Ohhhh boy, this was a tough one. You see the best show I saw on Day seven was Daddy Issues, but that already won The Stages of MN Fringe of the Day Award on the 3rd day of the festival. The other three shows were all great! How to choose? I needed some way to break the three way tie and here’s what I landed on. Both Blackout Improv Does something!!! and Pants on Fire are shows that change for each performance, with different guests each slot and thus more apt to vary in quality from day to day. When I put those two up against each other I was again at a loss. I probably laughed harder at Pants on Fire, but I really loved the musical performance in Blackout Improv’s show. So I went with the show that is scripted, meaning what I saw should be more or less what you’d see if you take in a performance.
Blackout Improv Does Something is a local improv troupe that consists of all black performers. I’ve seen them many times, but this was probably the best show of theirs that I’ve yet attended. Each of their Fringe slots will host a different guest, on my night it was Musician and Blackout Alum Theo Langason. Langason opened the show by performing three original songs played on a oddly captivating metal guitar. Langason’s songs were not at all humorous, which didn’t matter in the slightest as I was completely engrossed by them. It made this performance unique in an unexpected way. The comedian’s then took over the stage and for the first portion of the show they do improv scenes inspired by Langason’s songs. After that they take some time to do some of their signature improv games. If you’ve never seen Blackout Improv you need to, it’s one of the funniest group of Improv performers around and their shows never disappoint.
https://minnesotafringe.org/shows/2024/blackout-improv-does-something-
Pants on Fire is a game show hosted by Sarah Broude in the vein of British panel show Would I Lie to You? Each slot features a different bunch of guest contestants and I purposely chose day seven’s performance for the guest contestants The Four Humors which consists of Allison Vincent, Brant Miller, Matt Spring, and Ryan Lear. The game is played by contestants reading a card with a statement such as “I once spent a weekend in a Paris jail cell” (not an actual example from the show). Then members of the opposing team ask questions about the statement and have to guess whether the reader is telling the truth or lying. The Four Humors as you can imagine were hilarious, but the guests will change and the statements will be different for each Fringe slot. So like Blackout Improv’s show you could attend every performance and see a new show each time.
https://minnesotafringe.org/shows/2024/pants-on-fire
Good Ones! is The Stages of MN Fringe of the Day Award winner for Day 7. I’ll be honest the preview for this show had turned me off and I’d removed it from my favorites list. Then I kept hearing people praising the show and so I added it back onto my schedule. I’m very glad I reconsidered, the three performers Micael Gauger, Kaitlen Osburn, and Luke Fanning are in makeup and costumes throughout they act very strangely but they are also very funny verbally. The humor while seeming at first glance to be just weird and silly is actually very intelligent and political. Dressed in the costumes above they are like some sort of parody creatures who act out being good while poking fun at the progressive and liberal mindsets. Not to push the opposite agenda, but to shine a light on our hypocrisies and to point out that thinking good things is not the same as doing good things. It’s an important reminder that the world doesn’t change with good intentions it changes by taking good actions. It’s important to be able to laugh at ourselves and see the seeds of truth that make these jokes funny. The only ones who will be truly offended are those for whom the Good One’s routines are not a parody of, but an exact recreation of their behavior. The perfect use of humor to ease the difficult task of examining ourselves and whether or not we are good ones or if we could be better ones.
https://minnesotafringe.org/shows/2024/good-ones
That’s the reviews from Day Seven of the Minnesota Fringe Festival. Be sure to check back daily for new reviews and if you are Fringing and you see me, be sure to stop and say hi! Also for reviews of shows I might not see or for another opinion on ones I have, follow M’ Colleague Jill Schafer at http://www.cherryandspoon.com/ and for other Fringe writings checkout our friend and fellow Twin Cities Theater Blogger Kendra Plant’s blog Artfully Engaging at https://www.kendraplant.com/blog-artfully-engaging.
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