Ernest Kearney

Deana Barone is a wonderful actress, and her one woman show offers some insight into the personal history that nurtured that talent. Her show is a touching homage to that furnace in which we all are forged, the family. What comes across the strongest in Barone’s presentation is the tenderness of these people, who are flawed, who bear with suffering, but who are family nonetheless. Within the insanity of that relationship lays the cross all humanity must bear, a cross that is the crux of both o... full review

THE CREEPS Wild eyed arachnid greets us in a darken room. We are invited to explore, but not get lost in the darkness. We encounter others in the darkness – A sensual succubus whose breathy whispers of passion carrying the hint of a threat;- An old man, his arms shaking as if nerve damaged; A disturbing laughing child-woman, missing her hands, who threatens to murder the baby we hearing crying somewhere near. One sounds like Sean Connery. Catherine Waller’s solo show The Creeps firs... full review

In 2013 Sarah Mitchell began interviewing a wide selection of individuals about “love”. A 72 year old man alone at the close of his life, the upwardly mobile hipster who cheated on his wife, the heavily medicated Vassar graduate, a three year old. Each segment is well performed by Mitchell and the overall results are both touching and life affirming. If the show has one omission, it is Mitchell’s sidestepping of what was her motivation in beginning these interviews. Still, it tugged at my o... full review

VOICES According to the program notes, voiceover artist Carla Delaney wrote this one woman show as a birthday gift to herself, and if that’s true it’s a better gift than a pony. Voices is just about everything a solo show should be, personal and universal, funny and sad, familiar and unique, with a solid and well articulated question serving at its core: “When did I stop listening to my own voice?” As a professional voiceover artist, it is only logical that in Delaney’s world everything shoul... full review

Henry Mayhew, in 1841, named his pioneering humor magazine after the gleeful little murdering bastard. Neil Gaiman turned to sought him out to use in one of his best graphic novels. Him and the Missus are clues in the 2014 thriller Gone Girl, and in the Marx Brothers’ 1931 Monkey Business Harpo joins them in a performance. There’s even an opera by Harrison Birtwistle. But I gotta say, for fun and merry murdering mayhem, none of them can hold a candle to Christopher Johnson’s live action adap... full review

Cyanne McClairian’s one woman show, I Died...I Came Back...Whatever will now enjoy the dubious distinction of serving me as an excellent example to call upon when an opinion I hold is in need of bolstering. (Would you believe that doesn’t happen often? Would you believe that if it was reported by Sean Hannity?) You see, during the just ended Hollywood Fringe, that month long celebration of the arts by the creative clans of Los Angeles, I found myself on more than one occasion dis... full review

KING DICK (Bronze Medal) I am someone who is consumed by the study of history, and feels that history is not something that should be played fast and loosed with. It is therefore understandable why I would have trouble with Christian Levatino’s “King Dick”. First the facts, Levatino uses as the basis of his play, one of the strangest meetings that ever took place in Washington D.C., when on December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House to offer his service to President Rich... full review

U AND ME AND MY BEST FRIEND P (Gold Medal) Abby Schachner strikes one as this tornado of neuroses and talent, and her one woman show at the Elephant studio was Ground Zero for me on the night I sat in her audience. Free form to the gills, Abby bounces off the walls reciting her poems (one for every letter of the alphabet), and sharing her Fairy Tales that show the influence of the Brothers Grimm and Mickey Spillane. I would find it impossible to believe anyone left that audience without ... full review

ANOUILH’S ANTIGONE (Gold Medal) Brittany Kilcoyne McGregor, Miguel Perez, Tyler Peck, Katarina Rose Fabic, Michael Vega, Amy Huckabay, John Moeslein and Ross Thomas. Directed by Joseph Matarrese. It is annoying to me that this review comes at the end Fringe and will do no good as far as raising awareness of this show to the festival goers. But with three hundred plus productions that’s going to happen. So all this review can do now is list the talented cast and credit the skilled directo... full review

THE PLAYER KING (Platinum Medal) Darin Dahms has worked on his one man show based on life of Edwin Booth (1833-1893); considered the greatest American actor of the 19th century and the older brother of John Wilkes Booth, for a number of years. He will stage it every so often as he did for this year’s Fringe. When he decides to stage it again go and see it. If when that happens, you happen to be held prisoner chained by your leg in a basement somewhere, well then chew through your leg and ... full review