Although the regular new York International Fringe Festival closes its many doors of Sunday after a mere 197 shows being produced several times each (!), a select few will be chosen for extra performances.  You can see www.fringenyc.org breathlessly awaiting those announcements and for info on how, where and when you can see any of the shows, including those reviewed by my colleagues here at NiteLifeExchange and myself.  The reviews are all over the website and here are my latest viewings.

The production of a script such as Matt Saldarelli's absurdist comedy Getting Even With Shakespeare, running as part of this summer's Fringe Festival at the Players Theatre, always brings with it a potentially-inherent danger, in making a wrong turn midway through, and becoming too clever for its own good. Mercifully, this is one of those all-too-rare occasions where the playwright and director, Laura Konsin, as well as the stunning ensemble of seven, know exactly where and when to call a halt, and never create a runaway train that courses over the collective head of the audience.

This latest in a series of review round-ups from deep into the NY International Fringe Festival covers three more visits.  First, the rare hit that is both sarcastic and sweet when our prayers for such a treat are answered with Pope! – yes, a comic musical about the Pope with a song called “Holy Crap!” but instead of crap, it’s the cream of the crop.   In the Schoolyard is a gentler, nostalgia-tugging tale about longtime male bonding through basketball, even decades after the high school buddies all marry and are scattered. A distinctly different kind of male bonding is at the heart of Open Heart. It is about open sexual relationships, the script taken verbatim from interviews with gay men who are very open about discussing the topic.  The Pope would not approve.  But the guy named Pope who becomes Pope in Pope! is not your run-of-the-mill Pope.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!  Sunday, August 29, is when The New York International Fringe Festival and most of its 197—count ’em—197!—shows pack up their props and scenery (if they had any) and dreams (they all have some big ones or they wouldn’t be here) and regroup and/or recoup.  A select few, well-received shows will be part of the Fringe Encore Series and get more performances. Others, I am semi-sure will return soon or someday, being picked up by producers as they are or re-cast or cast in a different light (I don’t mean spots and gels necessarily). 

Well friends, whether by design or by chance, four of the eight (yes, eight!) Fringe shows I have had the fortune (and misfortune) to witness over the last ten days have been either Gay themed or at least Gay friendly! So, I have decided that it is appropriate to review them all together, sort of like a mini Gay Fringe Festival, and has nothing at all to do with my trying to make this all a bit more manageable! (No comments from the peanut gallery, please.)

It's said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Likewise, so are the cobblestone streets that lead to the New School Drama Center at 151 Bank Street, on the grounds of the old Westbeth Theatre. And one would hope, but hope against hope, that perhaps a play like Michel Tremblay's Manon/Sandra, running therein as part of this year's Fringe Festival and translated from its original form by John Van Burek, might be less of a fresh hell than what was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public who gathered to bear witness.