well sung and bizarre.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival: "Five-Fifths of Back to the Future" at the Cowles Center

My favorite kick-off event for my favorite theater festival is back! I can't recall if the Minnesota Fringe Festival did their annual Five-Fifths fundraiser last spring (and they certainly didn't do it the two years before that), but if they did I didn't go. I attended this delightfully fringey event in which five Fringe companies interpret one-fifth of a popular movie the five years prior to the pandemic (which resulted in one entirely virtual Fringe and one mostly virtual Fringe, before they returned to a fully in-person festival last fall). This year they once again picked one of my favorite movies from my youth - Back to the Future. I hadn't seen it in a while so I re-watched it yesterday, which is unnecessary because there's a plot summary in the program. And anyway, it's not really about the movie, it's about seeing what five different groups of artists do with the same prompt. The results are wildly different and ridiculously creative - just like the Fringe Festival is. Mark your calendars for August 3-13, and prepare to get adventurous!

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2019: "Multiverse"

Day: 9

Show: 27

Title: Multiverse

Category: HORROR / IMPROV / SCI-FI

By: My Town Improv

Created by: My Town Improv

Location: Rarig Center Xperimental

Summary: An improvised fantasty/sci-fi story that continued over the five shows to this conclusion.

Highlights: If I had seen the previous four shows, I might have understood what the deal with Jake Gyllenhaal's disembodied tongue was, as well as ghost Maggie Gyllenhaal, but no matter. With the audience prompt of someone's greatest fear (a big hole in the ground), this talented group of improvisers (Anna Tobin, Derek Landseidl, Marty Wessels, Michael Rogers, Shelby Schroeder, and Will Schroeder) was off, building on the previous stories to create this story of our heroes fighting foes (the perfume goddess and her henchman Mark Wahlberg) with the help of the Gyllenhaals. And something about parents and exes that kept appearing. The show is fun, inventive, silly, with haunting musical accompaniment by John Hilsen. Follow My Town Improv's Facebook page to find out where you can see them next.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"George" by Sheep Theater at Phoenix Theater

Celebrate Independence Day with Sheep Theater, who is bringing back their delightfully wacky original comedy George for the July 4th weekend. This show was my first introduction to Sheep four years ago, with their motto of "Original plays. Deranged sincerity," and I've enjoyed many moments of deranged sincerity since. At the time I called George "funny, clever, and irreverent, with jokes about the many things America is best at (giving speeches, celebrating) and how it's OK to lie if it's for the good of the country." Revisiting it, it gave me all of the patriotic feels, watching a bunch of goofballs make fun of our founding fathers (and mothers!) in the most lovingly irreverent way, celebrating all of the freedoms we hold dear, and remembering the ideals this country was founded on (which is easy to forget these days). As my great-grandmother, daughter of Polish immigrants, used to say - hooray for the 4th of July!

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2018: "Couple Fight: The Musical!"

Day: 10

Show: 32

Title: Couple Fight: The Musical!

Category: Comedy / Dance - Modern / Musical Theater

By: Weggel-Reed Productions

Created by: Anna Weggel-Reed and Tom Reed

Location: Rarig Center Thrust

Summary: The fourth installment in the ingenious series in which real life couples reenact their real life fight, only this time it's a musical!

Highlights: This concept is so brilliant it really should have life outside Fringe. I would love for them to bring it back for a 3-4 week run as a 90-minute show, or maybe a recurring cabaret series. This cast is so full of talent that listening to them fight is sheer joy, and adding music and dance only makes it better, especially when uber talented local composer Keith Hovis writes the songs. Whether the fight is about high expectations around a vacation (soon to be married couple Max Wojtanowicz and Allen Sommerfield), overflowing toilets (newly married couple Lizzie and Bobby Gardner), doing a risky dance lift (long married couple Divya Maiya and Madhu Bangalore - they do the lift!), which 1980s Jim Hensen movie is the best (long married couple Lacey and John Zeiler), a disagreement about a broken glass (roomies Michael Rogers and Alex Van Loh), what to watch on TV (best married couple ever Shanan Custer and Eric Webster), or whether or not someone is mad (girlfiends Allison Witham and Emily Dussault), these fights are so real and relatable but at the same time overly dramatic (as fights can sometimes get) and hilarious. As a bonus we also get three women friends (Colleen Sommerville Leeman, Mandi Verstegen, and Anna Weggel-Reed) vowing to support each other 'til death do them part. Each cast member brings their own unique talent, and the songs and sketches really bring out the best of each of them in a well constructed show that flies by. I love this series and this is my favorite installment yet, and just leaves me wanting more! More Couple Fight!!

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"The Minotaur Or: Amelia Earhart is Alive and Traveling Through the Underworld" by Sheep Theater at In the Heart of the Beast Theatre

The history and legend of Amelia Earhart and Greek mythology seems like an odd mix. In other words, perfect for Sheep Theater, a company that promises "original plays with an emphasis on classically epic stories that highlight the deranged confidence of humanity with sincerity and honesty." Like much of their work, The Minotaur Or: Amelia Earhart is Alive and Traveling Through the Underworld is a fun mish-mash of history, legend, and myth with an awkwardly long title. With a lot of ingenuity, heart, and silliness, the troupe proposes one possible fate for the long missing pioneering aviator, and makes the Underworld look like a pretty fun place to hang out.

"Christmas Storiessz V: Silent Night" by Sheep Theater at the Southern Theater

There's no better way to spend Christmas Eve Eve Eve than at an irreverent, ridiculous, super fun show by Sheep Theater. This is their fifth year presenting a series of original plays called Christmas Storiessz, about a detective in pursuit of an evil Santa. Even though I'm a fan of Sheep Theater, I've never seen Christmas Storiessz before, but no worries, there's enough exposition to catch us up to the present. But the plot isn't really what matters with this show. It's more of an excuse for Sheep to do their thing, with a little bit of holiday flair.

Fringe Festival 2017: "Pinocchio"

Day: 2

Show: 8

Title: Pinocchio

Category: Drama

By: Sheep Theater

Created by: Sheep Theater

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: A re-imagining of the classic tale of a wooden boy who longs to be real, in which Geppetto is a gangster and Pinocchio a sociopath.

Highlights: This hilarious alternate universe Pinocchio is narrated by Jiminy Cricket (Michael Rogers in a beautiful green velvet jacket), who in this version is just a cricket forced into being a conscience for the wooden boy. Geppetto (Jacob Mobley) is a former gangster who now wants nothing more than to love and parent the puppet Pinocchio (a truly creepy and dead-eyed Robb Goetzke) that his deceased wife, the blue fairy (Iris Rose Page), brought to life. But since he has no feelings, Pinocchio turns to the dark side and joins with his father's enemies (Joey Hamburger and Michael Torsch) as they create "Pleasure Island" - a sinful place full of big cigarettes, booze, and gallivanting. In typical Sheep Theater style the show is clever and funny and goofy, and a whole lot of fun.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"The Assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand" by Sheep Theater at the Southern Theater

"Warn the Duke!" calls the clairvoyant little boy in the musical Ragtime. Those who paid attention in their high school history class know that he's referring to Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian crown, whose assassination in 1914 started World War I. It turns out the story is a little more complicated than that, and Sheep Theater's new play The Assassination of the Archduke of Austria-Hungary Franz Ferdinand tells the story fairly historically accurately (from what Wikipedia tells me, my high school history class being a long time ago), but with modern language and humor. The result is part history lesson, part reflection on the current state of events, part tragedy, and part wacky farce. Judging by the sold out house last night, Sheep Theater (they do "original plays with an emphasis on classically epic stories that highlight the deranged confidence of humanity with sincerity and honesty"), has a loyal following, deservedly so, and might want to consider extending their runs past the usual handful of shows. This one closes tonight, sorry folks! Watch their website and Facebook page for your next opportunity to see this uniquely clever and funny company.

"George" at Bedlam Lowertown

Grilled cheese, fries, a beer, and zany, topical, funny, original theater. Is there a better way to celebrate the independence of this great nation? Our foremothers and fathers fought the British and won our freedom 239 years ago so that someday, their story could be told in a light-hearted and irreverent way in front of an audience enjoying good food and drinks. I'm joking of course, but in all seriousness one of the great things about this country is that we can freely make fun of ourselves and use theater and art to entertain and make commentary. George does exactly that and makes for a fun and festive night out.

I had been in Bedlam Theatre's newish space, the restaurant/bar/performance space known as Bedlam Lowertown (located in St. Paul's Lowertown neighborhood, obviously), but this was my first time actually seeing a show there. It's a similar idea to the Bryant Lake Bowl, with full menu and bar service before, during, and after the show, except that the layout is a little more friendly and its primary focus is theater. The menu's interesting, the beer selection is good, and it's kind of fun to eat while watching a show, although I did feel a little awkward chomping my fries a few feet away from the actors doing their thing (note: this is an exception to my no eating at the theater rule). After the show a musician took the stage, and with events happening just about every night, this is definitely a place you should check out.

On to the show. Written by Joey Hamburger and directed by Michael Hugh Torsch, both of whom also appear in the show, George tells the story of Independence Day in a slightly, well, different way. Part Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (it's not a musical, but there is music accompaniment by John Hilsen), part Weekend at Bernie's, part Drunk History, it reimagines George Washington (played by the playwright with a bit of Andy Samberg zaniness) as a hapless, clueless, but good-natured fellow. When an accident caused by his two "squires" Thomas Jefferson (Michael Rogers) and John Hancock (Kevin Callaghan) leaves him dead, they prop him up and carry on the business of wooing heiress Liberty Freedombell (Laura Hickey) and defeating King George (Patrick Latterell, pompous and spoiled), hoping that an electrical trick they learned from Benjamin Franklin (a scene-stealing Jacob Mobley) will bring him back to life.

George is funny, clever, and irreverent, with jokes about the many things America is best at (giving speeches, celebrating) and how it's OK to lie if it's for the good of the country (which seems to be the motto of most politicians and the entire cast of Scandal). Unfortunately the short run concludes this Friday, so go soon if you're going! You can also catch this writer/director team at the Fringe, and keep your eye on the Bedlam Lowertown website for future events