Category Archives: In Other News

The final day of the 2017 Cincinnati Fringe Festival is upon us and you still have 28 shows to choose from today.

BUT THERE’S MORE! After today, you still have one last chance to catch the Pick of the Fringe Award Winners!

Votes for The Picks are due by 10pm tonight. Results will be tabulated and announced at tonight’s bar series around 11pm-ish (this event is free to the public). The Picks are:

• Audience Pick of the Fringe
• Audience Pick of FringeNext
• Critics Pick of the Fringe
• Artists Pick of the Fringe
• Full Frontal Pick of the Fringe
• Producers Pick of the Fringe

Any Pick Award winners available to perform will be given an encore performance on Sunday. The schedule and tickets for these performances will go on sale at www.cincyfringe.com tonight around midnight. The ONLY way to guarantee a seat is to purchase a $15 ticket. Five minutes before the performance, any remaining seats will be made available to fringe pass holders (voyeur, full frontal, media, artist, staff) on a first come, first serve basis.

Here are my final three shows:

First up is KATES, by local new participant Cait Robinson.

Accidentally given the same name, sisters Kate and Kate keep getting confused—until their power-hungry mother puts a stop to it by having one of them turned into a sheep. To find a cure, the two girls take to the sea, where they find redemption and romance come at a steep, Faustian price. KATES is a world premiere retelling of an Orkney Island fairytale about sisterhood, dark magic, and the seductive power of forgetting.

Written by Katharine Sherman and directed by Cait Robinson, the cast includes Tatum Hunter, Candice Handy, Taha Mandviwala, Bari Robinson, Ernaisja Curry & Kelsie Rae Slaugh.

Next it’s TOTALLY UNTRUE STORIES – TOTALLY UNLIKE ANY NOCTURNAL FLYING INSECT from new participant solo performance from Lepp Fabrications.

TOTALLY UNTRUE STORIES – TOTALLY UNLIKE ANY NOCTURNAL FLYING INSECT: I lie. I started telling stories at the West Virginia Liars’ Contest. You can see why I’m chagrined that the sort of storytelling sweeping the nation is all about the Truth. Who cares about the Truth? I mean, there’s a time and a place for Truth, but in storytelling? Storytelling is about Truths- eternal, ephemeral, spiritual, societal- but that doesn’t mean it has to be true.

I close out the Festival with Performance Gallery, the only participant who has performed in EVERY Cincinnati Fringe Festival. This year’s entry is BED (A FEVER DREAM): 

Sex or sickness? Laziness or comfort? Messy or well made? What does “bed” mean to you? You were probably born in bed and might be destined to die there. If you are lucky, you will sleep in one tonight. Beds are a strange mixture of comfort, pleasure, vulnerability and pain. We live there in dreams or nightmares. Join us for this theatrical exploration in words and movement of this mysterious and intimate place – our bed.