Thursday, August 20, 2026 - Fringe Unforgettable!

I had a very Fringy experience yesterday when I saw PORK & BEANS: Attorneys At Law at the Grindstone site. The show itself is very fringy - silly, naughty, a new work, with fun songs and choreography performed by terrific singers and dancers, and actors making big ridiculous choices - but the Fringe factor was leveled up when we got the announcement immediately before the show started that not one, but two, of the roles would be played by replacements! One was Pork - one of the leads! The other was the SM filling in! Anyhow, it made for a very surreal experience, no doubt more surreal for the actors onstage and I think it may have increased the silliness of the show even ore. Kudos to the two actors filling in and to the rest of the cast for helping them through the experience!

The next show I saw was also one that you might only see at Fringe, but more because of it's experimentalist feel. 650 Light Years Away is a new show starring Andrea House with her musical collaborators Chris Andrew, and Rubim de Toledo, directed by Davina Stewart. I saw Salsa Lesson a couple of years ago and loved it; Forget Me Not had me sobbing. This one has a similar feel in structure to Salsa Lesson, but the music is very different and the story is more metaphorical and layered with cosmology and genealogy and the mysteries of life. It's worth it just to hear the songs, but House's storytelling elevates it beyond just a concert. She's so very charismatic onstage and knows how to engage an audience. At times the story is bigger than the universe and at other times it's intimate and very personal. A terrific theatrical experience. 

Happy Fringing All! I'm back for three more today!