- Here's The Description of All
54 Plays at SF Fringe 2003
- CLICK ON PLAY TITLE FOR THE LOCATION AND SCHEDULE
CLICK ON PLAY FOR MORE INFO ON THAT PLAY INCLUDING TIMES AND LOCATION
- 0 to 6 in 60
69 Moments of Life
Actor, You're Killing Me
Air Tight Security
Almost True Adventures ...
Amazing Improvised Musical
Animal Farm
Ballerina on a Horse
Beautiful Man
Berserker
Caffe di Amore or ...
Check the Box
Clearing Hedges
Corned Beef
Countless
Crime & Variations
Death Blow II: The British ...
Demon Pope
Diagnosis: Jew Pain ...
Disco Prophecies
Ethan's Gift
Far From Springer
Fixed Boundry
Forty Love
Got Water
I Can't Believe They're Not Oriental!
Idiot Machine ...
In Cahoots
John Muir: Watch, Pray, Fight
Late Night Talk Show
Ludlow and Canal
Magic at the Fringe
Man 1, Bank 0
Marx in Soho
Mixed Signal
Mother: A Modern Buddhist ...
Naked Inqisition
nEO - urrealists present ...
Neon's Crazy Blue
Nharcolepsy
Original Action Pack
Park - N - Ride
Passages
Sandwich
Scabaret!
Searching for God in Kerala
Seventh Game of the World Series
Shadow Kissers
Strobe Vision
This World is Not My Home
Total Improvisation - ...
Train Stories
Tripping on the Equator ...
Twinspeak
It's a Fringe within a Fringe! Overdose by taking in 6 plays in 60 minutes. From the bowels of Berkeley's "Playwrights Cafe" comes romance, death, redemption and the politics of the men's room! This potpourri of comedies and dramas by award-winning playwrights as well as first-timers will relieve you of that nagging Fringe feeling - "am I missing the good stuff?"
69 MOMENTS OF LIFE is a theatrical exploration of truth, love and freedom filled with dreams and nightmares. A man comes back to life 69 seconds after having flat-lined. A lover long-gone. An Icarus obsession. The orgy Madonna never had. Auntie's Catholic-Selective-Memory. A buffet of storytelling, imagery, music, song, movement and silence for those who crave something different... www.queertheatre.com
What if bad stage acting could actually kill audience members!
In this
courtroom comedy drama, the audience becomes the jury - deciding the fate
of the Bad Actor as the prosecution and defense present their compelling
cases. Is the actor's bad renditions of Shakespeare and Mamet responsible
for killing audience members, or are their deaths a coincidental byproduct
of over exposure to Reality TV? Only you can decide the answer.
Madeline and Gary anxiously await the arrival of their estranged son÷but try as they might to keep up appearances, things begin to fall apart before he ever arrives. A post-911 comment on the scarcity of diplomacy, and the barriers we impose÷on ourselves and others.
Almost True Adventures of an ex-Mormon Stripper and the cursed generations that came before
How does a good Mormon girl end up a stripper? This almost true life story uses puppets, projected images, singing and three women to tell of five generations of Mormon women; from two sisters of Leeds, England who marry the same man and travel to Utah to live a polygamous life, to Heidi, who is estranged from her mother because of her life choices -- these women are connected by their blood and silence, while Heidi struggles to find her voice, and laments the lost voices of all the Mormon mothers who came before.
Ever heard of the musicals Subway!, Office Party, or Jesus 2004? No? Neither had the Un-Scripted Theater Company before they performed them in front of an audience. Witness the creation of a musical play right before your eyes! Using composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim as their inspiration, the players will weave songs and stories into a tapestry of romance, humor and the state of the human heart. All done without scripts-just the collaborative alchemy between the actors and the audience.
Manor Farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. They create Animal Farm; a model community, a paradise of progress, justice and equality, setting the stage for the telling of one of the most satirical fables of all time, a razor-edged fairly tale, that records the evolution of a revolution against tyranny to a terrible totalitarianism. This cautionary tale - an allegorical lesson - is a warning against political innocence and apathy. Although targeting Stalinist Russ fifty years ago, it shows that whever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, Orwell's masterpiece has a meaning and a message still ferociously fresh.
Have you ever dared to chase a wild dream? Ballerina on a Horse is Annie's story about discovering that her dream is to stand on a galloping horse. In pursuit of this, she finds herself traveling around the Midwest with a small one-ring circus. Experience the glamour! - the adventure! - and Annie's personal struggle to fit into a world where she is not completely welcome. "Disarmingly charming" See Magazine
A San Francisco-flavored comedy by Joe Jennison [NBC’s “The Royal Family”] about a PR hack named Andy J and his infatuation with Benji, a new co-worker who may or may not be gay. In his pursuit to find out which sideÊBenji's bread is buttered, Andy J. contends with his cynical but pragmatic roommate and with Benji's too-perfect live-in girlfriend, not to mention the philosophies of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and... and the roses and... and why is a fourth wall needed anyway?! (NOTE: Joe Jennison will be at the performances.)
What do the confessions of Nat Turner and Jeffrey Dahmer have in common? Paul Outlaw answers this unexpected question in BERSERKER, an hilariously unsettling look at America's "heart of darkness" - our national obsessions with race, sex and violence. This homoerotic stew of solo physical theatre also features texts from Essex Hemphill and Samuel Delany and is at once entertaining, thought-provoking and intensely moving. "Phenomenal...a sledgehammer of a monologue." (LA Weekly)
Caffe di Amore or Poop Goes the Weasle
Join Famiglia Formaggio as we brew up our own blend of freshly roasted commedia dell'arte: All around the Coffee Bean bush, The zannis chased the weasel, the weasel ate the coffee beans, POOP! Goes the weasel!
What would you expect from an Irish-American Lesbian? A Jewish belly dancer-engineer? A sophisticated Midwestern farm twin? A Melting Pot Firebrand from Marin? A Eurasian management consultant? Well, forget what you might think. These five over-40 women playwrights will surprise you with their humor and candor in five short new plays.
A one-woman play straight from New York, Chicago, Vienna, and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Probes the controversy surrounding the famed Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Babe was an outspoken, ebullient, Olympic athlete who dominated seven sports and annihilated her competition. Chicago actor/playwright Jennifer Barclay plays seven characters, ripping open a celebrity's private tortures and igniting passionate theatre. "Soaring work of dramatic athleticism." (ChicagoTheatre.com), "FOUR STARS"(Metro & Three Weeks, Scotland).
A director's choice of short structuralist plays. Corned Beef: A woman brings a man home from a bar. Pounding: Two working men collide in the course of duty. Ironman: A young man's dream crashes head-on with reality. Director's Cut: A gifted film director doubts his abilities on the first day of a new contract. Mad Tom: A man has a shot at redemption but does not want all the consequences. The plays were developed in the local workshops of Playwright's Center, Theatre Artist's Conspiracy, and Playwright's Lab.
Best of Fringe 2002 winner Sara Kraft (Woods for the Trees) returns with two captivating new collaborators, cellist/composer Zoe Keating (Rasputina, Tarentel) and new media/visual artist Gregory Cowley (Blasthaus, Transcinema, Test). The EXIT's new neighbor, Rx Gallery, hosts this collision of physical theatre, live music, and live interactive technology in an immersive environment of visual projection. "(Kraft has) a remarkable power to weave fragmentary, multi-media elements into a seamless whole with intelligence and craft. Scene after scene of remarkable grace and beauty."-The Chicago Reader
In the aftermath of a disastrous backers' audition of his new musical about the King brothers‰ murder case, Stephen Sondheim, director Daisy Prince (Hal Prince's daughter), Alex King (who killed his father with a baseball bat) and his wealthy (and considerably older) wife, gather outside the post-reading reception and the fur flies. A classic bitch-fest from the pen of Joe Besecker (2002 "Best of Fringe" winner for The Way Light Strikes Filled Mason Jars), directed by John Sowle.
Death Blow II: The British are coming!
My lords, ladies and gentlemen! Sir Henry Dunn, The Earl of Rackham and Lord Benjamin of Gauntlet bring you British sketch comedy in all its glory. "Engerland swings like a pendulum do." London buses, the Crown Jewels, Strapon-upon-Avon, Pearly Queens, fish and chips. English enough for you? Sir Lawrence of Alabia, Scott of the Anteater and Dame Judy Bench will not be appearing. Jellied eels, guvnor?
An #1 favorite from the '98 SF Fringe Festival returns! "A sprightly comedy of the apocalypse. Diana Brown is marvelous as the double-dealing Lucifer" (SF Bay Guardian). In the 10th Century, a monk makes a deal with Lucifer (Diana Brown). 30 years & 30 days later- in the dawn of the First Millennium- the monk is now pope... and Lucifer returns to collect. A serious comedy about the beginning of Time and the end of the World.
Diagnosis: Jew Pain (Slideshow of a life in Progress)
A farcical and off-kilter coming of age story that explores racial and sexual identity. Comic performer Michael Feldman inhabits over fifteen characters as he recounts growing up bisexual in a conservative Brooklyn Jewish family. A raucous, hysterical, and honest look at the way we think, the people who influence our lives, and the expectations we must live up to.
Disco Guru Trevor Wight takes you on an enlightening journey that the Melbourne Age called "A must-see" and "quality time-out". A cult hit at both the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and The TV2 International LAUGH! Festival in New Zealand, The Disco Prophecies is a hilarious history of disco dancing. A true story (mainly) of how Disco brought the world to Australia, and enlightenment to a suburban boy.
Bobby Davenport, minister of Louisville's Tabernacle of the Firmament and radio host of "God's Voice in the Wilderness," stands accused of murder, embezzlement, and multiple adulteries. In what may be his final sermon, he turns to one of the Bible's least celebrated prophets--Ethan--in defense of his life, his leadership, and his immortal soul. Written and directed by River Jackson, starring River Jackson. Formerly a member of Bay Area TheatreSports (BATS); founding father of the musical improv group THE DIPS.
Fresh off a fierce run in the author's living room where the SF Examiner proclaimed it one of the Top Ten Theater Experiences of 2002, FAR FROM SPRINGER lands at the Fringe Festival.Ê FAR FROM SPRINGER, a laugh/cry-better-than-Cats show, invites viewers into the living room of two queer best friends following their not-entirely-thought-through conception together. Enjoying snack foods and devouring copious amounts of reality TV, the uncharted venture begins to strain their seemingly solid relationship. Only after discovering that they are not far removed from the folks on Springer, do they discover renewed hopes.
Liebe Wetzel's award winning Lunatique Fantastique present: Fixed Boundary.Using rolls of toilet paper, a plunger and other bathroom hardware, the ensemble tells the funny, poignant tale of two children who have to struggle over a divided territory and limited resources.A show inspired by, but not depicting, events in the Middle East.
Childhood romance morphs into internet dating. Can tips
from the tennis court help Victor avoid being sucked into black holes of
cyberspace? Can modern technology really help in the pursuit of love? Answers
to these questions, and more, in this comic, poignant tale of one man's
quest for
that ever-elusive chemistry with the woman of his dreams.
Far in the future, water is so scarce it's gold, and the usual adolescent struggles are complicated by having to compete for rare resources-- or is it so far away? Developed with teen actors, "got water?" is a biting, funny vision of an arid landscape, with new cultural rules for who drinks and who doesn't. An original, thought provoking piece that will make you think before you drink.
I Can't Believe They're Not Oriental!
L.A.'s Asian American sketch comedy troupe OPM (last year's "Best of the Fringe") returns with an all-new show, featuring "robust performances from an attractive ensemble" (LA Weekly) in sketches that provide mass quantities of hilarity and food for thought.
Idiot Machine: The Life and Death of 1 and 2
Three idiots, living in a world of garbage, build disguises to manipulate each other. Too stupid to control their imaginations, they come to believe their own lies and are soon caught in a fictitious but deadly love triangle. Blending carefully orchestrated multi-media with virtuosic physical comedy, the Idiot Machine ensemble performs an act of grotesque alchemy, delicately transforming Beckett's existential void into a frenetic Shakespearean farce full of big laughs.
Three of Alaska's most talented and funny physical theatre performers give you a show like nothing you've seen before. Three characters lose their apple cake. An absurdist argument ensues, wild abandon rules and laughter prevails. Complete with song, dance and Jello, this rumpus is about making fun, seeking revenge and discovering forgiveness. Endearing, entertaining and gut-busting, In Cahoots is a wild night of fun and old-style Alaskan home-grown comedy.
Mark Raddatz portrays naturalist and Sierra Club founder John Muir in a one man show composed entirely of Muir's own words. A well researched reconstruction of a Muir 'stump speech' from the time of the Yosemite Park and Hetch-Hetchy fights; his crackling wit and dramatic imagery. A sometimes thorny ramble through religion, politics and damming in the Sierras with conservation's first and most effective spokesman. "...Muir is passionate, funny; Raddatz is riveting. Highly recomended" - Red Rock Review.
Watch as our studio audience takes part in the most watched television variety-talk show on stage. With America’s favorite live on-stage TV variety-talk show hostess, the fabulous and flamboyant, Dollya Hoffman-Kaufman-Stein-Steinberg. “…just an Oak-town girl living in her NY world.” A hilarious and surprising 60 minute multi-media extravaganza. Not to mention, they get to see the hottest stars and the most fabulous variety acts on our TV stage.
Greek tragedy collides with slapstick comedy; sitcoms are rendered through a cubist lens; knock knock jokes spin wildly out of control; and a screwball farce ends in gunplay. Springing from New York's Alternative Comedy scene, "Ludlow and Canal" uses the sketch format to deconstruct the patterns, forms and cliches of comedy, repackaging them inÊsurprising ways that entertain while providing insights into the nature of humor.
You've seen magic on TV. You know how it works. Now watch critically acclaimed Bay Area actor and champion magician, Christian Cagigal, weave his blend of comedy, drama, storytelling, and magic in a way rarely seen. No glitz. No flash. Just him and you.
Theatergoers are in for a hilarious, spellbinding, and ultimately moral journey into the true story of the most famous prank in banking history when award-winning writer and television actor Patrick Combs, presents his mesmerizing, nationally touring one-man show Man 1, Bank 0. Combs tells the story of the time when he found himself in what the Associated Press called "a David and Goliath-like story." He received a phony promotional check in the mail for $95,000 and deposited it into his checking account as a joke. It cleared. The rest is banking history.
Marx returns from the dead to argue his case in a post-communism world. Was he a good husband? Was he a passionate revolutinary? Are his ideas still relevant? In answering these questions, he reflects on the connection between personal moments, history, and the political.
C.A.F.E.âs Tilted Frame Improv presents the Bay Area's only theatrical production integrating improvisational performance with digital video, music, and the internet, all live, all fully improvised, and all new every night. Tilted Frame's actors, musicians and videographers use these tools to weave a seamless performance from the threads of Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the campfire. Technology is harnessed to the storytelling of the theater to produce stories that are at once cutting edge and fully human. Come join us to explore the possibilities of blending the world's newest and oldest ways to connect.
Mother: A Modern Buddhist Fairy Tale
Grief stricken, a woman approaches a Zen Monk and demands to know why she has lost her only child. The Monk instructs her to find one whom Death has not touched. Assuming that her release lies in the answer, she sets forth, encountering a variety of characters: some simple, some fantastical. By blending Broken Buddha Production’s Explosive Movement for the Stage curriculum with improvisation techniques the ensemble workshopped the script along with the movement for this piece.
NAKED INQUISITION is a collaboration between a chessmaster and opera singer. The chessmaster, Canada's Lawrence Day provided the script. He memorized lines for the 1992 Toronto performance between rounds of the Manila chess olympiad. The opera singer is producer-director Marvin Gordon. His dramatic initiation was in Diane Geddoes' naked tribe in "Passion or Death" (Toronto, 1987). The play's unifying theme is presented in ancient China: Wen passes captive time with meditation, astral projection and compiling the I Ching. His cyclical theory: the oppressed become oppressors. Flashing forward a millenia we find a Roman pagan interrogating an early Christian; then 1500 years later, a Christian interrogator vs pagan/scientist Giordano Bruno. Post-renaissance secular humanist triumph leaves Venus-worshipping Baron Masoch rejecting the 'pervert' label. The play leads to current enigmatic times.
nEO - surrealists present: The Further Fatal Adventures of the Fantastical Dr. Boulier
Past reviewers have declaimed: "Like Cirque du Soleil for Drunks!" -- Fresno Fringe Festival (which we didn't get to go to) "Like a 12 x 12 Burning Man, but without the heat stroke, and sand flies!" (which we can't go to 'cuz of the Fringe) "Like Sesame Street for the Elderly!" ( which I think is a GREAT IDEA!!) "Like the cast of Stomp performing Beckett!" ('cuz it's true). The rebellion has been crushed. Due to provisions of the Faith Based Initiatives and specialized clauses of the Patriot Act specifically naming them, the nEO-sURREALISTS will be forced to present to you a linear narrative or face an all expense paid trip to Quantanamo Bay, Cuba! The cheese will revolve this year. No two performance the same! Insurance available at the door.
Would you like to be somebody else? And if you actually had that wish fulfilled--deliberately or by chance--what would happen with your life? In this story, two lovers are baffled by the stranger who's entered their home to change their lives forever. Here's a case of mistaken identity but with a twist, involving many surprises, songs, laughs, drama--and magical muffins.
The tale of a Belgian cabaret singer and his assistant who freeze to death at the North Pole while searching for the Yeti. "Richard Harrington and Chris Kauffman raise the level of comedy to a high art." - The Globe and Mail, Toronto
The Original Action Pack (OAP - pronounded WHAP) are purveyors of fine improv comedy. OAP puts on an evening of spontaneous comedy based on suggestions from the audience and sprouting fully formed out of our warped imaginations. Come ready to stretch your imagination, as you will be providing the fodder upon which we will feed. Since its conception, OAP has played to audiences in San Francisco, Berkeley, San Geronimo, Petaluma, San Rafael, and Oakland; including an award winning run in the 2000 San Francisco Fringe Theater Festival." I went expecting amateur hour but laughed for two hours straight." -Denis McNally - Greatful Dead Biographer www.originalactionpack.com
Park - N - Ride
Laura Park finds love in your yard, sneaks 'til she's invisible, and drives you to a state of hilarity on a raucous road trip via the detours of her zany life. Drivin' direct from the Heartland, "The elastic facial features of Laura Park prove ideal for this breakneck style" says Twin Cities Sidewalk. "Enjoy the goofy comic energy of Laura Park" - Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Passages
Passages uses spoken word and visual metaphor to examine the experience of being a young woman over three generations. The piece intertwines the words of grandmother, mother and daughter, revealing that although they have followed different paths, parallels do exist. Major themes remain the same: fulfillment and self-realization, loss and displacement, love and commitment. Through personal testimony, ritual, and a small green suitcase, Passages takes us on a journey of discovery, a simultaneously humorous, introspective and poignant look at the lessons that can be learned from the women who have gone before us.
Sandwich
Pound. Mince. Ground round grind. And, yes, pet. PET PET
PET. A look at The Human and The Animal, The Dinner and The Diner, The Knower
and the Unknown. The moral ambiguities of growling stomachs versus
feeling fish. Oh yes, fish feel. But the bread, The Bread always comes out
on top. Make yourself a Sandwich: vegetarian vulgarity, carnivorous cuisine
and, of course, whalesong serenade. Mmmmmmmmmm. "These guys won the
Best of SF Fringe award three goddamn times?" YEP!
Scabaret!
The latest mutation of San Francisco's scabrous surrealist
cabaret-sitcom-musical paints a darkly wacked-out portrait of life in the
dysfunctional American family via twisted vignettes, gender-bending
self-abuse, and raucous dance numbers performed by a delightfully depraved
ensemble...Yes folks, Scab 2003 promises to beguile the sick 'n sane alike.
And that's entertainment..." - Harry Roche
Searching for God in Kerala
Ever wondered what it feels like to be God? Now you can find out… Brian's journey to India unexpectedly leads him to theyyam - a possession ritual in which Untouchables become God and take control over their high-caste neighbors. Brian meets a woman. She teaches him to dance like a theyyam. Through dance, film and text, this play welcomes the audience into the mysterious world of the theyyam. And leaves them there. From the writer/director of last year's Fringe hit, "Beckett's Last Dance".
Seventh Game of the World Series
It's come down to this: bottom of the 9th, two on, two out. All Vincent Valence ought to have on his mind is hitting a home run. Instead, he's thinking about impending negotiations with an unscrupulous owner, ongoing performance problems, and a lover threatening to expose his darkest secret... Featuring all original songs, this musical comedy explores what happens when a ballplayer must decide whether to come out of the closet on the eve of the most important game of his career.
Shadow Kissers
I'll purr like a kitten then remove your spleen. Shadow Kissers? A cripple lover, a blind man, a chain-smoking jew who won't touch her husband. A slut proves she'll never learn her lessons, and a hooker who won't do plate jobs. I'll even give you a glimpse of why I wrote these pathetic characters. So sad, sick and twisted...you'll bite your lip to keep from laughing. Don't. You may bleed. Winner of SF Fringe Best solo comedy '00 for The Anything Show. This show is better.
Strobe Vision
Sex, drugs and racial politics spice the menu at a community roundtable on the progressive rave movement. Who will leave the table satiated? Who will leave the table sober? Is “peace, love, unity and respect” a way forward for America? A diverse ensemble keeps you gasping for breath, searching for answers, and grinding your teeth.
This World is Not My Home
A place to eat, a place to sleep, a place to shit, a place to fuck. Paducah Mining Co. takes an intimate look at how people meet their basic needs and what it costs us individually to in terms of relationships, personal satisfaction, health, and happiness. Does the world revolve around money? Once people bartered, hereÕs a chicken for that shovel, and all was good.
Total Improvisation - Bet on the Moment
Take a spin with Roulette Theatre for an evening of improvisational comedy. We'll perform a mixture of short stories and scenes inspired by audience suggestions. No script, no props and no idea whatâs going to come next. Gangsters, pirates, femmes fatales, aggressive dairy farmers, the little old lady next door, your boss--characters that might make an appearance. Come and find out. Take a bet on the moment!
Train Stories
"Dyin' ain't important, everbody does that. What matters, is how you do your livin'". In his new one man show, Wayne Harris expertly tells the story of 3 men linked by race, heritage, the railroad and a tragic event. Set in post WW II Texas, this story captures the harsh realities and lush beauty of life in America in the times just before the civil rights movement.
Tripping on the Equator and Other Stories
Robin and Nils' monologues take you on journeys all over the map - from the autobiographical to the fantastical. Nils will bring you to hysterical delight with his earnest explorations. Robin will take you on a South American trip where love & death lurk. When you trip on the equator, you never know where you'll end up
Twinspeak
What is it like to be a twin? What is it like to share the same DNA, the same womb? From cultural myths to colossal mix-ups, Twinspeak explores universal issues of identity and insecurity, competition and companionship. Includes extensive training in twin etiquette, psychology and psychopathology. Bonus displays of "special" twin powers. Soul mates from another life or mortal enemies, learning to be friends? You decide.