Jenny Marlowe

Katelyn Schiller is an amazingly skilled performer -- her performance was fast-paced, high in energy, and incredibly precise. Her fluency with the material was also much appreciated. The characters she created were funny, and sad -- they made me laugh out loud, and all broke my heart a little bit. There were moments (especially during the transition scenes, featuring the childlike character who holds the narrative together) where I felt a bit overwhelmed by method. But overall, this was a charmin... full review

This show really blew me away. I wasn't sure what to expect going in -- the Underground Theater is extremely small, and I've seen shows there before that were full-sized pieces crammed into a tiny space (which never quite works). This is also an unfortunate, if inevitable, challenge of the Fringe in general -- a lot of non-blackbox shows shoved into blackboxes. But this show was something else. It was exactly the right size, proportioned just right -- for the space, and for the Fringe. Massive... full review

If the a-mah-zing poster for this show left you with high expectations... You will not be disappointed! I have seen a looooot of shows at this year's Fringe... And of all of them, this one seems to have taken the temperature of the Fringe, and of the LA theater community, PERFECTLY. It is the most fantastic and well-proportioned mix of large-scale musical and live comedy I can honestly imagine... It's got something for everybody -- sci-fi geeks, Broadway babies, and improv junkies alike. It's lik... full review

In the course of this solo show, Laura House spends a lot of time on light self-mockery -- calling herself out for indulging some of the most tired old tropes of solo shows ("SOLO SHOW, SOLO SHOW, SOLO SHOW... CANCER, CANCER, CANCER" a loudspeaker echoes, after House begins a bit about cancer). Unfortunately, it is, in fact, still a solo show with an unironic bit about cancer. Calling herself out for it doesn't change that. There are a few really hilarious moments -- House is obviously an extr... full review

If you let it, this piece will get right in there under your skin -- and I encourage you to let it. This is interactive theater at its very best -- it exists on shifting and unpredictable sands, and is a different play not only for each audience member, but for each actor, with each performance. The chance to compare notes with fellow audience members and the cast after the show was also an important and functional part of the performance -- I went home with lots of legitimately big questions tum... full review

This is perhaps the most ambitious undertaking I've ever seen in the context of a fringe festival. It's a full-scale musical -- a Les Miz-sized musical, primed for a Broadway or West End stage. Pulling off a show of this scale scratch-style in a black box theater almost seems insane -- but these guys really made it work. If you can accept the Fringe context at face value (intimate space, limited resources), what you'll get is essentially a very good workshop of a show with epic potential. Despite... full review

Felice Monteith is a one-woman force of nature! This high-octane, tongue-in-cheek live talk show had me laughing so loudly and so constantly that I went hoarse. Monteith plays both the host (the eponymous Miranda King George) and a pair of wacky talk show guests (with clever use of a video feed allowing her to 'interview' herself). Also included are a series of side-splitting, SNL-ready 'commercial breaks,' also starring Monteith in a tour-de-force string of character impressions. It's a quick-an... full review

If you like your comedy dark, you should definitely check out this show. At base it's a story about a normal couple forced to ask themselves some very big questions in the face of an almost unimaginable horror -- and it implicitly demands that the audience engage with those questions as well. Philosophically and conceptually, it's a piece with enormous scope, and it's amazing how much this production manages to pack into the intimate setting of the Hudson Guild Theatre. Incredibly strong, heartfe... full review

This show is gloriously haunted by the ghost of Samuel Beckett. It's part pure clowning, part vaudevillian musical comedy, part Biomechanical etude -- but it transcends those forms to delve into character and story in a way that much physical theater doesn't manage. The influences and touchstones here are clear -- not just Beckett, but Le Coq, Grotowski, Decroux, Charlie Chaplin... But this is so much more than just an exercise. There is an almost overwhelming pathos in the three characters onsta... full review