The 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival Continues with AI Dreams, Captain Hook, and Some Very Adult Clowning

The 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival is entering its final weekend, and you can still catch plenty of amazing performances before it’s over. I highly recommend reading my previous article about this year’s festival, which includes some information about how shows are chosen and my first batch of reviews and recommendations.

Disclaimer: Being a Fringe volunteer and an active theater professional both in the Twin Cities and as a touring artist on the wider fringe festival circuit, there is a very good chance that any show I see will have one or several members in the cast and crew I’ve either worked with or seen much of their work. As such, there is a good chance that I’ll some bias in my coverage of their shows. However, I assure you that bias is strictly my love of how incredibly talented these folks are.

Many reviewers and the Fringe website itself use a numbered system to rate shows. To me, every show is a five out of five because I feel a numerical rating for art, a subjective medium, is inherently wrong. I just want you to judge each show by the words I write about them rather than some arbitrary number.

VILE (photo by Pete Rose, courtesy Minnesota Fringe).

VILE (Francesca Montanile Lyons)

This clown show is definitely not for the kids—it’s a raunchy, authentic, and hilarious multimedia showcase of animation, music, and butthole monologues. Francesca Montanile Lyons commands the stage with incredible presence; she’s vulnerable and charming as she explores the intense pace of modern culture and its intersections with social media, kink, and rape culture. There’s an utterly brilliant scene involving a pizza that is pure fun and joy. A fantastic piece of performance art and a real gem of the Fringe.

5 x 5 (Transatlantic Love Affair)

An anthology of five stories told by five actors in a five-by-five-foot square onstage. With no props and no costumes, the actors use their movements and bodies to create each scene. This show is just a delight. And fair warning: it has just two performances left, both likely to sell out, and it’s well deserved. The energy and creativity are top tier, and I was entertained for a full hour of truncated versions of classic stories. Though I was familiar with the original versions—Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Macbeth, Nosferatu, Jurassic Park, and the legend of Popocatepetl and Iztaccíhuatl—it was exciting to see how the team of incredibly talented artists brought them to life. I consider this a must-see of the festival, and I hope they remount it outside of Fringe.

5 x 5 (photo by Pete Rose, courtesy of Minnesota Fringe).

The Peter Pan Cometh (Clevername Theatre)

Clevername Theatre has become a known entity through its entertaining and skillful mash-ups of classic theater and children’s properties. This year’s entry is another winner, weaving the tale of Peter Pan with the nihilistic Eugene O’Neill play The Iceman Cometh. Hook, Smee, Tinker Bell, and Peter Pan all grace the stage—though it’s not so much grace as a fairy-dust-induced stupor of frenzied hopelessness. You can go into this show with little to zero knowledge of the source material, but you will be rewarded by having at least a passing familiarity. The incredibly strong performances by all members of the cast (Alec Berchem, Isabelle Hopewell, Thomas Buan, Nick Hill) really demonstrate how much acting talent there is in the Twin Cities theater community.

Once Upon a Pine: The Adventures of Pinocchio (Sugar Throw Theatre)

A rare bit of children’s theater at the Fringe that’s appropriate for audiences of all ages. This show is carried by the chorus actors, who present a basic and straightforward rendition of the Pinocchio fairy tale. The group makes good use of the stage at Theatre in the Round with fun movement and blocking and some very creative props (the giant dogfish stands out). It’s always fun to see kids acting and having fun onstage.

Dream of Me (Team Rand-McKay)

Sci-fi and dreams collide in this new work from writer Cara White. If you are a fan of shows like Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone, you will be in for a treat as a new widow finds a way to have lucid dreams of her deceased husband with the help of a new AI-powered device—but not all is what it seems. The strengths of Dream of Me are its strong story and fantastically skilled cast (Catherine Hansen, Natalie Rae Wass, Eric B. Jacobson). It is screaming for a full-length run and some high-speed sound design, which would make this very good play a phenomenal one. If you are a fan of speculative fiction, it’s a great pick.

The Greenhouse (Eye of Jupiter Theatre)

A creative show with some fantastic elements. The opening is truly fantastic and beautiful, depicting the ceremonial sacrifice of a flowery cultish group complete with live violin playing and wonderful vocal harmonies reminiscent of The Wicker Man or Midsommer. The rest of the show doesn’t quite reach that high bar of creative beauty, but it’s still an interesting and worthwhile production.

Dream of Me (photo by Alex Wohlhueter, courtesy Minnesota Fringe).

As the festival winds down, I will be faced with many tough choices and schedule conflicts when it comes to the shows I want to see. I likely will miss at least one, but here are five you should check out:

• They Still Make Film For That?: A live demonstration of film photography with onstage film development and a discussion of analog versus digital media. An interactive piece of edutainment that should be fun for the whole family.
• Holy O: A touring artist telling stories about contemplating becoming a nun, vibrators, and more. This show has gotten tons of audience love in every city it has visited.
• Anti.Hero: Local storyteller maestro J. Merrill Motz concludes his Hero’s Journey trilogy (no prior viewing required).
• Paul Blart 3: The Blart of Darkness: It’s Paul Blart in the apocalypse, written by a playwright who has never seen a Paul Blart movie.
• One Tree HELL: From Wet Splat Productions, creators of one of my favorite Fringe shows of 2023, check out this improvised teen drama set at a monster high school.

The Minnesota Fringe Festival continues through August 11, 2024, at venues of the West Bank, Uptown, and satellite locations of Minneapolis. Tickets are $20 per show, and a onetime purchase of a $5 button is required for entry to the festival. Learn more at MinnesotaFringe.org.