get your FRINGE on!

Oh yes, it's that time again in Orlando. The FRINGE Fest is in full swing at Loch Haven Park, and there are a lot of promising shows on the schedule -- everything from one-(wo)man shows, to dancing, to live music, to plays with lots of characters and costumes.

As soon as I realized the performers were posted online at orlandofringe.org, I started looking for my dishpig. Greg Landucci was the star of last year's FRINGE, as least, in my little world. Dishpig was an intense, hysterical and incredibly creative ode to life as the lowly kitchen employee at a restaurant where he's trying to keep up with the insanity of being a dishwasher, dealing with crabby chefs and maybe get some action from the hot hostess.

This year, Landucci (pictured right) is back, and he's musing about his time as a radio-station mascot. I can't wait to see it! His rapid-fire delivery of tongue-twisting philosophies and observations makes you wish you could take home the script. There's genius in there, and you know it, you hear it -- but you want more time to let it seep in and flow through all the convolutions in your brain.

Yesterday, Devan, Beta, James and I caught two performances -- VarieTEASE No. 24 and TJ Dawe's Totem Figures. The latter came highly recommended from Devan, who saw Dawe's (pictured below) performance last year. I guess he's kind of a staple at the fest, much to the delight of everyone who FRINGEs. He co-wrote and directed Dishpig, by the way.

We all loved it and some of us even went home and Googled some of the people Dawe described in his one-man show. Truly amazing writer, observer of patterns and performer, Dawe made me want to go home and make my own Sgt. Pepper's album cover.

VarieTEASE was colorful, musical and full of pretty people. It was odd, intriguing and maybe about 10 minutes too long. Still, it was the definition of FRINGE -- you just never know what you're going to see, sometimes even when you're in the theater.