The Fringe Shows We’re Betting On (Part TWO)
Frigid’s New York City Fringe Festival is one of the best parts of the year for discovering new theater in New York. It’s where artists take big swings, follow their instincts, and put work on stage that feels fresh, specific, and alive. This is your greatest chance to see the type of theater that we’re all worried about disappearing. We’ve pulled together a few shows we’re especially excited to see and spoke with the creatives behind them. Ahead is Part Two. If you missed part one check it out here.
Jesse Bradley-Amore from How I Learned (NOT) To Drive
TAWK: Give us the elevator pitch, but the one you’d actually say at a bar, not in a grant application.
JESSE: How I Learned (NOT) To Drive is about my desperate attempt to save my marriage by trying to overcome my fear of driving at 40 and get my license as a lifelong Floridian. It’s like the Fast and Furious movies but all the explosions are emotional.
TAWK: At its core, what is this play really wrestling with?
JESSE: Fear, trauma, love, the lengths we will go to try to save a relationship.
TAWK: What’s the line (or moment) you’d tattoo from this play?
JESSE: The moment I underestimated the dangers of mopeds.
TAWK: What’s the real origin story of this play, the one you wouldn’t put in the program notes?
JESSE: I was a prolific fiction writer and, once Trump got elected the first time, I got tired of writing things that actually came true so I focused on telling stories from my own life. This show started during the early COVID days in Adam Wade’s workshops over Zoom. I managed to get an earlier version of this show on RISK! but I knew I could turn it into a solo show. That’s where Matt Hoverman’s Go Solo workshop came in to help me get this show to be the way that it is today from a writing perspective. Director Padraic Lillis helped me with the acting and movement. I’m not an actor. My default as a writer is to stand there and read. Padraic was instrumental in helping the show become much more dynamic.
TAWK: What moment in the show do you secretly watch the audience for instead of the stage?
JESSE: The moment I’m on top of my chair reading the first ever poem I wrote to try to get a second date from an older girl in high school. It’s the most dangerous stunt work I do in the entire show.
Michelle Johnson from Extra Dry
TAWK: Give us the elevator pitch, but the one you’d actually say at a bar, not in a grant application.
MICHELLE: Extra Dry ushers the audience through a series of increasingly ridiculous stories about a woman’s chaotic relationship with alcohol, stemming from a hunger to be remembered.
TAWK: At its core, what is this play really wrestling with?
MICHELLE: The desire to leave people with stories and the lengths we go through to get there.
TAWK: What’s the line (or moment) you’d tattoo from this play?
MICHELLE: Quinoa.
TAWK: What’s the real origin story of this play, the one you wouldn’t put in the program notes?
MICHELLE: I was taking a year-long acting class at the Barrow Group. We had our end of year showcase, and there was a possibility my scene partner and I would not be granted the rights for the scene we chose. As an alternative, our teacher said I should prepare a back-up monologue just in case. That’s when I started writing this show. I had no idea at the time I would go on to write an entire solo piece, but here we are almost three years later!
TAWK: What moment in the show do you secretly watch the audience for instead of the stage?
MICHELLE: In the more vulnerable moments, I like to check in with the audience.
Melissa Buriak from XOXO: Love Stories to New York
TAWK: Give us the elevator pitch, but the one you’d actually say at a bar, not in a grant application.
MELISSA: It’s like a cabaret show had a baby with a jukebox musical. 7 dancers. 4 singers, and hour of original music and dance. It’s a show biz should I stay or should I go story. But more than that, it’s about how you make hard decisions. What sacrifices are worth making, and ultimately, what matters to you? But we tell it with sequins, feathers, and dancing.
TAWK: At its core, what is this play really wrestling with?
MELISSA: Growing pains, staying true to yourself when life makes it hard, and how relationships change over time. So often in life we are told to do one thing really well, but the truth is that life comes in chapters, and you will be many different things to different people. Allow yourself to grow, with grace. Or at least to a good tempo.
TAWK: What’s the line (or moment) you’d tattoo from this play?
MELISSA: Three cast members already have tattoos related to the play:
1. the letters XOXO
2. a dinosaur
3. a skeleton key with a heart on top
Some more ideas people have thrown out:
The colorful poi swinging in an arc from Eclipse would make an awesome watercolor style tattoo. Dinosaurs with Boxing gloves on. You have to see it to believe it.
TAWK: What’s the real origin story of this play, the one you wouldn’t put in the program notes?
MELISSA: GPC Entertainment and Sturkey & Studabaker have a combined 30 years of experience in the cabaret scene. We have done so much and lived so much, lost so much, and survived. Without naming names or re-creating scenarios, we based this script on our lives as performers here in NYC. The ups and downs of running a company, how it takes a toll on friendships. Writing this was truly therapy, a way to honor what we’ve all gone through and where we’re trying to go. These are the stories of New York City survivors who are keeping the arts alive.
TAWK: What moment in the show do you secretly watch the audience for instead of the stage?
MELISSA: There’s a song called “Holy Ghost” the choreo! the song! the message! It’s a moment of peace and revelry before the main conflict sets in. A reflection for her and for us, this is a perfect representation of what happens when you combine a great song and a great dance. Magic.
