Michael Shaw Fisher

I gotta hand it to Brian, accomplishing this adaptation for Fringe with no easy feat. I was able to commiserate with him in the weeks leading up to the festival, and there was a lot he was balancing with Woody Allen and his reps to try to get every aspect of this show approved. But what would all of that matter if there wasn’t anything worthwhile to show for it? The GREAT news is, that there is much in MR. BIG to enjoy that both demonstrates the brilliant mind of Woody Allen and the theatrical v... full review

I can’t help but feel protective about Theatre like this… Work that takes actual chances and is shimmering with the embryonic devotion of its parents writer Daniel Sliwa and director Carly Jibson - their passion for this piece was profoundly evident long before they emerged on the stage after the curtain call to deliver their tearful final speeches. Dan’s writing does a fine job at keeping the audience in a state of intended intellectual disarray toward the beginning, not allowing the audience to... full review

WOW! This show strikes at the heart! It took me a minute to get a handle on the proceedings but when I did the whole experience was immensely rewarding!! The WHOLE cast was truly sublime, delivering their ever-shifting roles with clarity, passion, and poise.. I must also commend the director Christian Haines as well… Dear god, what a difficult piece to wrangle on the stage - so much jumping around in time, a dozen transitions to various locations - it really was a horror film he had to deliver un... full review

Here lies a Molotov cocktail of the visceral and spiritual.. A hard-hitting, tumultuous, spine slapping, and lavishly poetic genetic mutation of Quentin Tarantino, Sam Shepherd, and Alistair Crowley. At its best, the Hollywood Fringe Festival gives us a first peak at cutting edge work that by comparison with less inspired dreck, howls into our audience’s faces the creative promise of our dwindling community’s all-too-neglected potential. Then along comes TAKE THE SEVENTH BREATH TWICE, the third F... full review

Coming in hot with a clever inversion of the title “God of Carnage” comes DOG OF CARNAGE. Hands down Ben Schwartz‘s best work to date. I love that it comes in swinging hard with comedic punches, and then drives home the other side of the emotional spectrum. Yeah, you won’t be ready for this twist. Really, there’s just so much quality work here… Where to start… The actors? Yes, the actors. Holy crap. They sell the hell out of that script… Every syllable… Every moment is turned so way up to 11 that... full review

All cards on the table… who doesn’t want to be the love child of Jim Morrison, Lin Manuel Miranda, Trent Reznor and Allen Ginsberg? Who doesn’t want to throw out the window whatever conventional one-act they’ve written with it’s pesky characters and story, and instead just go out on a stage and rant into a mic one’s original heightened poetics, a song of frustration with this fallen country, with suburbia, with Time, with the ghost of lost Love, and CREPES and turn it into an experience that piss... full review

This was an INTENSELY personal show… (writer ) Richard, Lucas and (director) Bruno Oliver collaborated beautifully here to lay bare warts and on the ultra intimate Broadwater’s Studio stage, a portrait of flailing humanity, all underscored by an incessant “yipping” that drills through your intestines like ringworm. This device which only further delivers you to a state of total empathy, amidst Richard Lucas‘s unrelenting story of annoyance, desolation, redemption,… The mental imagery is constant ... full review

A scathing social commentary that breaks hearts in the hands of two extremely lovable actors (Jules Bruff and Jennifer DeRosa)They just pull us in. We care for them instantly before we even learn where the show is headed… INSTANTLY… the piece heavily uses vicarious suspense, where the audience knows what’s coming while the characters don’t, and while they flail against their insecurities trying to unpack and rectify their personal failings with everything from confession to revolution, their vul... full review

TRUNK is a high wire act for its two main players, forcing them to adjust tactics and redefine their relationship at every hard-hitting twist and turn. Some brilliant work happening here. And for any brave soul willing to confront its darker questions, there’s a treasure to be unpacked in TRUNK...... full review

Sydney Edwards is a magical being descended from magical beings - I got to meet a few of them last night at MS. EDWARDS, a luxuriously hilarious one woman tour de force, featuring 5 ladies, all starkly different, but even in their contrasting discords make a perfect harmony. Sydney’s loving portrayals not only did them a great honor, but sent us away wishing to hold each of those powerhouse ladies to our hearts in a big loving hug. This tribute is indeed sweet as pie, and radiates with Sydney Edw... full review